Transfer Rumours The 2015 Summer Transfer Window Thread
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Interesting talking to Cody Cropper last night about the Toby deal. He reckons that Toby definitely wanted to sign for us and that Les Reed's comments about the player preferring Spurs over Saints was the easy option to tell the fans. The stumbling block was that Saints were being asked to pay more money than originally agreed in the form of paying up the remainder of his contract at AM. We weren't prepared to do that and Spurs were. I questioned why we'd gone back with a vastly improved offer if we weren't happy about paying more than agreed and he said, Koeman really wanted him but it was too late as Spurs had already agreed to AM's demands. He talked openly about the way Southampton work and how thorough they are in transfer dealings. He said, Nothing ever happens quickly at Southampton because they are a very cautious club. They've been caught out in the past so won't just buy players to add depth to the squad. They want to know everything about who they're signing, their past, their personal life, everything. This led on to a discussion about Artur and Dani. He said there's no doubt about Artur's ability but he's a complete headcase. His mentality just didn't fit with what the club are trying to achieve. When I said 'I guess it's the same with Dani' he just shook his head and said 'He was just a lunatic, he had to go'.
Found this on SaintsWeb, quite interesting!
Found this on SaintsWeb, quite interesting!
Yep. I'd take Cody Cropper as an authority on the inner dealings of SFC any day...
Yep. I'd take Cody Cropper as an authority on the inner dealings of SFC any day...
He probably knows more than any of us, tbf. It's no less sketchy than what Les Reed says at a press conference. Except it implied that Saints might not be infallible so therefore it must be wrong.
Yep. I'd take Cody Cropper as an authority on the inner dealings of SFC any day...
Especially as he'd already left before it all happened. If Toby had wanted to come here over Spurs he would be here.
And it's from Saintsweb were a lot of **** is made up...
I didn't say it was actually credible. I just said it was no less credible than what Les Reed says at a press conference, or any of the other dozens of ITK crap that comes up on Saintsweb. Guan and KBSS are a half step above everyone else because they have at least convinced me their contact or whatever has inside info. But even then you are still getting only one person's version of the story.
Cropper's story is fairly plausible. Is it true? I have no idea.
It's fun to speculate on what is going on, but the fact is we will never really know what happens, and people should just learn to deal with it and trust the results on the pitch.
To be fair Toby is a spurs player now, how that happened only Toby and Les know, i don't believe that in a 2 horse race between us and Spurs he would have chose Spurs, so some where along the line we ****ed this deal up.
No point in worrying about it though its done lets get our 2nd choice cb in and hope that he's upto Toby's level. If it turns out we buy a pup and concede 300 goals then we can get the sack the board banners made for the last game of the season.
No point in worrying about it though its done lets get our 2nd choice cb in and hope that he's upto Toby's level. If it turns out we buy a pup and concede 300 goals then we can get the sack the board banners made for the last game of the season.
So, wait, are you saying that the evidence of a former employee is no less credible than the evidence of a current employee in a high ranking position, even if the current employee was involved in the event concerned and the past employee wasn't even there at the time? I'm pretty sure that your career in law is going to short lived...
Whether Cody's story is true or not doesn't matter. What's done is done and we move on. If we are slow with transfer dealings then so be it, you will always miss out on some and win others. I would rather a well looked into signing than a quick rushed one.
If the truth were that Saints messed up in some way, there is a pretty much a 0% chance that Les Reed is going to admit that in a public press conference.
And again, what is the truth anyway? No one messes up on purpose. Reed might very well believe that he did the best he could and his actions were correct, while a more objective observer could see the mistakes he made.
And I've been practicing law for close to 20 years now, thanks.
Losing Toby to the north London yobboes will continue to rankle for some time I expect. It's hard to see the positives in a coup like that. Although it does give us all another reason to dislike spurs, so I suppose that's one consolation.
No, you're going off the point. You said an ex employee is no less credible. If you looked at two sources, one from an outsider and one from an insider, you would discard one as irrelevant and then weigh up the likelihood of honesty from the other.
As a lawyer, I can guarantee you would prefer Reed as a witness on this than Cropper. If not, I'd rather my cat defended me in court. The question here is credibility, not honesty. Think about what you are saying...
Do you really think we get the 100% truth from Reed & Co in these interviews? He's not going to come out and say that they made a mistake on the deal and that led to Toby choosing to go to Spurs over us.
Exactly. You don't always get what you want in any business dealing, and hindsight is always 20/20. I don't know if Saints messed up Alderweireld's transfer or not but I can guarantee you they've made some dumbass mistakes *cough* Osvaldo *cough* that we know about and many more that we don't.
It doesn't matter. Ultimately if we bring a good CB then people will forget all about this even if Saints screwed up royally. And if we bring in a bad CB then people will be mad even if no mistakes were made at all. Having said that, I do agree that as fans it is fun to speculate on this stuff and I enjoy the discussions. But to pretend like one version is the truth and there is a clear cut right-or-wrong is just silly. There almost certainly isn't, and the need to find one reflects more on the person than the club.
I find the rush to exonerate Saints in every incident as silly and annoying as those who try to excoriate them. And I'm quite happy to be clueless on this kind of stuff. Because if we really knew all the information on transfers, it would mean Saints are being horribly run because no one should be blabbing those kinds of details.
That goes for Reed, too. If he were to have a press conference and explain in detail what transpired and at the end of it say that Saints had done badly, I would fire him immediately.
As I recall it was well reported that we matched (or bettered) Spurs offer by Monday morning so by that time it was solely down to Toby's choice and 'terms'. If it was just about money then we're better off that he did join spurs but I honestly think that the is more to Toby than that and that he genuinely preferred Spurs. As early as January he said he aim was to stay somewhere in the English Premier League and that he was ' happy' at Southampton where he felt wanted. Nice words but leaving an escape route.
Make no mistake Reed is a professional mouthpeice that would choose his words very carefully, statements from Reed and co. will be what they want to tell us? Not saying they are right or wrong, just the party line.
I can imagine we didn't go in high enough, soon enough and by the time we did, Toby had mentally moved on. But how many of us would offer double the asking price for something just to make sure we got it. Reed thought he had time...as he would if Toby had stayed firm. For all we know, we could have gone in high and Toby may still have changed his mind. Not accusing Toby of anything (because he had every right to make a choice), but perhaps Les Reed thinks everyone is as upfront as himself. He wouldn't be the first person to make that mistake.
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