Just listened to a podcast where a Saints fan asked the question why oh why didn't we sign Romulo from Goztepe in the summer? He's big and scores goals but it seems that the owners preferred to bank the £25 from RB Liepzig than help another of its' clubs.
I vaguely remember reading that Lorient turned down a far bigger offer for Kroupi from some other club (might have been West Ham?), only to sell him to their sister club Bournemouth for a fraction of the price. West Ham are obviously a far bigger club than Bournemouth. So it does happen.
We were a more attractive proposition in the summer than we are now, we were 2nd favourites for promotion to the PL and maybe if we got in early he may have been tempted.
A lot of foreign players see English football as the holy grail but we don't know if he would've come before the interest from Liepzig.
Erm, Leipzig are regular Champions League qualifiers, no way is he choosing us over them. Plus if does well there it could be a springboard to a big PL club.
Yeah, I mean based on current performances and league positions then absolutely. Bournemouth are a tiny club in comparison though. It's unlikely that any foreign player will have ever heard of them until the last few years. It's highly highly unlikely that he chose Bournemouth over West Ham, plus the club took a big hit financially for him to go to Bournemouth instead of West Ham. So it seems like it was more that the multi-club model decided it was the best thing for their 'biggest' club. I do get that in this instance the player was probably like, meh it's still the premier league either way so was fine with it and maybe would have kicked up a bigger fuss if it was some other European club that plays in the Champions League or whatever.
Bundesliga with Leipzig who regularly develop players to the top teams or ****e pub league with Saints who regularly kill careers, toughie.
Yeah I think your last sentence sums it up. I assume the player was asked if he wanted to join Saints over Leipzig and he laughed and said no. Kroupi had also been at Lorient since a kid so maybe he was happy to go with whatever they wanted when there wasn’t much difference (going to the PL either way). Romulo had been at Goztepe like a season so was obviously only looking at it from a personal view of what was best for his career
