Just signed for Saint-Etienne. Awaiting official confirmation. Big move that for him. Even though his arsyness indirectly effected our performances, I doubt he'd have been arsey if Moyes had been fair. He's a big game player who we needed that season. I'm pleased for him personally. Big move well deserved. Very good player.
How much did we get for him Bry? Thats great news we just need to find a club for Kone, Djib, Ndong, Catts and Oviedo now.
Nobody has mentioned figures yet. I smell an undisclosed but some folk think we weren't budging from £10m which would be a nice 3-4m rise off the back of the world cup. Not sure if it's accurate though. Ndong and Oviado are very close apparently.
He was very good under big Sam. Questionable attitude under Moyes. Done very well for the clubs in France and for his country. Hopefully cash up front for us to spend.
Yeah he got frozen out under Moyes and understandably for a player of his quality who wanted to play every game he didn't like it. I don't remember him refusing to play or any other bullshit though so fair play to him. I'm happy enough with 6/9 mil for him it's not a bad price.
Dunno about that like he's not that good. 12 at the very highest end for me. I know some average players go for silly money but they don't always, depends who's selling and buying.
St Etienne's highest ever transfer cost them €10 million so this is a big deal for them. As he's been playing for Rennes for the last season its effectively a Ligue 1 to Ligue 1 transfer and, PSG and Monaco aside, clubs in that league don't spend the amounts that even bottom half Premiership clubs spend.
Yeah I agree, but some players would have proved a point and knuckled down and shown Moyes what he’s missing. Khazri got lazy and ended up sitting on the bench not bothering his arse and got fat.
That's it isn't it, if PSG for some reason decided they wanted Khazri we could probably get 15 mil out of them but for a club like St Etienne 6/9 is a solid enough fee for me. We wanted him gone and off the wage bill and with the season starting before you know it, if we've had several bids and Etienne's was the highest what else are you going to do.
He came into camp a bit heavy and it noticeably affected his performance performance right from the beginning of pre-season.
I don't really buy this stuff about him being overweight. If you look at photos of him when he was at Bordeaux he looked exactly the same. He could have hung around after Moyes had gone and helped in a promotion push. In fact, if I'd have been in charge I'd have asked him to give us a season as he could been one of the best players in the Championship. But it seemed he didn't have the gonads for that so **** him. Still, it's a shame. He could and should have been a big player for us for several seasons but circumstances conspired against that possibility.
Maybe he sees this as a chance he cant afford to miss, in his eyes he owes us nothing, and playing in the French first or the much tougher English third is a no brainer. I agree about his weight issue being well exaggerated, just what went on we will never know, but and Moyes treatment of Khazri and M'Vila, as with Big Sams towards Lens denied us the services of three very talented players.
I'm always sceptical when players are branded as having a 'bad attitude'. Especially so if you believe the 'rotten core' theories as players with seemingly much worse attitudes appear to have been tolerated by a series of managers. It's natural that some people don't get on, especially with the egos flying around in professional football but this doesn't necessarily constitute a bad attitude. I often think that a lot of these theories are based on the old stereotype that foreign players are soft and 'not up for it on a cold Tuesday night in Stoke'. If the Premier League era has taught us anything, it's that foreign players are often more committed and more professional (e.g. di Canio) than their posing, preening domestic counterparts. I think the truth of it is that Moyes wasn't a fan of Khazri and Allardyce wasn't a fan of Lens. And in both cases, vice versa.
I kinda get what you are saying, but I also think that the players "down tools" too easily and stop bothering, rather than working hard to prove the manager wrong. Both players you mention have undoubted talent but chose to contribute nothing when the going got tough for them
