Think Fonte made the terrible decision. Gave up playing as Van Dijk’s CB partner, to go sit on the bench at West Ham. Playing CB alongside VVD must be like playing up front with Lewandowski. Pure pleasure.
I thought he wanted a 2-3 year contract and we would only give him 1. At that stage of his career I can understand him wanting security.
I don't know the details to be honest. But the fact is it was a very bad move from Jose. Imagine the conversation he'll have with his kids one day... "Dad, what was it like playing alongside the best centre-back in the world?" "Erm, well obviously I wanted, you know, a 2 year contract but they..." "Yeah, yeah, but dad. I just wanna know what it was like defending with Van Dijk." "...they were only offering 1 year, and I felt that wasn't really..." "Dad! Dad! I don't care about the contract, what was it like playing with Van Dijk?!" "...the changing rooms at West Ham are top class after all, and you just can't ignore that kind of thing..."
He's a Euro Champs and Ligue 1 winner as well as his promotion and Euro qualification exploits with us to tell his kids about. I agree that it was a bad move for him at the time though.
Oh he's a Saints legend, I love him, and I'm as happy as anyone that he got his career back on track. He's done brilliantly at Lille and all his success is definitely deserved. Let's not forget he dropped a division to sign for us in the first place, which is pretty impressive. He deserved a big money move just as much as any of the others. I'm just gutted because somewhere around the mid-2010's I feel we had the ingredients to 'do a Leicester' (or at least get top 4/cup success).
NC was probably as close to having a fan on the board as we'll ever have. He really didn't care how much money it took to get us to the very top. As long as it wasn't his money.
