It depends very much on the results in the next Greek elections and whether the Germans and French are prepared to write off debts. With 700M euros withdrawn from Greek banks in the last week their banks are in deep ****. As I said IF the greeks are forced out of the Euro Spanish banks will become under pressure. Kent County Council have already blacklisted Santander and others are likely to follow suit withdrawing all deposits. It is pretty unfair on the Spanish Government who has kept their spending under control, the problem is with personal (mortgage) and business debts. Unless there is an upsurge in Spanish property prices (unlikely) or a dramatic reduction in Spanish unemployment (also unlikely) Spanish banks will come under pressure and need bailing out. Following the recent French election results Merkel has lost the biggest of her political allies. In order for southern europeans to become competetive a 25%-30% adjustment in the value of the euro is necessary. At the same time a similar adjustment would kick start the French economy and German exports would go from strength to strength. Imports from outside the EEC would drop, particularly from China who's currency is pegged to the US dollar. The down side would be inflation from non EEC produed goods, paticularly oil. However, with oil at less than $100 US dollars barrel those in charge might be able to stomach a bit of inflation more than providing what is no more than a cash hand out. It won't all be roses for the UK, it will damage UK exports to the EEC countries and probably throw us deeper into recession. However, as this is a football forum, the upshot will be that players bought in euros will be far cheaper in terms of pounds stirling by the end of the summer.
Yes, we're waiting for the European financial crisis to deepen before we finalise it, apparently. If the weather's nice tomorrow, then we'll buy van der Wiel, as well.
Firstly, I don't foresee the oil price staying below $100 for very long. Secondly, The Americans would never stand by idly to allow such a devaluation in the Euro. Given the current state of their own economy, they would aggressively sell dollars against it. It should be remembered that the fate of the UK economy is far to closely tied to that of the Eurozone for us not to be severely affected by what happens there. I don't Forsee the Euro being allowed to disintegrate as there's far too much political capital invested. Plus, the fall- out would make 2008 look like the Teddy Bears' picnic. I could go into all sorts of reasons of liquidity, etc why the Pound is never going to be the market's darling, but this is a football site. I would expect that €/£ can go to 1.30 by year end. But, 1.50-1.60? Not going to happen, IMO.
The bizarre thing about this is that money keeps flowing towards dollars when the US has got a huge amount of debt. It's like a group of drunks crowding around a really ugly girl because she's ever so slightly less hideous than the other girls in the bar.
It's a "relatively ugly"contest at the moment. The $ is seen as a bit less of a risk than €. Plus, there's the question of liquidity. If you deal in the sums of money that a certain Manchester clubs' owners have, then you need a large market where you can move these sums fairly easily without sending he market into a spin.
for those who haven't seen on the Summer transfer thread, I'll post it here too, to save anyone starting anew thread. reports in holland today that vertonghen has said he only wants to move to spurs if it's the prem he moves to. apparently Levy is there sorting it out and there's now reports saying that he's handing in an official transfer request.
If we're pissing about over a million or two, then I'd prefer Levy to just take the hit and get it sorted, to be honest. Ajax have a decent connection with Spurs, so I'd rather we didn't upset them over this move.
To be fair, the reported £13mil asking price is rather excessive for a player with only 1 year left on his contract.
I agree, but in today's market, he's worth that sort of money anyway. we're LUCKY the situation is like it is. I've only seen him a handful of times, but I can see why everyone raves about him. in this sutiation, would just pay the 13, (or close to it) regardless of the contract. it's a top drawer CB for 13mill. - nothing wrong with that.
here's the link spurfect. http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2896...eady-to-hand-in-transfer-request-to-engineer?
Can we actually sign this player instead of hearing we're signing him and hearing he wants to sign for us.
Ta. I did see one on the evening standard website too. I can't advocate the whole forcing a move by handing in a transfer request thing but at least it looks like its working for us this time.
Hello! first time poster here, but followed this site for a while. I think Vertonghen is an absolute essential buy, not only because he is a talented CB, but also because I think his leadership skills are something that we may badly need next year. With Gallas and King likely to retire, Parker possibly falling behind Sandro as first choice CDM, there is no obvious choice of captain. I've seen (admittedly only a bit) but heard this guy is an excellent captain and so would fill a vital role for us. Will be absolutely gutted if we miss out, pay up Levy!
welcome aboard ST! Yep fair points fella, we all pretty much agree. I think you can add nelsen to that list too, to be honest. but then again, he might be kept as back up. let's hope Levy pays that little bit extra, he's missed out in the past!
