VfB Stuttgart - Pushing for Europe, 08/09 Season Thread Part III (R)

[Vandervaart]

Cant really blame everything on Heldt. For a player at Huntelaar's class, age n resume, its really difficult to land him in Bundesliga, especially Stuttgart.

Have to be frank to ourself, why would he come?

I'm pretty pissed off about this, as we (Holland) need him to play regularly at a high level before next year's World Cup. I'd say his chances to go to Tottenham have gone down with Stuttgart out of the picture. If RvN gets fit again he's not going to South-Africa either.

[footyfan1]

Stuttgarter Nachrichten reporting Heldt and Schneider have flown to Moscow this morning to continue negotiations with Love that have 'been going on for weeks'. Whatever.


They have to try man. I agree that they waited too long on Huntelaar, but he was the one they wanted.

Stupid move, yes, but again, Huntelaar was the one they wanted.......

[footyfan1]

Lyon finished 3rd in France. Thw two clubs could even meet each other in the qualifying round.

Thanks for correcting me Hendrik. I guess you can see I don't quite remember their final standings!

For some reason, I thought they finished 4th.

[Rainer24]

Right on man.







I think so too. But mostly because you guys are in the CL.

If Lyon truly is interested, they can't offer CL football this season.

Love has to be insulted that VfB would only turn to him after waiting for Huntelaar this long, but CL football and a nice salary could help him get over that.......

However, if Love doesn't work out either, do you think you guys would go back to Jovanovic?


Lyon has the prestige of having been a perrenial champion in a top 4 league, and as others have pointed out, they're in the same boat as us re: Champions League. They've also got a wad of cash burning a hole in their pockets after selling a young star striker. Hopefully he still wants to come. I think the Bundesliga is substantially better than Ligue 1 at this point, though Marseille, Bordeaux and PSG all seem finally be getting their act together, but a lot of that seems to have been Lyon tanking it rather than the other teams having gotten that much better. Hopefully the management flashes the cash in Moscow and makes this thing happen ASAP so we can get him into camp and training with the team for a couple of weeks before the season kicks off.

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

I don't even want to think about this but.... what if even Love doesn't come??? Who do we get then??

If they can't pull this move off we will go into the season notoriously understrength.

I remember I was bitching 2 months ago about how Helmes (I think, before the kreuzzbandriss anyway, or Hleb) should be a top priority and that our management was being incredibly ineffective in providing a good new striker - Equilibrium reminded me at the time that the transfer period is long and I should be patient since we had the money and we'd obviously get a good replacement in the end. Of course he was right, but what I said at the time was that this isn't Bayern or even HSV or Bremen, this is VfB Stuttgart and that for us with our sometimes inept way of managing transfers, UNTIL WE HAD A TOP REPLACEMENT there could be no secure feeling that such a replacement would ever eventually end up coming. And unfortunately this has been shown over this summer. A week until the first official match of the season and no striker. The idea of integrating one fully into the squad before the season starts is virtually impossible. And we are facing a huge risk of going into the season without having bought a new striker whatsoever.

...nevermind a new winger, who we have also failed to provide. And why?? The management would rather have no good winger than a good winger for 2 mil more than he's worth. Some may agree with that, but in our particular case this season I really do not. We were always going to have to overspend. Jovanovic is a great player and should have become a VfB player. Instead, we have no new striker and no new winger.


But hey, at least we've still got 33 million euros left !!!! :rolleyes:

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

To sum everything up:

I really hope Love comes :o

[F96]

But of course, who doesn't want love?

[benztown]

But of course, who doesn't want love?

After the Huntelaar disaster, I need some Love right now...:o

[footyfan1]

What sucks is that like me, because my girlfriend lives an hour away, Stuttgart fans will still have to wait until the weekend to get their "Love" ;) :D

[vasilli07]

I'm pretty pissed off about this, as we (Holland) need him to play regularly at a high level before next year's World Cup. I'd say his chances to go to Tottenham have gone down with Stuttgart out of the picture. If RvN gets fit again he's not going to South-Africa either.

Isn't RVN retired from international football? :rolleyes:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/internationals/7542088.stm

[Kirsten19]

I think Huntelaar may see coming to Stuttgart as plan Z, while remaining sitting on Real Madrid's bench as plan Y. He may not leave if RM didn't force him to and put him on their transfer list.

This situation starts to remind me of Man City last season. They had 150 mil to spend, but they ended up bring in a number of mediocre other than Robinho. Someone like Bellamy, Jo n De Jong for example. They wanted to bring in Messi, Kaka n Ronaldinho but these players are totally out of their league. Huntelaar is out of our league too.


We have 30mil, doesn't mean Huntelaar wants to come, and i doubt a player like Love would 1) like to play in BL 2) want to play for Stuttgart. U guys are aiming at some international class player, starters for their NT (occasionally or regularly but for Brazil n Netherland!!), young (25 or under) and one even played for Real Madrid.

Huntelaar is not Tomasson for goodness sake

I feel disappointed that some of the fans here are trying to blame everything on Heldt. We have 30mil, but is it his fault if we cannot land someone like Huntelaar in Stuttgart? I don't think so........at all

In this inflated market, i think 30mil for letting Gomez leave was a steal. Seriously a steal. BM wants 90mil for Ribery. Ribery is better than Gomez, yes. A lot better? Not exactly. And the idfference in price tag should never be 60mil. At least Gomez is 3 years younger n has all the physical tools to play in more physical league like EPL, which Ribery doesn't have.


To be more realistic, Stuttgart should really look at some rising stars, instead of some well reputated, proven strikers. Looking at Demba Ba was a good start, but we unfortunately failed. I am also impressed with the signing of Alessandro Riedle, who looks promising so far in the TV cup

Other than Demba Ba, there are players like Gignac, Toivonen, Eugene Seleznyov from Shakhtar and Kalinic from Hajduk can be very good signings too.

They may not be big names, but very good players who are under the age of 24/25

VFB fans, please understand Heldt and rest of the management staff. They need dignity too, we've been losing some respects in these few weeks. As a club, we shouldn't be begging players if they think they are too good for us or see us as last resort.

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

I feel disappointed that some of the fans here are trying to blame everything on Heldt. We have 30mil, but is it his fault if we cannot land someone like Huntelaar in Stuttgart? I don't think so........at all

You're referring to me and i'll quickly ask:
did I say it's all Heldt's fault if we cannot land Huntelaar? NO

But i'll tell you what I did say:
We have had 9 weeks since Gomez left. In this time we have:

1) Gone after Helmes and failed.

2) Gone after Hleb and failed because he wanted another year in Barca supposedly. Yet now of course rumour has ithe could be on his way to Inter.

3) Gone after Jovanovic for 7(!!!!!! - what team does this nowadays???) weeks before pulling out because they wanted 2 million more than our cheap ass with 35 million was willing to spend. Heldt tried to prove a point that we won't be pushed around financially. The conclusion of it is that we have saved only 2 million more and do not have a really strong addition like Jovanovic would have been.

4) Gone after Ba and EVEN MANAGE TO BUY HIM. I say this because everyone was in agreement. We then, after all our effort, pull out because of some health and mentality concerns and above all BECAUSE HELDT WAS CERTAIN WE'D GET HUNTELAAR. In Ba we had a new striker locked up. And we changed our mind. But so far without a replacement.

5) Since then we have devoted 3 weeks to getting Huntelaar. He may have been unlikely, but in that case it remains Heldt's fault for focusin on nobody else and dropping all our other talks (now embarrassingly bringing up Love again and essentially asking him to forgive us for ignoring him). Not to mention, Heldt made it very clear in many interviews that he was very confident Huntelaar would come. Most recently just over the weekend. Well say what you want, but after he Heldt has said this himself, you cannot deny he has obviously completely misjudged the situation.

6) In the meantime we are now focusing on Love again. Which isn't a problem in itself, except that we could have bought him 6-8 weeks ago! We ignored the option and have now backtracked. This has not only wasted time but has also reduced our odds of actually getting him to want to come (which he previously said he would be happy to do, what you wrote about him not wanting to come was incorrect) because he now feels like he's nothing more than a 'second choice.

7) Through all this we have completely forgotten about the winger spot since we imo stupidly dropped talks with Jovanovic. And this was supposed to be a priority position right behind the striker position.

8) Even if we do get someone like Love after all, and even a winger, it will still be too late for them to get with the team in time for the new season. And we had 2 and a half months!!!

9) All in all Bundesliga starts in two weeks and we have bought no new stars. And it's not because of your simple excuse of good players not wanting to come to the Bundesliga. Just look at HSV's transfers. Or indeed Bremen's over the years. That's a weak cop out. We have been loaded with cash and can qualify for Europe's biggest club tournament. Heldt over this holliday has provided 6-7 very stupid mistakes that I classified here. And to deny this with talk of unattractivity is dumb. We have never had such a budget as now, and Heldt has made total carnival out of the club this summer with his inept transfer dealings. Has he done everything bad? No. We've got a new leftback in Celozzi and are on the verge of prolonging Tasci. But these are only too bright spots in a summer of management failure.


And by the way, just out of curiousity how come you say 'we' when you're a Schalke fan???

[kaiser kraut]

If we get no love, then we can always get Landon Donovan (j/k)

[benztown]

IMHO, Huntelaar would have been the best possible replacement, so I think it was ok for Stuttgart to go out of their way in order to make it happen. Looking at it after the fact, Heldt probably walked away a little too late. After the Monday deadline, he should have called it a day. But other than that, I can't see many mistakes.

Helmes would have been awesome as well, but he injured himself, so that was nobody's fault. Ba was injured as well, and I'm actually not so sure that he would actually strengthen the team by very much. Huntelaar stalled, because he wanted more money, but it apparently looked very promising, so I think it was absolutely right to do everything that could be done...

Vagner Love is still possible. But I think that he's also a much more risky transfer than Huntelaar would have been, so I think it was right to focus on Huntelaar.

Personally, while I hope for Vagner Love now, I'm still doubtful whether he will have a big impact on the team. He is just a much bigger unknown. But I guess he's the best striker we can sign at this point...so Hotte please, give us some Love...

[Emperor_Norton]

This situation starts to remind me of Man City last season. They had 150 mil to spend, but they ended up bring in a number of mediocre other than Robinho. Someone like Bellamy, Jo n De Jong for example. They wanted to bring in Messi, Kaka n Ronaldinho but these players are totally out of their league. Huntelaar is out of our league too.

I think there is one major difference. While Manchester CIty has been offering huge wages, Stuttgart actually offered less than what Huntelaar earned at Real. Players usually don't walk from big clubs to lesser clubs for less income. I am pretty sure that if Stuttgart had matched Real's wages or a compensation could have been found, the deal would have gone through.

[Cirdan]

We have 30mil, doesn't mean Huntelaar wants to come, and i doubt a player like Love would 1) like to play in BL 2) want to play for Stuttgart. U guys are aiming at some international class player, starters for their NT (occasionally or regularly but for Brazil n Netherland!!), young (25 or under) and one even played for Real Madrid.


Love indicated weeks ago that he'd like to come to Stuttgart. Now he's pissed off that he looks like the second choice. I believe that they should have gone for him instead of Huntelaar immediately. But well, let's see what happens.

[Kirsten19]

Kalinic from Hajduk, is a pretty good option. 22 years old and a very consistent scorer in the Croatian league n international level.

[footyfan1]

Kalinic from Hajduk, is a pretty good option. 22 years old and a very consistent scorer in the Croatian league n international level.


He's still 21. He'll be 22 in January.

And he's a guy I wish Dortmund would consider too.

Had 15 goals and 6 assists in the Croatian League last season.

[footyfan1]

VfB Stuttgart: Nachdem der Deal mit Klaas-Jan Huntelaar geplatzt ist, interessiert sich Stuttgart trotzdem für Spieler von Real. Der Bundesligist bietet nun 18 Millionen für Alvaro Negredo, aber der Stürmer möchte von einem spanischen Team ausgeliehen werden.



The blurb above from Eurosport's transfer ticker suggests Stuttgart has made the same offer to Real for Negredo now.

I think we all know that is bullshit. :rolleyes:

[Kirsten19]

He's still 21. He'll be 22 in January.

And he's a guy I wish Dortmund would consider too.

Had 15 goals and 6 assists in the Croatian League last season.


Seems like Kalinic is heading to Portsmouth

According to skysports, http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11661_5450497,00.html