I know what you mean, Robespierre. And at £13m it's hard to see us getting any sell-on value if he does well enough with us to attract bigger fish. But we're all agreed (I think we are - I hate it when other people assume everyone agrees with them on these boards) that we need someone. Let's get someone in, give him five minutes and then start arguing about whether he's any good or not! Once we've signed him, the fee becomes immaterial - then it's all about how he does and how the team does with him (whoever 'him' turns out to be) as part of it.
I'm not sure what to make of this, if he wants to "try playing on another level" then it depends what other clubs are in for him. It's difficult to judge how likely he is to join us. His record speaks for itself though.
RobespierreFFC - I know what you mean. Cisse does look to have a touch of the Marlets about him - his record before last season was ok, but not £13m worth of ok.
Totally agree Captain. Not sure about Jol's approach though. He reminds me of a fly fisherman casting his line here, casting his line there; hoping to land the big one. So far the tales have all been about "the one that got away" - Jerome bid £3m Jerome bid £.5m Ings bid £0.7m (guess) Long bid less than £3m (guess) Chadli bid £4.3m Ruiz bid £7.5m Diouf bid Loan (but MU want £6m) All bounced because the other club's valuation was higher than his bid. And now Borriello bid ? £10m Cisse bid ? valued at £13m You could argue that Jol's not prepared to pay more than he thinks a player is worth. Fair enough but it's worrying that the amounts are quite varied (therefore presumably quality/worth to the club) and the way he throws his hook in, doesn't catch anything so meanders off to another pool. I wonder if he has a serious dialogue with the club before bidding. He certainly doesn't seem to have bent for negotiation. Surely he should be focusing on a player(s) that fits his vision and our squad, agreeing with FFC what room he has and going for them. With only 8 days left the worst scenario would be a last minute panic buy.
Off subject but just saw this and had to share it - Man City are closing in on Andy Carroll! http://www.metro.co.uk/sport/oddbal...t-liverpool-for-manchester-city-in-shock-deal
Headline: Andy Carroll on his way to The Cottage Andy Carroll has been recruited by new manager Martin Jol, who slipped on some loose tiles and nearly pulled his gigantic hamstring, according to sources at the club.
The BBC is reporting that we're after Amauri of Juventus, whose stats(according to Wikipedia) aren't great until the last couple of years and who is a worrying 31 years old. Also, Blackburn are trying to tie up the transfer of El Hamdaoui for £2.5m. I'd be a lot happier if those two transfer targets were the other way round - £2.5m sounds a lot less than El H was being touted for a few weeks ago, and he sounds like a better prospect to me. That said, I have no memory of ever seeing either player kicking a ball in earnest, so any sane observer would conclude that I don't know what I'm talking about.
Capt ... I'm not enthusiastic about this Amauri report, either. If he's been frozen out at his team, there's probably a reason, and at 31, he's a temporary fix at best. Cisse is the best player with whom we've been linked. Watching YouTube clips of his games last night, he has that undefendable quality that reminds me of Torres or Van Persie when they're on their best game. At 26, I think he's worth the risk. But, yes, the ghost of Marlett still haunts the Cottage.
I don't know why, and I'm not normally a prophet of doom, but I just have this nagging feeling that we will end up with either no additions at all in the striking dept or (possibly worse) pay over the odds for someone who turns out to be another Marlet. Like someone else mentioned I also get nervous when big fees are bandied about and we are connected with them. Our record on big spending and it paying dividends is not good. The thing that puzzles me most, and has over several years to be honest, is why MAF went spending crazy with Sanchez and has seemed reluctant to put his hand in his pocket since - apart from the obvious once bitten twice shy - what did Sanchez do that pursuaded MAF to spend something in the region of £25million (I think) and most of it wasted.
Best course of action is the compete with Blackburn for the cheap-as-chips (not that I've ever spent £2.5m on chips) El Hamdaoui. If they sign him for that price and he turns out to be a good 'un, we'll be kicking ourselves for letting him slip away. I think we'll get someone in - whether they're any good or not is another matter! Perhaps Sanchez waited until the ink was dry on his contract and then pointed out to Al Fayed that he'd just appointed an idiot as manager, and the only hope was to bring in some decent players to hide the manager's deficiencies. Sadly, said idiot was then allowed to choose which players to sign... Although to be fair on the much (and, for the most part, rightly) maligned Sanchez, he did make some good signings - Hughes, Murphy, Konchesky, Baird (eventually) - as well as some awful ones. Sadly, the big money ones weren't among the best, and there were far, far too many bad ones. Sigh, talking about Sanchez makes me miss Rocky's contributions. I do hope he's just off on a long holiday somewhere and that his absence isn't anything more serious than that. These boards are a different place without him for me to agree with.
Sanchez made the classic mistake of spreading out his resources too thin. I don't remember the figures, but he spent something like £25m on eight players, none of whom cost more than 5 million. I think Kamara was the most expensive. At the time I complained on the old BBC board that Sanchez was unwise, citing a sports study that showed definitively that if you have, say, £30m to spend, it's better to buy three top quality £10m players than 10 £3m players. The study was performed on baseball, where players generate copious quantities of statistics every year, but the principals extended to all sports. Years later, the easiest place to see the practice in action is in the fantasy leagues, where your highest costing players yield more than their fair share of points. Rooney's my only big-name player, but he's netted me nearly half my points.
I remember Chelsea being linked to Amauri a long while ago. That's about the only positive thing I can think of about him.
But if you'd spent the fantasy £12 on Klasnic and Long, you'd have twice as many points as Rooney got you! Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Back to the real world of Fulham, Kamara was, if I recall correctly, £8m or thereabouts. Sanchez's problem wasn't spreading his transfer funds too thinly, it was spreading it on the wrong players. If, say, Bouazza, Cook, Healy and Davis had been the players Sanchez obviously believed them to be, then those transfers would have produced a fantastic, attacking, vibrant team. The strategy wasn't wrong, but the execution of it was. Actually, Sanchez's biggest mistake was selling Helguson and not recruiting an adequate back up to McBride. Ever since that point, we've been suffering from only having one out and out targetman, whether that be McBride or Zamora. It's the biggest weakness in our squad and one that we are ruing even now.
Cottager have you got a source on the cisse bid being rejected at all. Last thing I saw was a tweet from hammy end saying that Freiburg are 'considering' offers for Cisse, though are believed to rate him at £12m. Apparently they've received 3 offers, believed but not confirmed to be from us, Blackburn and Sunderland. http://hammyend.com/index.php/2011/08/freiburg-to-consider-cisse-bids/
Actually forget that post I made, apparently Freiburg have said that as yet no club have met their valuation of cisse. Whether we return with an improved offer remains to be seen.
We should not spend more than £6-7m. All these expensive starlets are a high risk investment! It's not like we have the money to waste unlike some other clubs...
