GranadaJoe wrote:If AW wasn't so timid we could be sat here 48 mil lighter but with Higuain, Gustavo and Cesar with 20+ to invest in a DC and/or FB. Most of us would be happy, the squad would be upbeat and there'd be little pressure on AW.
Instead we've 70+ in the bank and everybody is pissed off.
Your last comment 'everybody is pissed off' makes me wonder about our whole transfer strategy;
Every time we show an interest in a player this is conveniently leaked to the media and the fact that we always offer at least 40% less than the value of the player is also publicized, making us look quite frankly ridiculous. . This may well be what annoyed Alan DePardew the most, not the fact that an approach was made but that it was fed to Sky and that the figure was laughable. I've felt the same frustration as everybody else over our (non-)dealings this summer but it was the Cabaye debacle that finally made me explode with anger. AW announces after the AV game that Arteta & AOC have long term injuries & we'll need to bring a midfielder in. He then swings into (non-)action by making a ludicrously low offer for Newcastle's best player, not only that but 4 days later we haven't followed up with a higher bid. We've alerted other clubs to our interest and now we're sitting back (WHY?). Apparently this is called 'moneyball', in my day it was known as 'balls up'.
I've read recently that we are beholden to experts in the US who are planning our (non-)strategy(?!). I can only interpret this that we as a club will not lose any money if we don't actually spend any money. This whole system seems to be based on us unsettling players by announcing our interest in public, underbidding for them and then hoping that miraculously we'll end up with the player and based on what evidence exactly? We were told that we needed to move to a new stadium 'to compete' but we then lose out on Schwarzer, a veteran player nobody else wanted to buy because of an alleged discrepancy of a mere £400k in our valuation. Surely that extra £400k is the premium you pay for being a rich club. We were ready to offer the guy a 4yr contract for playing and coaching but after totally unsettling him we walked away and we're still looking for a stable keeper 4yrs on. If AW not only thought that signing him would lead to us acquiring more points but also that he was coaching material then that was a miniscule amount of money to scupper the deal.
Cahill..with a year left on his contract and Bolton valuing him at £17m, we sent Dick Law up the motorway to allegedly offer £7m. Bolton took the unusual (although not so unusual anymore) step of publicly denouncing our (non-)bid and he was later sold to Chelsea for £13 with 6months left on his contract. To those people who ridicule Law and believe that Dein is our would-be saviour, do you think that if Dein had been told to pull off this deal for £7m that he would have been able to? We've similarly unsettled and irritated the respective clubs of Samba and Jagielka (i'm sure there are others that i can't presently recall) to what end? To annoy those clubs and damage our relationships with them.
What must clubs think when they hear that we are interested in one of their players? They know that we are unlikely to do a deal but that their players head will be turned. We take every opportunity to boast in public about our financial success and then offer Lidl prices for players. Quite how we justify this during our negotiations i'd really love to know.
