Lots of teams make the best bid straight away, that's how they enter into negotiations in the first place. For example, how many times were Barca rebuffed when bidding for Alexis Sanchez? None - the only team knocked back were Man City, because Sanchez had no intention of going there, to the point he didn't even board a plane to meet with City officials. (Or, in the case of clubs where Damien Comolli is in charge of purchases, they bid way over the odds, and the selling club try not to laugh too loudly when they hear the proposed figure...) When a club say a player is not for sale, and reject two bids, that's not negotiation - that's saying no. Besides, we know the real reason Chelsea are submitting low bids compared to the large fees they offered Torres, Shevchenko or Essien: they're hoping to get a player on the cheap so they just about manage to comply with Financial Fair Play rules next season, which gives us two reasons not to sell - we want to keep hold of Modric, and why should we help Chelsea keep within budget next season?
OK you may be right re: Sanchez (how do we know this was their only bid??) but take say Downing again. Liverpool were told he was not for sale, they made at least 3 bids and have now got their man. If Chelsea have actually submitted a bid of 35 million this is NOT a low bid. You may think he is worth 50 million but he is not. How many midfielders in the history of the game have gone for over 35 million (excluding true top draw players like Kaka, Zidane etc). Chelsea's bids are fair it's just Spurs don't want to sell. Fair enough but the level of bids are where they are for a reason and it has nothing to do with what Roman can afford.
And are you really using Barca as an example when they have openly tapped up Fabregas for 2 years and made silly bids.
They've tapped up Fabregas (allegedly) because they feel that he was tapped up by Arsenal in the first place. It's not really the way that they do things at Barca, for the most part.
Firstly, Drogba is a liability when he doesn't fancy it at Chelsea, let alone for us. He is going back to Marseilles at the end of his time at Chelsea, if he is used as a make-weight for a deal and playing somewhere he really doesn't want to be, what do you think we are going to get out of him? As for getting a player who would be good enough to replace Modric for 20m that is a little optimistic. Modric is a player who can play at a very high level, can we really find find a replacement for that money? (especially when you bear in mind that our record of signing players in the last two windows has not been that great) If we actually do find a player that good we will have to pay significantly more as a transfer fee and dismantle our wage structure, which to my mind would make the squad even more unhappy than a sulky little Croatian dwarf. On that, he can sulk if he wants, but he is a grown man who signed an extremely long contract to get more money. He gambled that nobody would be interested in him and if they were, that making a fuss would give him a way out. He lost.Now he needs to behave like a professional get his head down and earn a way out of the club that is agreeable to all parties. That will not however be in this window or probably not the next.
Bids of £22m and £27m are low bids - the first was derisory, especially considering he has six years on his contract and the initial fee we paid was £16.5m. How many midfielders have been sold for £35m that aren't Zidane and Kaka (or Figo, who you forgot to mention)? Well, for a start there's Cristiano Ronaldo, whilst Alexis Sanchez and Robinho went for figures near that margin, and Denilson was signed for a fee close to £30m. Chelsea's bids aren't "fair" when you considered their initial bid for Michael Essien was £24m and he didn't have six years on his contract at the time. As for comparisons with Downing, there are three key differences between Spurs and Villa: Spurs are in Europe next season, Villa aren't. Villa are trying to reduce their wage bill, Spurs aren't. Villa tend to lose key players every summer, Spurs don't.
Does Modric turn VDV on that much? We could have had a photo where he wasn't scratching his b*ll*cks couldn't we?
Is that Graham Norton doing a rather camp warm up in the background? That signing certainly went under my radar!
If Modric has said I want to go. The best thing to do is to let him go, because he might just start to play the I am injured, i.e. sorry boss just felt my groin go or sorry bos just tweaked my hamstring, etc.. How will Harry know if he's telling the truth or not, only Modric will know the truth.
"How will Harry know if he's telling the truth or not, only Modric will know the truth." Have you heard of these things called X-ray machines, they're triffic
If he wants to fake injuries for the next 5 years he's welcome to. He won't be avoiding playing for the first team by doing it, though.
