augie wrote:donaldo wrote:There is no excuse for us not matching J.Coles wage demands.He is a free transfer FFS.Just like when we bought Sol the 1st time the money we saved from the transfer fee went to pay Sol's 100k a week wages
If we dont sign him our board really are a bunch of tight fisted bastards
I understand your gripe about the board re the money aspect mate but do you really believe that as we already have nasri, rosicky, arshavin and theo (not to mention eboue) for the wide spots do we really need him ? As I said above, in the vast majority of our dealings I believe we should sign a player before then selling the player we want shot of but this situation is the exception for me - I really doubt we would be able to sell rosicky (injury concerns), theo (nobody will meet the price we would be looking for
) or arshavin (no club big enough in his eyes will look to buy him) so we would then be left with 5 wing players and given the chronic lacking in both the keepers and centre back position I think it would be foolish to pursue this deal. Of course it could well be that wenger will look to play cole in cesc's position but again that would be the cheap option and I would be absolutely disgusted
I know what your saying Augie and ordinarily i would agree with you that we have more pressing concerns with regards the teams personnel needs, but i and i would have thought yourself by now, have no faith that the manager is going to make any great effort to deal with what the vast majority would perceive as our most pressing needs. So with that in mind i would welcome any real improvement in the squad regardless of where it comes.
I know we are in far more need of a GK,CB and even another DCM, but i also know that although we have a number of possible wide options at the club already Cole is either equal to or a step up in talent and/or consistency from our best and a huge step up from the rest, so that allied with the fact he is on a free would make him a good addition in my eyes..
Also regarding the signing of Cole effecting any other business we do, it wouldn't necessarily have to have any effect... since he is on a free it's his salary increasing the wage bill that would have an effect on what other business we do, but that can be offset by unloading one of our under-performers, personally i would sell Theo, not only would that mean Coles arrival would have minimal impact on the wage bill, but it would also give us another 10 or so million pound to play with for our pressing needs GK,CB,DCM. So we would have more quality in the wide areas and still be in a stronger position financially to encourage our manager to bring in some quality where we really need it most.
Of course until the manager proves that he is actually looking to improve the playing staff overall as opposed to creating more profits for the clubs bankers to ***** over, i can't help but be a bit sceptical about his real motives for pursuing Cole (if he is), is it to add more quality or is this a cheap replacement for Cesc, because that would fit in far more with how he likes to do business.
Either way if we signed Cole i would just be relieved that we had some quality in the bag already and hope maybe it was the beginning of some proper investment of quality in the team. If it turns out to be no more than a cheap replacement for Cesc with little other investment in the team, then the recriminations can begin, but at least we would have a player that is proven quality and knows the prem which is more than we normally end up with after our yearly one step forward and two steps back summer transfer merry go round... ..
