22 million was put on the table....id like to think that this means we still got 22million minimum...i have faith that we will get the right people in Vim.....Levy has tried..i still think we had a cracking window.....quite disturbing that many have joined the chelsea bandwagon in hating on AVB.
To add to my post earlier, it's also key to realise that our record transfer fee is still the £16.5m for Modric. What does this get you in the current market? Goalkeeper - a decent goalkeeper like Lloris Defenders - again, decent players (especially if their contracts are low) - but nothing really marquee. Midfielders - here's where the prices start to climb, £16.5m gets you a good quality player (e.g. Dembele) but not the high quality midfielder of say, Hazard or Moutinho. Forwards - here's where it gets ridiculous - Fletcher was something like £12m - £16.5m gets you not much extra. Yes there are bargains out there (players like Michu at Swansea) but these names aren't 'big' signings. That transfer record blew my mind a few days ago when I realised that we'd never paid more than £20m for a player. This in a climate where our rivals are splashing out cash left, right and centre for players (except perhaps Arsenal, who seem to be the only 'other' top club operating on a fairly similar financial model to us). Worth noting along with everything else.
Just for arguments sake, maybe Levy pulled the plug on the deal as he needs to see how avb settles into the job and doesn't want to be signing players for over 22 million at this stage, I wouldn't put that past him, as since when have we bid over 20 million for a footballer? If mountinho was avbs top target, then there is no excuse for leaving the deal until the last minute and then missing out when we have had months to strike a deal.
They do their deals early, bring in Cazorla for 20 million. We piss about waiting until the last minute and miss out on the top target and panic buy with Dempsey (who we wasn't interested in before). Also, Arsenal actually build a new stadium We talk about it, make up pretty plans, but nothing happens. As much as I hate to say, the goons operate in a more professional way and productive way for success on the pitch.
I have actually wondered this myself on more than 1 occasion - we, the fans, saw AVB as a huge risk. Levy must've known he's a gamble as well and perhaps didn't want to commit all our spare cash to him - if it all goes tits up, we'll have cash for the next person? This in itself is a huge risk - a half-hearted approach is arguably more dangerous than all or nothing. But hey - whoever said supporting/being involved with our club was easy?
Corzola was 16.5 million and was our record buy, reading between the lines, how are you financially? I seem to remember your last set of accounts you made a small profit, around 6 - 7 million, and this included the year you were in the CL, would it be reasonable to assume that your next 2 sets of financial accounts could show a loss, i.e the season just passed and the one to come as there will be no CL money. You have not reduced your costs by much, you have got rid of some dross but increased bales contract and ade will be a bit of a drain, even with city paying half his wages. Could levey be trying to keep some money from sales to improve the financial accounts? Its only a thought, from the outside looking in, would make some sense tho. ENIC will probably have him under orders not to make a loss as this could make it more difficult to get finance for a new stadium.
Yes we do need another keeper, massively. I'm surprised you can't see that. Lloris along with Bale is now our highest profile top-ranked player. In fact, with Bale playing like he's got lead in his boots, i expect Lloris to be our number one player at this rate. Brad, great man, keeper in decline.
Arsenal are a way bigger club than us, and until we get rid of ENIC we will remain in Arsenal's and Chelsea's shadow.
Personally my view is that Levy has to keep the club running at profit/even and the aim of ENIC is to sell the club for a huge profit in the end and I've yet to see anything that suggests otherwise. Of course missing out on the champions league was a setback, in a financial sense, but when we qualified for the champions league we spent pennies so again that leads me to believe a certain amount of money is keeping kept for business reasons, but is the balance right? again personally I don't believe it is.
