Link: http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11700/8088482/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter Bologna general manager Roberto Zanzi has revealed that Italian clubs were unable to compete with Southampton following Gaston Ramirez's deadline day sale. Saints completed a club-record deal to bring in the Uruguayan after a protracted pursuit during the summer. Zanzi says the offer was too good to resist, while he was also pleased to bring in a quality replacement in the form of Alberto Gilardino from Genoa. It may have been something of a surprise that Ramirez headed to the Premier League rather than continued his career in Serie A, but Zanzi insists Italian clubs are not as financially strong as their European rivals. He told Tele Radio Stereo: "Ramirez knew that we would have sold him only with certain conditions. Such conditions happened only at the end of the market and so we had little time to act in the market. "Despite the difficulties we were able to do a nice job by taking Gilardino. "Ramirez accepted the Southampton offer because he couldn't refuse. "Were there proposals from Italy for Ramirez? The economic situation of Italian football means at the moment Italian clubs are struggling to make similar proposals to those coming from abroad. "Gaston eventually opted for the Premier League."
So glad we got him. He really is going to prove to be a worthy aquisition. Looked very good second half v arsenal.
Just hope he lives up to his price tag, you look at players that haven't in the Prem and am praying that he isn't one of them. However, I'm confident he will be.
The suggestion above is that Ramirez moved to the PL because the move was too good to halt, as far as Bologna were concerned. I hope that Gaston plays every bit as well and professionally whether he feels he should be in the PL or not.
Well yes, simply put there is a whole lot more money in English football than Italian, and no one but the top clubs can go turning down £10m for their best players. And equally no one but the top clubs will be putting in those kinds of bids, so players like Gaston will continue to migrate to the Premier League. So there we have it.
What I'm saying Qwerty, is that I hope Ramirez has enough professionalism to play at 100% even if SFC wasn't his ideal career move. Of course, this isn't what we heard a few weeks before the deals were signed and sealed. Then the idea was that Gaston had seen the vision of where the club wanted to go and had put pen to paper. I suppose you can have both scenarios, but one is better than the other. BTW, I think Kryten has had his time. I miss Gort. Sorry Kryters..!
Yeah, I do hope so to. But I am confident he will. Call me naive but I am sure Nigel, Les, Nicola etc will have at least considered whether Gaston is the kind of person they want at the club rather than just someone with a South American name/good stats on FIFA. The fans have to give him some time and not expect 34 match winning performances, and the club will have to support him, but I reckon he will show us what he's got. Anyway the point about the money is that Italian clubs do not get anything like what we do in terms of TV deals etc. So if a Premier League club shows an interest, they can play hard to get, but ultimately they're gonna have no choice but to take it, and the player will be facing a certain pay rise as well. Although I do feel like I keep pointing out that every one of our signings is someone with equal or higher resale value. That's a different subject.
Ramirez didn't know Southampton from a bag of spanners when we went in for him, but when we pursued him with a sizeable offer he knew two things...we really wanted him and had the funds not only for him but to pursue Cortese's ambition. A good wage with a club in the PL that indicated that they wanted to build the team around him. He will try to shine for us and his own personal ambition. Adkins has already said that the other players have been impressed in training from what he can do...perhaps he can help Lallana achieve his potential. He doesn't love us (yet), but an ambitious talented player can do the business for us.
My next match is the Cup game, so doubt that I will see many of the main squad, but I can't wait to see Ramirez.
As far as Zanzibar moaning about not having time after the sale to replace Gaston, that was their own fault, the deal could have been done weeks before but for the silly ranging that seemed to protracted negotiations endlessly.A bit like Wenger when he leaves things to the last minute and then looses a star player
