Summer Transfers

It's not often, I strongly disagree with Levy but I think he had a shocker in not backing Pochettino better in the last 2 windows. That really has to be put right this summer.

With Lloris, Vorm; Walker, Yedlin, Dier, Vertonghen, Rose, Davies; Mason, Bentaleb, Townsend, Lamela, Eriksen, Chadli; Kane I think we have a strong base for a squad although obviously there's a lot of areas we lack depth but I doubt we're going to sell all those players I haven't mentioned and several could still be useful to us. In addition we also have the likes of Carter-Vickers, Veljkovic, Walker-Peters, Onomah, Winks, McEvoy and Pitchard coming through who could all be used as a third choice, at least, for their positions.

I guess it depends who we actually manage to sell but I think we should be looking very good financially when you compare how much the young players currently in and around the first team are earning in wages. Surely we can afford to at least try for a couple of big signings then. I know our record for spending big with the Bale money wasn't great but that was all a bit of a panic job needing to spend to try and compensate for losing the best player in the league. Having youngsters coming through is great but it's not a long term plan on it's own, eventually some will be picked off, along with other important players and we'll be left to start again.

I think it's time for us to dream big again, there are always going to be clubs that can spend bigger than us but we have a great potential equaliser with how little we can pay our youngters, that are not just outperforming our senior players but also some of the big money players at the silly money clubs. That equaliser won't last for ever either, either they'll end up moving on or if we manage to keep them then they'll end up earning the kind of contracts that put them amongst our highest current earners. If I'm honest, I'll be very surprised if we went for it on the scale I'm thinking but I really hope we do try to spend some significant money in the next window, there are a number of excellent players that could be coming available this summer.

 

I think we should open contract talks with Adebayor - then a week later find an easy reason suspend him indefinitely so we won't have to pay his salary and save a lot of money. Or is it only the BBC that are allowed to do that?

 

So you’d want to bring in a right sided forward and a LB, and YV thinks we can afford to and should make a big signing.

If only there were a player who could play both positions, a player we have every reason to believe would be great with us, who some big club may be looking to shift...

 

.....And who may not be very popular with the fans and media of his current club??

 

I think I'm at that point with football where I'd rather say 'Sod it!' and just play as many youth prospects as is reasonable. We can't compete with the money thrown around by the richer clubs and even if we did, it's not exactly working for them is it (still not sure why Chelsea got rid of Schurlle and got in Cuadrado). Long list of expensive buys/loans playing from meh! to under 21 fodder!

At the moment it seems pure luck that the referee doesn't shaft you week after week or that a team of cheating, cry-babies con them into mistakes. It's nowhere near being even close to being a level playing field and UEFA/FIFA want to keep it that way. Football has always been about money but never to such an extent as now. Clubs like Forest and Palace managed 3rd place finishes the season after they were promoted to the top flight just pre-Premiership days but that kind of fluidity of league is long gone. Just look at Man Utd. One stumble and they throw £150m at the problem with the promise of another £150m in the summer. What are Man City going to spend after this trophy-less season? Or Chelsea to erase the memory of PSG?

Screw 'em! Take the morale high ground and try and get some of our youth in there. Sure buy players where needed (a forward 3 of Ings, Austin and Kane next season wouldn't go amiss) and fans love a star buy (who doesn't want a Van der Vaart at their club). But we should at least target 1 CB, 1 CM, 1 forward, 1 winger, 1 fullback to be from our youth academy. Won't always work but that is what the transfer market should be for, there when needed not the default choice for perceived failings.

We will probably win bugger all and not get into the Champions Cheaters League but at least I would feel a bit more pride in my club, a bit more affinity with them rather than just getting pissed off with a group of Carlos Kickaballs.

 

At the risk of turning up on the BBC transfer gossip page by Tuesday, there are ways this could actually be feasible...

Method One: Factitious loan him out
If this were to happen, we could certainly take advantage: given how it cost Man Utd £6m to loan Falcao despite him having four years on his contract at the time, on paper that means a loan fee for Bale would be affordable - not as low as £6m, but certainly not the sort of fee that only exists to help them out with FFP (such as the ones they demanded when offloading Ozil and Di Maria) On top of that, Bale's wages are £120k a week, which gives us two options: if we have to pay a percentage of that, it's no problem - while if Factitious want us to pay his full wages, getting shot of Adebayor will free up £100k a week on its own.

Method Two: Factitious sell him
Okay, the transfer fee may be a problem as they'd be expecting at least £60m for him, so even if sell Adebayor, Kaboul, Capoue, Paulinho and Chiriches in the summer we probably wouldn't cover the fee from that standpoint. However, we have an ace up our sleeve: as Factitious are still paying for Bale using their loophole-heavy transfer playbook, and will be paying for him for another three years (and they're still paying for Modric, too) which I'm sure Levy would happily bring up in any negotiations. If that doesn't play out, there's another way to do it: by using Factitious' transfer tactics against them: for the sake of argument, £30m up front - which we can afford, based on TV money and funds raised from selling the above list of players - and the rest over four or five years. Again, Bale would fit into our wage structure - unless Levy really wants to Levy them, and demand they contribute £40k a week to his wages for the remainder of his deal with them, i.e. until July 2019.

Is either of these likely to happen, though? The second method is exceptionally unlikely to happen as there's a lot of dominoes that could topple and cause the whole thing to fall apart, coupled with various clubs not having to use such creative accounting in order to be in a position to buy - but there's possibilities in the first method if that were to happen, although for that to occur we would need Bale to find us more desirable than a host of other clubs who would also be interested...which at the very least places us ahead of Chelsea, so silver linings and all that.

 

If Bale leaves Real then he'll probably go to Man Utd, which is something that none of us wants to see.
With Di Maria's future up in the air and a suggested transfer to PSG, it may well become a realistic possibility, unfortunately.
We can only hope that if he does go to them then his form continues to dip.

 

Excellent analysis HBIC - and certainly not unthinkable. The biggest barriers would likely to be a combination of the players own ambitions and who throws their hat in the ring for him. Despite the protracted and messy nature of his departure, he left with the best wishes of most fans and certainly didn't burn any bridges.
The prospect of him coming into our current youthful squad of huge potential is a mouth-watering prospect - but not a bet I would personally put serious money on right now unfortunately

 

Bobby for Bale. Straight swap. Make it happen Baldies.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31876428

And the chatter increases......... They really do want rid it seems!!

 

It does seem very unlikely Bale would come back. While Spurs fans and quite possibly Bale would welcome his reappearance, an agreement reached between Levy and Perez seems unimaginable. There may be a range of tens of millions on the transfer fee which would be completely unacceptable to both parties: Perez would want well more than half his money back, I think, and Levy might be unwilling to pay more than 1/3 or so. I do have a vision of our chairman searching under the sofa cushions.

I’m wondering how much activity of any kind we’ll have with a particularly promising group of loanees returning. I would want Pritchard, Carroll, Holtby, Carter-Vickers...

The fact we’d been unknowingly keeping the Prem’s best player (two months in a row now!) under wraps should make us likelier to give our other youth players every chance to shine.

 

A messy departure hasn't stopped players returning before: Klinsmann left in messy circumstances, mostly because Lord Shagwit spent weeks slagging him off to anyone who was holding a microphone within a half mile radius of him, yet he was back at the club a couple of years later - and even the messiest of all departures, namely Berbatov, was back at the club for Ledders' testimonial.

 

What a bunch of utter c**ts they truly are.
Spent the whole summer of 2013 doing their state-sponsored unsettling, and 18 months
later, one girly hairband and a dip in form and they are sticking the knives in.

And ... Get real Madrid !!!
You're a penniless club living on the never-never doing akin to VAT "carousel fraud" .

 

I think Soldado has more chance of scoring a non-penalty league goal than Bale returning to us.

Even if we could conjure up the fee for Bale, which as HBIC mentions would likely be no less than £60m, he's on a reported £300k a week salary with Madrid and I don't think there's any realm of possibility that we could even come close to offering that, at a really huge push the club could possibly pay £200k but I think even that would be a big ask and would Bale be willing to drop a £100k in weekly wages? We all know footballers these days and what they really play for. Finally would Bale even want to return? Yes he was adored by us and seemed to enjoy his time here but he clearly wants to be winning titles/ trophies and while we're a side with huge potential, we don't have the star quality and glamorous line-up that makes us title contenders right now. Besides, the way he shafted us left a sour taste for many and I for one lost a huge amount of respect for him and can't deny that I have a small, wry smile at his current problems in Madrid.

Having said that, I'd be really pissed if he returned to England and played for another club, for me that would really **** on us. If he is to leave Real in the summer, I'd rather he went PSG.

 

Perez has backed Bale according to reports today,so i cannot see him going anywhere,and he said not long ago,he wants to stay there

 

Even if we bought Bale back for the alleged €100m RM paid for him Levy would still make a tidy profit of about £16m on the deal. He'd like that!

 

Not sure I believe it would happen, but.......

If anyone could do it, Levy could do it.

 

2 goals at the weekend,and backed by Perez,i don't think he will be going anywhere

 

German reports yesterday mention that Kevin Wimmer, an Austrian U21 international who plays for Cologne has agreed personal terms with us.

Any Bundesliga experts on here that know anything about him?

 

reports today that United are going to use De Gea to get Bale,and Chelsea are willing to spend part of the 150 million on him,think they will need to spend all of it to get him