Saint Gaston!

Something tells me if we offered them £16m they would start talking!

On the other hand, according to the beeb he has put in a transfer request and refused to play at the weekend, so I guess we will see where that one goes.

 

Especially tonight.

 

Football Journalist Jeremy Butler:

"Had chat with agent working for Bologna tasked with getting a striker from money they expect to get from #saintsfc for Gaston Ramirez."

 

Do you think Adkins ever has to sit on his hands to stop him gripping Cortese round the throat and shouting,' Buy, you bastard, buy!'

 

Liverpool fans on Twitter getting excited because Saints bid is 'stalling'.

 

Liverpool have just bought a winger and they want Adam Johnson, it's safe to say they've moved on.

 

Being held to ransom now hey. I think we should just walk away. £12M was big, £16M is outrageous, & all of you getting you're knickers in a twist over Nicola not spending that amount really need to take a step back. We are a well run club with great spirit. We've got a great set of youngsters coming through & a good group that just needs a couple of new (average price) additions. Spunking the budget on one 'great' prospect is not best option. If he forced it through at 10-12 million, then fair play, but screw paying the ever increasing price the club wants from us.
I might well be stuck in the past, but this transfer could do more damage than good if we give in to these inflated demands.

 

We haven't, hence why no deal is done. A lot of speculation on the fact Cortese is standing his ground and Bologna may come back.

 

£16 million? It's been reported that the fee is agreed at 15million EUROS, but it is how they are paid/spread out which is the problem. So, in all honesty, whatever our budget is, I don't think that spending 15million euros on Ramirez will be all of the money in our transfer pot gone.

 

£12m big, £16m outrageous for one of the best young players in Europe? It's not 2001, you don't know what our budget is, I'm sure they know what they're doing better than you do.

 

The Bologna chairman really wants to sell. He wants to join, so the cards are very much in Cortese's hand.

 

I'm sure Cortese will make him an offer he can't refuse!

 

were going to end up buying some 20 year old from league two. its the "southampton way"

 

Le Fondre hasn't done too badly for Reading. Tore us a new one at our place

 

Quite right. We want to be one of the top teams in England, and you don't get there without spending like one. Either this guy will be our new, and hopefully longer lasting, Ronnie Ekelund, and spend years at Saints earning us tons of goals and assists, or he will be sold in a couple of seasons to Man City or someone of the like and we'll make double what we paid for him. Either way, a 21 year old with such talent is going to be worth the money.

 

That could well be true. But, it could also be wrong. Maybe he'll find it hard to settle, being 21 & from a land far away. If it goes tits up, suddenly things don't look quite so good. One of the highest earners not performing, other players start resenting the difference in wages. Young players pushed out because big names want games.
There are two sides to the £16M coins you know.
And you want to be one of the best clubs in England, that may well take a bit longer than a season & a signing, but why stop at one, after all our owners are billionaires , what could go wrong?!

 

So we should never ever sign someone for more than a couple of million in case it goes wrong? Solid enough.

 

Let's not bother signing anyone then. We might get ideas above our station.

 

Update from Gianluca Di Marzio - http://www.gianlucadimarzio.com/calciomercato/southampton-ramirez-si-allontana/:

"A road still long and full of obstacles. Gaston Ramirez is further away from England, there are problems in the negotiations between Bologna and Southampton. There are, in fact, guarantees and are too high percentages agents. He continues to deal with, but now it is more difficult ..."

 

Is it not £11.8m? Or have I plucked that from nowhere? If it is then I'm confident that the AOC money will contribute a large portion of that. Not to mention the mere £90million we made from promotion.