According to Talkshite (Yes, alright, I know!) Real have lowered their asking price to 15mm, and he's now most likely on his way to Spurs - with Palacios going to Stoke.
Apparently Stoke are (allegedly) going to bid about 18m for Crouch & Palacios- so it would free up wages to allow Diarra to join Spurs. gee I'd make a good journo I know all the made up rumours
I think Crouch has already ruled himself out of that move. He wants to stay at Spurs but I think we might stand a chance of shipping him off to Everton, or Villa.
Stoke are in the Europa League though, SF. They seem to be showing more ambition than the other two teams, too. Crouch has lived in Liverpool before, so that might be a factor in joining Everton as could David Moyes, plus he's already played for Villa. Looks like there are plenty of people interested in him, I guess.
It's a bit strange isn't it? They've signed 3 centre backs now, Upson, Woodgate and Johnson but haven't got rid of any and they were already using Huth as a fullback.
I can understand their desire to fill out their squad a little for their European campaign, but they do seem to have a fair bit of cash available, don't they?
Nothing against Stoke at all. Unlike some I would never complain about how they play, its up to the opposition to counter that. Perhaps there should be a new thread "teams we don't mind...". But on the main subject I'm not sure where Diarra would fit in assuming (which is quite an assumption admittedly) that all our midfielders are fit and not sold at the last minute. We have one of the strongest midfield's in the league I think. Of course Sandro's injured, but I'm assuming he won't be at some point and that he would be more-or-less first choice in CM So if we bought Diarra who would he actually replace? I think when we are linked with people the basic analysis that is never done by the so-called journalists is how would he benefit our team. Sure he would beneift our squad, but that's not the same thing. So basically I agree he would be 'nice to have' but I don't think it gets us much further toward CL qualification.
It would allow us to switch to a 4-2-3-1 formation, useful when playing away against the better teams
Don't get me started on that particular rant... The thing with Diarra, apart from him being a player we're perpetually linked to, is that it's hard to see how we can fit him into midfield without changing the shape of our team. After all, should he arrive we'd have four central midfielders all demanding game time - Modric, Huddlestone, Sandro, Diarra - at a time when we've got players like Kranjcar upset that they're not getting enough games. Woodgate and Upson on frees, and it has to be said they have three years worth of Premier League money stashed away.
