.....hence very few players coming in the last 3 transfer windows and so many leaving. The only surprise was that Levy painted himself into a corner regarding Modric. I'm sure that in retrospect he would have liked to have said that if the right price was offered........etc, etc., rather than losing out on £40 million (plus wages).
Absolute madness not to take the 40 million on offer for "three goals Luca". What was Levy thinking? I really doubt Modric will be as good as previous seasons, then you go through all this again in January.
Looks like DB is keeping you in check. 22, even 27 and then 30 million is a good deal for a player that cost 16.5 and is clearly now unhappy (don't condone the work done by the Chav's but such is life and your Manager is as good as anyone at THAT game). Levy has just cut off his nose to spite his face imo. He could have taken the 30 or perhaps even better he could have said "give me 40 now and he's yours"? (two weeks ago) But he didn't and because of that Harry's hands have been tied to a point. Adebayor - did you sign him or borrow him? Enough said.
If we allow teams to just come in and take all of our best players whenever they feel like it, then we'll end up going nowhere. We tried that and it didn't work. You not only weaken yourselves, but you strengthen those that are above you.
Why did you not sign Cahill, you need defenders and now and £40 m for Modric would have been amazing.
PNP - I honestly believe keeping him and turning down the dirty Russian money will be a mistake in the long run. While I admire the "stand" by Levy to a point, I really don't think it's done you any favours, if they want to keep filling your coffers, then look at the longer/bigger picture, let them, Harry has been known to pull out some rough diamonds in the past, who is to say he couldn't have done what Ramos did and got another Modric for a fraction of the price? I look at what you have let go, what you have brought in and I honestly think you could be miles off the pace this season.
The Cahill deal fell through because Bolton wanted an outrageous fee for a centre-half with 12 months left on his contract, by all accounts. That's up to them, but he can walk for nothing at the end of the season, so it's a big risk. £40m wouldn't have done us a lot of good. We can't sign a player that's guaranteed to be as good as Modric, as we can't afford the wages. If we go for another prospect, then there's the bedding in period, til the player adjusts to the game over here or the level of the Prem, at which point another team with big money can just do the same again.
The stadium has to take slight priority over expensive signings, we cant pay the wages others do until we get a new stadium. I will put up with a few seasons spending prudently if it means a stadium is built in the near future, its what we have to do to compete in the long term.
Based on what? We've not weakened at all, some of our young players have clearly improved and we've added Friedel, Parker and Adebayor. Arsenal have gone backwards, in my opinion and Liverpool have gone a bit sideways. We don't have the distraction of the Champions League this season, so if we can sort out the behind the scenes rubbish, then we should push on.
So... Arteta and Benayoun aren't as good as Fibreglass and Nasty, that I agree with, but they are a damn site better than Livermore and Townsend, as are Henderson and Adam. Our young players aren't Wayne Rooney-esque, or even Jones, Henderson & Smalling-esque, they'll never be picked for their national teams at this early stage of their careers - they're filler, papier mache for the cracks in our squad.
Arteta and Benayoun? Henderson and Adam? They're Arsenal and Liverpool's equivalent of Modric and van der Vaart, now. Livermore and Townsend are way, way down the pecking order. How do you know what our youth players are going to do? Rooney, Jones and Henderson cost about £60m between them, too.
Aren't we lucky there is only one OnlyOneDB the man who will make Spurs look brilliant even if they only managed top ten. I look forward to how you will deal with this season as it unfolds.
Well, we're not going to save very much festering in mid table, so I think Levy would like another CL campaign, don't you? hence not selling Modric. I don't think anyones lost sight of the fact that if we don't, this team will disband. The squad was clearly unsettled over it, probably with split views aswell, not good. Its up to Harry now to fix it...quickly.
Jones is 19, Smalling & Henderson 21 - same age as Livermore the money they cost doesn't matter - if you're old enough, you're good enough they say - and if Livermore and Henderson were good enough then I'd be a lot happier. And if we get any more bloody injuries the pecking order will hit them pretty damn soon
Yep, Jones is 19. He also cost £16.5m+ and came through in a struggling Blackburn team. Smalling cost £10m and Henderson cost about £20m, plus he's been dire. Of course the money matters. You're comparing players that cost more than anyone we've ever signed with a youth prospect. The injuries have hurt our squad, but not as much as failing to conclude our transfer business early on and some dodgy team selections. We always seem to have more injuries than we should though, so it may be something that's not being done properly in training or with the medical staff.
No, I was comparing their ages PNP, and saying that they are better than what we have - no other team would pay those sorts of fees for Livermore or Townsend (or any other member of our reserves if I'm honest) And as far as the dodgy team selections, who else was available - we couldn't play the likes of Palacios (who would have been a better call than Niko for the blue Manc game) because we were selling him, so we cut off our nose to spite our face. However, I do concur that whats ****ed us so far this season is our failures in the transfer market
Nobody would pay those fees because those players are unproven at the top level, as they can't get into our side. You could say the same thing for the academy players at Chelsea or Man Utd, for the most part. Who else was available? We could have used Kaboul as a holding midfielder and actually picked the Bassong/Dawson partnership that worked in the season before last. The Modric/Kranjcar pairing was suicide.
Back to the original point... I don't quite understand how Chelsea suddenly decided that Modric was worth nearly twice what they originally offered, they completely shot themselves in the foot with that derisory offer because they suspected that Modric would kick up an enormous fuss. The interesting thing about the whole Modric saga is that since Harry joined (ie since we've been a half decent side) we have actually gained about 0.25 more points per game when Modric hasn't been playing.
Chris Smalling played 13 games for Fulham prior to his move to Man U for £10m. And Kaboul as a shield would have worked better I agree, but the Bassong to QPR was probably already under negotiation so like with Palacios, we ****ed ourselves on that one.
