Phil Buckingham in the Fail:
Hull City boss Steve Bruce admits he would be interested in reviving a club record deal for Shane Long during the January transfer window, but knows the final decision will again rest with West Bromwich Albion. Long came agonisingly close to a deadline-day move when undergoing a medical and agreeing personal terms with the Tigers, only for the Baggies to pull the plug on a proposed £5.5m deal in the final hours of the window.
Bruce has today broken his silence on the proposed transfer which he believes left Long “high and dry”. But he is unsure whether a deal can be resurrected in the New Year.
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“Shane is someone we like, of course, but I’m not sure whether it’s something we’ll be able to revisit,” Bruce told the Mail. “In the end West Brom chose not to sell so he’s still their player. Whether or not that will change, I don’t know. That would be their call.”
The Baggies’ late U-turn was a source of huge disappointment in the City camp during those final hours of the window. After chartering a private jet for Long to travel back from Republic of Ireland duty and into the Tigers’ training ground ahead of the deadline, the transfer collapsed when City attempted to
restructure the financial terms.
The Mail understands a £6.5m deal had been agreed in principle, before City returned with a revised offer of £5.5m rising to £6.5m based on appearances. The bitter fall-out saw West Brom’s sporting and technical director Richard Garlick last week publicly accuse the Tigers of backtracking on the original agreement for Long. Although that is a claim uncontested by Bruce, he insists City had still been willing to trade on the Baggies’ terms.
“West Brom let us know, as far as I was aware, at about 9pm and never returned any of our calls at all,” he explained. “Something changed. I don’t think it was the terms of the deal because in the end we went back to West Brom and said ‘If that’s what you want, that’s what you can have.’
“In the end I don’t think they wanted to sell him, simple as that, but it’s left the lad in a difficult position. At 10pm, Shane Long was at our training ground left high and dry. I felt for him but it’s also bitterly disappointing for us too.”
Bruce defended City’s conduct in negotiations and added: “Now it is true that after initially agreeing a fee we wanted to try and change the deal to suit us better. Let’s be fair, we only started negotiating a deal at 10am that morning. It’s pretty normal to bat things back and forth. When I got to pick him up there was a deal done in principle.
“In my experience, and I’ve been in it a long, long time, you bat things back and forward in negotiations. That can go on for days and weeks during a transfer window but we didn’t have time on our side. We were in a difficult position.”
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