BBC - Liverpool make bid for Lallana

Some person has been getting in their head. Making all the players wanting to leave as "they can do better". The board freak out and do crisis control and do the close ranks thing. Hence the silence.

 

I couldn't see us accepting a £2m plus add ons bid (hope to **** that this is wrong, but what it's being reported as now) for Rickie a couple of days ago either...but we did. So christ only knows what else happens from here on in.

 

How does this theory sound?

Last year, when Adz realized he wanted to retire here, he wasn't our standout player. This year, he's improved tremendously, becoming our star player and an England regular. He didn't anticipate this. Due to this, for the first time, Champions League teams want him as a first team player. He never thought, with a few years left until he really peaks, that he would have the opportunity of a title-contending Champions League team. With the confidence given to him by the England call-up, he now feels he could go places, further than Saints, than he never did before.

I appreciate your disappointment, we all are, but Lallana has his reasons, and fair ones at that.

 

Joe, none of us really know NC, so we can't validate your opening paragraph. He's a driven man and KL may have really pissed him off. He doesn't have to be massively vindictive but he could easily have dropped a little feather or even a big hint to some players. I'm sure he was in Italy, but I'm equally sure that the players he was so close to wold also have been in contact.

I don't see the route of someone saying they'd try and get an offer, as that doesn't ring true with what we've heard from the club since the new board were in place. I also have to question the Lambert situation. January nearly sold for alleged £8m. May, in World Cup squad and sold for £4m plus some balls and bibs. Why? Ok Rickie says I. It going anywhere but Liverpool, fair enough, but that should be us saying come on Liverpool, he was worth 8m in January, lets play ball here. Why do it before the World Cup? To be nice to Rickie? Nah, things are moving at too fast a pace for my liking and I'm expecting something to come out about it at a later date.

Since the Rickie rumours yesterday, I have kept out of any definitive thoughts in this but now I am getting more and more questions in my head.

 

Fair enough, but I don't buy that. Particularly if there is any validity in the comments made about him wanting out earlier. Even without that, he still is only 26 and part of a very exciting prospect here and I am not just talking Adam, I'm looking at the big picture.

This isn't about my disappointment, this is just trying to understand having say back and digested the last 48 hours activities and statements. For me, something isn't adding up.

 

Because it's silly. A lot of other things have happened as well. I don't see the reason for insisting it had to be Cortese.

Are you saying that had Saints finished third in the table Lallana would still want to go simply because Cortese left? Or that had Sunderland put in a bid Lallana would hand in a transfer request because Cortese left? Or if Saints had gotten relegated but Cortese stayed, that Lallana would have been okay going down a level? And if Cortese was so great, then how come during his tenure we were routinely rejected by players like Dimaio, Buttner and Coutinho?

It's just bad conspiracy theory. Thing A happened, and then Thing B happened a little later so let's just connect everything to Thing A.

 

But how would any outside party force us into rushing into a deal where we took a pittance? It looks to me like we tried to stand firm, Liverpool said the equivalent of "either you sell now or we'll look elsewhere, and you'll have an unhappy player on your hands", and we threw in the towel. No matter who was trying to get what to happen, we have an absolute right of veto on sales of our players, and it was not exercised here.

 

Exactly my point. Why? I don't buy the NC has gone reason.

 

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But you are, largely, if you're suggesting that NC has a nearly determinate role in their decisions.

 

Which backs up in my mind why it's odd. The worst case is the player isn't happy about us turning a bid down that doesn't meet our expectations. That's a positive. It looks like we've had a gun put to our head and we've panicked and I don't understand that. What happened to saying "listen son, yes you want to go, but we need to get the best deal and frankly if their not prepared to pay it and want to chase another target, then they don't value you as much as we do - have a word with your agent and tell them to meet our value"

Either negotiations have been going on for ages and ages, or we're not being told something. There is a third possibility and that is the board have no idea at all and have never been in business before, but I'm not suggesting that as t isn't true.

So what is it?

 

@lloyd_isgrove: Kinda feel for the #saintsfc fans, so much speculation but I assure you it will all work out it always does! #faith

 

Faiiir, but he does talk a lot of twaddle on twitter.

Seen him clubbing once and he acts like such a big time charlie

 

A nightmare?

 

No I'm not Schad. I'm asking why and what really rather than suggesting NC. I mentioned that as a possibility, it could equally be that the club have started this off.

The actions so far, just don't add up for me, unless this is the last of it and everything else apart from MP and Rickie is a rumour that won't happen.

 

The obvious play for Saints would be to say to Rickie and Adam that if Liverpool are that serious about you as players then they would wait until after the world cup or until Southampton have appointed a manager.

This of course does not change the outcome, but it would benefit the clubs and the owners PR which is at a big low

 

hoffstetter has been a board member at a company with turnover in the high tens of millions before. KL has been involved in some of the unsuccessful subsidiaries of MALI. RK is a dinner speaker.

 

Hoping it's a nightmare, as it feels like it's nearly over between me and my gf. Saints news doesn't help!

 

Because maybe we were planning to move ahead without Lambert anyway-- I mean at his age and allegedly sketchy health you have to-- and this was a nice way to create a win-win situation for everyone?

Again-- if we'd signed a striker this transfer window and then Lambert sat on the bench for half a season and then we flogged him off to QPR for 2m or something, all anyone would have said is "Oh well, shame about him going and we'll miss him but at least he'll get to play and now we get some more minutes for Gallagher and the other youth and we get some money from it, best of luck and thanks."

We're getting more money, and we're getting it in time to do something with it during the transfer window. Really, this is not a bad move at all were it not for the unfortunate timing of coming right after MP left.

Seriously, I'm happy for Lambert. I'm glad the club was able to do something for him, he deserves it. If Cortese were still here and this same situation came up, I'd hope that Cortese would allow Rickie to go as well.

 

Girl I work with went to school with him in Yeovil, apparently he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer but at heart a pretty nice guy. Hell at this rate he may be our captain next season so we'd better be nice!