Last min wheeling and dealings!!! Jan Gossip Thread

It's strange that we used to spend alot and change coaches when we want to get into the CL. But now that we are here, we decided that we should not spend.

 

I'd take Podolski if we got him... he's got the physicality for the EPL. Somebody up front has got to start sticking the ball in the back of the net regularly if we're going to have any chance of another top four finish.

 

If Spurs somehow stay in the top 4, it will still be a fight to keep Bale over the summer.

If they miss out -- which seems the likely result -- I can't imagine how we'll keep him. He could be the next big international star, and stardom isn't built in the Europa League. Every competing team and advisor of his who is not on the Spurs payroll will be telling him that he needs to move. Those words will carry more import than those from the chairman and manager who were turned away by every transfer acquisition they approached.

It's this cheap approach that has worried me about the Olympic Stadium. I'm fine with the argument that Spurs needs a big, new stadium, even if it takes them out of Tottenham, to compete with the top clubs in the Premier League. But if we fast forward a few years and find ourselves without Bale and Levy, playing in Stratford with Qatari owners, I can't help but think I'll feel cheated out of several things.

 

Oh, and I'm not one to feel angry on behalf of other teams, but I have to agree with Moyes on the Neville bid from Spurs. To throw such little cash at a squad's captain in a market where everyone is being overpaid ... I just feel like the club got a little bullish after getting lucky with VdV. That was a steal of a transfer, but the downside is that clubs see you coming the next time you try to pull such a maneuver.

 

Really don't understand the push to get Neville. The guy is at best a system player, and the Everton system is set up to mask his inadequacies. If he's better than Hutton, it's only marginally.

 

damn, i would have taken him, even on loan for the rest of the season.

 

Does seem like Levy got overconfident after the Van der Vaart deal, trying to do everything last minute. The Torres deal seems to have blindsided him completely and then it was full-on panic mode.

Saying that, quite relieved the club didn't spend massive on the names we were linked with. I'm not convinced that would have got us 4th and then the club would be stuffed in the summer. Even if we miss 4th this time, at least there's still a lot of money to spend in the summer on new contracts and building up the team for another push.

 

We've said it before, it's the hope that kills you.

Levy's tight-fisted approach over the years has made us a financially stable club. I for one am glad we didn't spunk 30m+ on Carroll. Hauling out the check book is no guarantee of a solution. There are so many intangibles in football, who knows if Pav or Defoe suddenly hit a run of form, we'll be laughing about our near miss.

I agree with whoever said our best hope may be unearthing the next Berbatov. That requires effort from our scouting network and I have no idea what's happened to that. Or, give kids like Obika a real chance. It's exciting to see teams like Villa or Everton bring youngsters through and have the faith in them. Redknapp does not seem so inclined.

Edit: oh and I hope this window puts paid to the "we need to be in the CL to attract players" BS. You just need to shower them with cash.

 

As big of a disaster as it is that we didn't get our striker, it would have been a bigger disaster to spend 35 mil on Carroll, or 24 mil to re-sign Bent. So that's the upside, I guess...

I am, however, very upset that the club didn't go after some of its other targets until the last seconds of the window. The likes of Llorente, Benzema, and Aguero were always going to be longshots, but like Double said, the club had months (since the summer) to identify someone who could do a better job than Pav, Crouch or Defoe. Can't be that hard, yet they failed. When we bought Berba, nobody else was really after him. Where are those fecking scouts? What has Harry been doing this whole time?

Given our experience with Bale, I would have even been happy with us signing "one for the future" like Wickham or Lukaku. And don't tell me that there isn't some Brazilian kid out there who couldn't be convinced to come to a Champions League club (albeit not for long) for a stack of cash. But unfortunately, our network of scouts outside of Europe is rubbish.

I've long said that this year was our opportunity to build the team that could carry us for a generation. With the emergence of Man Sh1tty, we may not get another chance to finish in the top 4. But instead, the club basically did nothing (VdV was more of a stroke of luck than anything else).

 

I have a problem with the nationality of the owners as long as they're willing to keep payroll where it is or higher, don't try to interfere with the long term vision of the club, build that stadium wherever it is and don't act like a dumbass when speaking to the media.

That isn't a bad idea even though it would be even better if we could develope our own instead of buying someone else's young guns. Btw, I think Wickham turned us down.

 

Simply making a signing is not the definition of progress, it must be the right signing.

Better to not make a signing than to make the wrong signing.

Better to not make a signing than to make one that economically damages the club.

 

There is another alternative. The team could perform well enough to finish top 4. We finished top 4 last season with this team, why not again? These teams think they improved, maybe they did. But, injuries happen, accidents happen, errors happen.

 

I'm not going to delude myself. it's quite obvious that Chelsea's blip is over, even without the Torres signing. signing him and Luiz gives them the further impetus to get back into the title race. we're also not catching Arsenal or City. so, by all means we can keep pretending that everything's just fine, but the sooner reality sets in, the better

was that not what was supposed to happen last summer then?

agree 100%

 

I don't know if it was mentioned earlier on here yet but I just saw that we put in a 35 mil bid for Rossi. Obviously I'm glad it didn't happen, but how does Villarreal think that is an insufficient amount? I think they are crazier for not excepting the bid than we are making it.

 

Villarreal is the best team in La Liga not named Barca or Madrid, and Rossi's a big reason why. Not that different from why we're holding onto Bale.

 

I would take Rossi for 35 million.

 

This last minute shit is getting annoying. Remember when we tied up Berbatov early in the summer of 06? Modric right at the end of 07-08 season? If nothing else, this window has proven that this brinksmanship Levy/Redknapp have played for the last year is really not the way to go if we're going to get TOP CLASS players.

 

Villarreal have to be one of the best run clubs in the world. We're talking about a club that plays in a 25,000 seat stadium, in town of 52,000 people. Yet they consistently make CL. Heck, they made the semis a few years back.

 

Now that we're not signing Rossi I can continue my hatred for him.