Les Reed interview today

[Batman]

But les took charlton down!!!

[badgerx16]

Big shock, professional footballer turns out to be self centered mercenary.

 

Toby didn't sign for us, big deal, blue line, move on.

 

Why keep flogging this particular deceased nag ?

 

The Board make decisions - we are not party to negotiations, nor are any of us mind readers, nor will we be asked for our input. They've delivered for the last 5 or so years so they deserve to be allowed to work to the business plan.

 

All IMO of course.

[CB Fry]

But les took charlton down!!!

HE MADE STEVEN GERRARD CRY FFS.

[Lallana's Left Peg]

Okay then.

 

Despite agreeing terms with the player and him being happy to join, we couldn't sign him until his loan ran out. In the meantime we took the opportunity to go back and forth with Atletico around the fee and whatever complications there were around the clause. But that loan agreement ran out at the end of June and we never ever got to the point where Toby could have come over and signed. We never had that opportunity because we were faffing about. In the meantime Levy flew over to Spain and in the course of 48hrs agreed a deal, and 48hrs later Toby is a Spurs player.

 

If Toby's mind was made up and it was Spurs then that is all very well but we never ever got to a point where the moment we could have signed him, where Toby would have had to either say yes or no. By the time we agreed a fee he was having his medical at Spurs.

 

We could have known one way or another the first few days in July. Not the moment Spurs swooped for the player before we gave him a chance to sign. And what is what is annoying.

[CB Fry]

Despite agreeing terms with the player and him being happy to join, we couldn't sign him until his loan ran out. In the meantime we took the opportunity to go back and forth with Atletico around the fee and whatever complications there were around the clause. But that loan agreement ran out at the end of June and we never ever got to the point where Toby could have come over and signed. We never had that opportunity because we were faffing about. In the meantime Levy flew over to Spain and in the course of 48hrs agreed a deal, and 48hrs later Toby is a Spurs player.

 

If Toby's mind was made up and it was Spurs then that is all very well but we never ever got to a point where the moment we could have signed him, where Toby would have had to either say yes or no. By the time we agreed a fee he was having his medical at Spurs.

 

We could have known one way or another the first few days in July. Not the moment Spurs swooped for the player before we gave him a chance to sign. And what is what is annoying.

Any professional footballer with an eighth of a brain would think after the season Toby had he'd be able to get a better deal somewhere else.

 

Some of us don't live in a linear little computer game world. You can't force humans to do things they don't need or want to. Toby played it perfectly for his own career.

[krissyboy31]

Big shock, professional footballer turns out to be self centered mercenary.

 

Toby didn't sign for us, big deal, blue line, move on.

 

Why keep flogging this particular deceased nag ?

 

The Board make decisions - we are not party to negotiations, nor are any of us mind readers, nor will we be asked for our input. They've delivered for the last 5 or so years so they deserve to be allowed to work to the business plan.

 

All IMO of course.

 

Yours and everybody else's with half a brain cell!!

[Lallana's Left Peg]

Any professional footballer with an eighth of a brain would think after the season Toby had he'd be able to get a better deal somewhere else.

 

Some of us don't live in a linear little computer game world. You can't force humans to do things they don't need or want to. Toby played it perfectly for his own career.

 

And we'd have found out much sooner if we had agreed a deal with Atletico and put Toby in a position where he either signed or he didn't. Not after he had already agreed terms and was having a medical with Spurs because they agreed a fee for him.

[MikeSFC]

Despite agreeing terms with the player and him being happy to join, we couldn't sign him until his loan ran out. In the meantime we took the opportunity to go back and forth with Atletico around the fee and whatever complications there were around the clause. But that loan agreement ran out at the end of June and we never ever got to the point where Toby could have come over and signed. We never had that opportunity because we were faffing about. In the meantime Levy flew over to Spain and in the course of 48hrs agreed a deal, and 48hrs later Toby is a Spurs player.

 

If Toby's mind was made up and it was Spurs then that is all very well but we never ever got to a point where the moment we could have signed him, where Toby would have had to either say yes or no. By the time we agreed a fee he was having his medical at Spurs.

 

We could have known one way or another the first few days in July. Not the moment Spurs swooped for the player before we gave him a chance to sign. And what is what is annoying.

 

If we just made a bid to start with and Atletico accepted it then Spurs would just match it and it would be the exact same outcome.

[Lallana's Left Peg]

If we just made a bid to start with and Atletico accepted it then Spurs would just match it and it would be the exact same outcome.

 

And we would have found out about this situation far earlier on rather than have the scenario that while the player was having his medical at Spurs we had our Manager saying he still expects the player to sign and the club were still briefing the media that we were confident of signing him. We got played and didn't do ourselves any favours whatsoever but apparently the club did absolutely nothing wrong.

[Redslo]

A FULL DAYS WORTH OF RESPONSES IN ONE HANDY POST:

 

I'd be very interested to hear what strategies the geniuses of SWF would utilise to stop bigger clubs picking off the best of our talent.

 

Actually, no. It'd be uninformed drivel. Might be interesting to hear Reed's thoughts on the matter though.

 

http://lifehacker.com/5952455/how-to-create-a-blackmail-file-on-someone

 

I have to admit my surprise that someone actually provided an actual answer to the question.

 

It hasn't. Our first team is now packed for of internationals (more so then ever before in our history), it is a very different task for a teenager from our academy to surpass international players. The bar is a lot higher. That does' mean the club doesn't have a youth policy of getting players into the first team, it just may take them longer to get there now.

 

Which is probably just as well since we need them to sign their 18-year old long term contract rather than just a 17 year old two year contract.

 

What is the point in asking that? What kind of answer could Reed possibly give to it? I'm sure Koeman was always aware if a richer club offers big money to Clyne and Schneiderlin there was a good chance they'd leave. If a big European club comes in for Koeman he'll probably go and Reed will already have in mind who he wants to replace him.

 

I partially agree with you. However, I am not convinced that Koeman would leave early if a big club came in for him.

 

Why rule out the possibility of him signing a new deal? If he doesn't have an offer of a more attractive club, why would he leave?

 

I expect him to sign a one year extension and then take over Holland after the 2018 WC. This is speculation. I am not claiming to be ITK.

 

Do you now understand the futility of doing a open forum Q&A with the fans?

 

If you think this is bad you should see what Republican candidates for president get when they open up their twitter account for questions.

 

Start your own f**king thread then.

 

There are genuine questions to be answered about the Toby affair, and how we will recover from the setback.

 

Perhaps. But you won't be asking any of them.

 

I would ask Les , if he met Alpine in person during the current Austrian Tour

Is he as big a k nob in real life as he is on this forum?

 

Wow. original....

 

So you are saying that you status is so well establish that bringing it up is unoriginal?

 

Then perhaps people should ask the genuine questions and not behave like babies who have lost their dummies.

 

This. However, I suspect that the legal maneuvering is still ongoing so he can't answer them now.

 

Who are you rto judge ?

 

I am not the only one who reappears during adveristy. I notice your post rate goes up as well, because you so love trying to take the moral high ground.

 

You rarely express an opinion of your own about the club, much more interested in giving an opinion about fellow posters and their posts.

 

Good point. Why is MLG so hesitant to express his opinion about Southampton FC? You would think that someone in his position would have a detailed position on every player and every aspect of the skill set. He should also have an opinion not just on how good our current players are, but how good they can be. MLG, stop goofing off and get to work.

 

I don't think the Club could have done anything to change their minds, but, they could have been straight with us Supporters

 

What the Club DID do however, was to keep all the "bad" News suppressed as much as possible til they had got a fair no of SEASON TICKET RENEWALS

 

So, the Club are consistent in that respect. The "Mushroom" Ploy

 

Clearly, Toby had knew he wanted to go to Spurs for at least TWO months.It therefore was no shock to anyone within the Club.

 

But that was not the spiel that came out from the Club was it. No, just the usual load of Bull sh*te

 

Krueger made it vey clear a short while ago. There will be NO expansion of St Marys, so, with a circa 32500 capacity, we ARE a mid table Prem club who punched above their weight last season

 

Food for thought. What would Miss Leibherr and Mr Krueger have done if we had not dropped stupid points against Krap teams, and finished in the Top Four

 

Not beyond the realms of possibility last season, but last season was weird, and their will not be another very "open" season again for a very long time

 

It is possible Toby did not know he wanted to go to Spurs for two months. Or maybe he did, but lied about it to the club.

 

From the outside, it looks like the club's Toby strategy was to exercise the option, wait for Athletico to buy out the option, and then negotiate. They never bought out the option. Instead, they ignored the contract. I am not sure how they should have anticipated this. (Although they (and everyone else) should anticipate this in the future when dealing with Athletico. They contrast poorly with Juventus, for example.)

 

But we could still make the three or four great signings we need to stay at the level we reached last season - and compete in Europe - so lets not judge to soon - but I do think we need to take a bit more control of our transfers and show a bit more sign of having a long term strategy to grow and strengthen the team by buying and selling players - we can't always rely on our academy to turn out little gems.

 

I left out the rest of your post because this part, with which I agree, more or less negates you individual criticisms. We do not know enough about what has gone on inside the club to know if any of the criticisms are valid. I certainly think it would have been smart to resign Clyne before selling Chambers last summer, but do we know the club didn't try to do this?

 

Yeah I bet threatening the selling club with legal action was a great idea for someone you wanted so much

 

 

Alderweireld and his dad had already implied AM were difficult to deal with. Threatening them with the law might have gone down well. Who knows.

 

Depends. It may well turn out to be a negotiating tactic that gets us more money for a player we never owned and were not going to be able to sign.

 

 

Watch him have a good season and then **** off for free next Summer.

 

That would be a disaster. Instead of selling him for a big loss now, he stays and helps us and we take a slightly bigger loss next year.

 

Is "let's extend everyone's contracts at the earliest opportunity" this season's "why don't we get our business done early"?

 

Isn't it easy to come up with simple solutions? Next up, score more goals than the other team.

 

Actually, that didn't work as well as it should have or we would have finished 5th.

 

Good write up here. http://m.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/13407601.Alderweireld_transfer__The_Full_Story/?ref=mac

 

Does sound like Alderweireld strung us along and mugged us off, rather than Atletico.

 

I guess he actually answered some of the crazy questions here, albeit neither directly nor intentionally.

 

So while we were dithering about with Atletico around the clause we allowed Spurs to come in with a bid (a very public one) and by the time we got our act together he already had his head turned and was signing with them.

 

Sorry, but the club are not absolved of blame here. Still feel like this could have been sorted much sooner before Spurs were on the scene.

 

Not sure how you can reach that conclusion.

 

Is that not what happened? Despite willing to pay more than the clause' date=' we spent a long time talking to Atletico about it and the player left elsewhere. Why not make the proper bid for the player the moment we learnt of Spurs coming in? It was well documented they liked him, as early as May I believe. We dithered, there is nothing in the Les Reed interview that suggests otherwise.[/quote']

 

Because the problem (as it turns out) was not reaching a deal with Athletico, but with Toby not wanting to sign with us. Do you really think in April or May Toby was going to sign with us and then changed his mind after that. His reasons for signing with Spurs did not arise suddenly at the end of June. He just didn't tell us about them before. If anyone is morally at fault here, it is Toby for misleading us by indicating that he wanted to sign with us when he didn't. Of course, we don't actually know if he did exactly that.

[CB Fry]

And we'd have found out much sooner if we had agreed a deal with Atletico and put Toby in a position where he either signed or he didn't. Not after he had already agreed terms and was having a medical with Spurs because they agreed a fee for him.

So we have a chat with him and announce to the world "we've decided not to take up our option on Toby Alderweireld".

 

Yep. I see your point. The reaction to that chain of events would have been incredibly calm. Maybe six or seven posts on it.

[S-Clarke]

Not sure what's so hard to understand here (for some posters). Toby told the club he wanted to stay, they'd provisionally agreed terms. They trusted his word, and maybe if they're guilty of anything, it would be over-trusting - but that's not really a stick to bat anyone with.

 

As we thought we'd had his word, we wanted to make sure we could get the best deal possible. If we felt we still had a chance of getting him for 6.8m, then of course we're going to pursue it. If I thought I'd have a chance of getting a car 50% cheaper, then I'd pursue it before parting with 35k - even if it was at the risk of losing out, it's just sound business sense. When it became clear that it would drag it out too long, we went into the open market and had a bid accepted. By this point, Toby had already agreed to go to Spurs. What came out of Koemans mouth on Monday was true, as at that stage they believed they had his word and it was just a case of thrashing out a deal.

 

As I said above, if the club have been guilty of anything it's by being over trusting and a maybe a little naivety. I think Toby is a top lad generally, I don't hold any grudge against him - but it's clear that the pull of the Belgium contingent and probably a better package pulled him in line. At least we can now move on from this entire thing and see who we have lined up.

[Lallana's Left Peg]

So we have a chat with him and announce to the world "we've decided not to take up our option on Toby Alderweireld".

 

Yep. I see your point. The reaction to that chain of events would have been incredibly calm. Maybe six or seven posts on it.

 

The club would have been able to move onto other targets and I would have no complaints. I'm not saying there is a scenario where Toby would have signed. Nobody knows if one exists. I'm suggesting that our chances of signing him would have been better if we were the only club to agree a fee (or rather, the first), and that if he didn't want to sign we could have created a situation where we found this out far sooner. So personally I do not think the club are blameless based on how this played out.

 

It's not the end of the world, we'll move on etc. But I don't agree that Saints did the best they could in the circumstance.

[Suhari]

Good interview.

[CB Fry]

The club would have been able to move onto other targets and I would have no complaints. I'm not saying there is a scenario where Toby would have signed. Nobody knows if one exists. I'm suggesting that our chances of signing him would have been better if we were the only club to agree a fee (or rather, the first), and that if he didn't want to sign we could have created a situation where we found this out far sooner. So personally I do not think the club are blameless based on how this played out.

 

It's not the end of the world, we'll move on etc. But I don't agree that Saints did the best they could in the circumstance.

We were the first club to agree a fee. Last August.

[S-Clarke]

And also, it puts to bed all the shouts that we should have had this done in January, or earlier in the season. The deal in place with Madrid was that we could only sign him in the summer window - once they had looked at their options, there was never at any single point, any opportunity to sign him during the season. But seemingly we did all we could in that time with the groundwork.

[Lallana's Left Peg]

We were the first club to agree a fee. Last August.

 

Not one we could enforce and enable the player to sign though.

[CB Fry]

Not one we could enforce and enable the player to sign though.

The fact you think we can "enforce" a player to sign for us is probably the nub of your problem here.

[Lallana's Left Peg]

The fact you think we can "enforce" a player to sign for us is probably the nub of your problem here.

 

A fee we could enforce, which enables the player to sign. That's what I typed. Not enforce the player to sign.

[CB Fry]

A fee we could enforce' date=' which enables the player to sign. That's what I typed. Not enforce the player to sign.[/quote']

Still meaningless. Agreeing a fee not really the issue here.

[Jonnyboy]

At least with that Echo article I can hurl abuse at Toby this season and not feel guilty about it.

[sotonist]

The fact you think we can "enforce" a player to sign for us is probably the nub of your problem here.

 

i think LLP means a price that we could enforce with athletico and get the deal done in a timely fashion, assuming that toby's head hadn't already been turned at that stage.

[S-Clarke]

A fee we could enforce' date=' which enables the player to sign. That's what I typed. Not enforce the player to sign.[/quote']

 

We couldn't enforce it though, that wasn't the agreement. He was a highly sought after player, we agreed a loan. Any option to buy him was never going to be a straight forward enforced fee, he was potentially too big an asset to Madrid. They made the sound business and football decision to give us an option, but to also give them an option to look at it in the summer and maybe sell for more. It's common sense stuff really. If he had an okish season, bit in and out injury wise, then we could have picked him up for that fee. But as he was pretty sound most of the season, a little injury spell out, but Madrid knew the open market would get a hell of a lot more than our fee.

 

At the end of the day he was their player. They were looking out for their best interests when they agreed the loan, not ours.

[Hodgey]

Irrelevant of what anyone believes on what actually happened, it is another PR disaster, I was hoping we had learnt about the importance of playing the media after last years debacle. You can't release a statement on Monday threatening legal action and on Friday state that the club 4 days ago you were threatening to sue behaved exceptionally professional - which is it ?. Yes Toby played us, but we could have handled it miles better than mud slinging athletico, meanwhile always praising the one person who obviously did mess us about. I just hope that story about us trying to gazzump WHU wasn't true - as that did seem like a desperate act from a club about to lose their plan b (and a failed one at that). Let's move on, i think we have made 2 excellent signings, 1 plain weird signing so hopefully the black box still has some ideas.

[Lallana's Left Peg]

Still meaningless. Agreeing a fee not really the issue here.

 

We didn't agree a fee until Spurs had agreed a deal and Toby was having a medical with Spurs.

 

My belief is that we would have either had a better chance of signing Toby, or at the very least would have known earlier of his desire to go elsewhere, had we agreed a fee with Atletico in a more timely fashion which would have allowed him to sign if he wanted, or made him tell us to wait or just 'no'. Then we can move onto other targets instead of being made to look like fools.

[LGTL]

So basically Toby played us for fools. Oh well, move on.

[CB Fry]

We couldn't enforce it though, that wasn't the agreement. He was a highly sought after player, we agreed a loan. Any option to buy him was never going to be a straight forward enforced fee, he was potentially too big an asset to Madrid. They made the sound business and football decision to give us an option, but to also give them an option to look at it in the summer and maybe sell for more. It's common sense stuff really. If he had an okish season, bit in and out injury wise, then we could have picked him up for that fee. But as he was pretty sound most of the season, a little injury spell out, but Madrid knew the open market would get a hell of a lot more than our fee.

 

At the end of the day he was their player. They were looking out for their best interests when they agreed the loan, not ours.

No, no, no.

 

We enforce the fee and in the whirlwind Toby signs with us, probably in some kind of cell or secure unit.

 

Then, several weeks later, maybe in October, Toby rings his DadAgent and lazily muses over the phone "hey Dad, do you think there are any other football clubs in the world that would ever want to sign me.....?"

[shurlock]

Being that we've done it before, that may suggest we've tried it before and we may have tried it with Clyne. But create a culture where you are so driven by fear that you are extending contracts year after year is going to create even more of a player power situation.

 

So this time last year Clyne gets a pay rise, what about, say, Victor? And if he did, then why not Victor again this season, another pay rise, just to keep the wolves from the door. So would Mane, Pelle and Tadic deserve a pay rise then if Victor's getting one? Bertrand only signed his six months ago but if Victor, Mane and Tadic getting one does he deserve another pay rise? What's the gamble we take on JWP right now? Five years on £80k to stop him being poached? Or we leave him out of the pay rise club for now, and decide we don't want to demonstrate how much we want to keep him, but do some others?

 

Fonte as club captain is seeing annual pay rises being doled out, so where's his?

 

Starting a culture where we are renewing contracts with two, three years left on them is probably not what Les and co have in mind.

 

Not so sure it's driven by fear; rather that it is the outcome of learning. Nobody knew for certain that Schneiderlin would make the step up from the championship or Wanyama would be good in a real league -uncertainties that would have been reflected in the players initial contracts. Once this information is revealed, however, there is every incentive to protect that value, before other clubs learn about those players quality.

 

Does it mean doling extensions and pay rises to all and sundry? Again not so sure. It would seem to apply large to players whose value you want to protect (Davis, Fonte and Pelle have limited resale value) and players who have high, but uncertain ceilings such that big clubs are interested but still reluctant to make a move.

[shurlock]

And also, it puts to bed all the shouts that we should have had this done in January, or earlier in the season. The deal in place with Madrid was that we could only sign him in the summer window - once they had looked at their options, there was never at any single point, any opportunity to sign him during the season. But seemingly we did all we could in that time with the groundwork.

 

Not really. All Reed is saying is that we couldn't sign him under the specific terms of the loan/option to purchase. However, nothing legally stopped the clubs putting that agreement aside and negotiating a new deal, if they (and player) had wanted to.

Edited 10 July, 2015 by shurlock

[OldNick]

The fact you think we can "enforce" a player to sign for us is probably the nub of your problem here.

I thought we were told that no player will leave unless we are happy for them to go, so that would infer that we could enforce a player to stay.

It is also amusing that most of the time we are told the the Echo is full of rubbish and then when it suits we suck up their story re TA as chapter and verse.

The legal route soon was pushed under the carpet.

Also last pre season we were told that all the transfer money in would be spent on players ( not withstanding the 30m war chest and Sky money) We are now told that we need to sell before spend.

The fans always are taken as mugs and whatever side of the fence we fall in, we are being played.

I am calm about the lack of players coming in at present and will give the club a bit of slack, but come the start of the season if they have not bought some quality we may regret it.

Had we purchased a couple of quality players in January the CL could well have been obtainable

[angelman]

So basically Toby played us for fools. Oh well, move on.

 

Us? Not me gov. I for one, and there are others, do not take the word of a footballer as gospel, and said on that thread, that it really was up to him who he signed for regardless of what he had said in the past. The club was in a tricky position of having to take the player at his word and hoping that is the case. Us supporters can be a whole lot more sceptical and see hollow platitudes for what they were.

 

And then he has the gall to come out with complete bolhocks thanking RK and the club for making him a footballer again and how grateful he is. Seemingly so grateful that he is happy to flip us the bird and sign for another team. Can't work out whether something was lost in translation or whether he is the typical thick as 2 short plank footballer. I tend to think for some reason that over seas footballers are more intelligent than our home grown ones, but really, I have no idea or justification why that should be so.

[doddisalegend]

Could be worse.....

 

[ATTACH]1741[/ATTACH]

 

LOL:lol: he forgot to add unless someone meets my 8 million buy out clause in brackets underneath

[doddisalegend]

I thought we were told that no player will leave unless we are happy for them to go, so that would infer that we could enforce a player to stay.

It is also amusing that most of the time we are told the the Echo is full of rubbish and then when it suits we suck up their story re TA as chapter and verse.

The legal route soon was pushed under the carpet.

Also last pre season we were told that all the transfer money in would be spent on players ( not withstanding the 30m war chest and Sky money) We are now told that we need to sell before spend.

The fans always are taken as mugs and whatever side of the fence we fall in, we are being played.

I am calm about the lack of players coming in at present and will give the club a bit of slack, but come the start of the season if they have not bought some quality we may regret it.

 

Had we purchased a couple of quality players in January the CL could well have been obtainable

 

Hardly the same thing we can make a player already signed to the club to stick to his contract we can't force a player at another club to sign a contract....

[angelman]

Bit like Lallana and all the other badge kissers who jump ship as soon as more money comes about. They had an interesting thing on talkSport the other day, and they were talking to the ex manager of some Champ or L1 and they all agreed that nearly all transfers were about money. Not the chance of CL or playing more, money. Sterling moving from Pool to City is about money. He is almost guaranteed to start all games at Pool, but not at City. Delph the same. These guys love money more than playing football.

[Saint Charlie]

So basically Toby played us for fools. Oh well, move on.

 

I agree. Also a good position for the club to put out to supporters.

 

I still like Toby tbh and hope he does well personally. Hold no grudges.

[Joesaint]

People saying about the non-deal with alderweireld being a PR disaster... Really?

 

I'm not sure many people will think anything of it, especially when the season starts. What matters is moving on, which it seems is what we are doing. It is not a PR disaster, we are Saints and not considered as big as Spuds, simple so just get over it. If anyone looses face, it's Alderwireld, as he said he wanted to stay, and when given the chose chose not too. He wont b as good there anyway, will loose confidence and score own goals.... well, maybe not that good an outcome but I though Lovren was quality!!

 

 

COYS

[CanadaSaint]

It has always been so. Whenever a player from a so-called smaller club links up with his national squad, he's exposed to a variety of head-turning conversations with "big club" players.

 

I'm sure this happened with Lallana and Clyne, and I'm sure it happened with Toby and with Schneiderlin.

 

A fact of life for clubs like us is that the very thing that makes us successful also makes us vulnerable.

 

And there's not a damn thing that Reed and Koeman can do about it, other than try their best to keep them and - if that fails - replace them well. And they have done that very well, although you'd never know it from some of the childish whining on here.

[Viking Warrior]

Good to see we have other bids in . Hopefully somebody new in the next few days

[Ex Lion Tamer]

Can someone please summarise the key points apart from Toby stuff? Or did he say nothing else of interest?

[CB Fry]

Not so sure it's driven by fear; rather that it is the outcome of learning. Nobody knew for certain that Schneiderlin would make the step up from the championship or Wanyama would be good in a real league -uncertainties that would have been reflected in the players initial contracts. Once this information is revealed, however, there is every incentive to protect that value, before other clubs learn about those players quality.

 

Does it mean doling extensions and pay rises to all and sundry? Again not so sure. It would seem to apply large to players whose value you want to protect (Davis, Fonte and Pelle have limited resale value) and players who have high, but uncertain ceilings such that big clubs are interested but still reluctant to make a move.

 

Does Mane need a contract extension and a pay rise?

 

In my opinion he's our most likely Champions League departee this time next year.

 

So at least one more year plus a pay rise, right?

 

But does that mean

 

a) he signs it and it prevents any club considering buying him until 2017. Happy days.

b) alert him and his agent of his current clubs perceived increase in value prompting them to look about and maybe start sounding out other clubs

c) upset other team mates who aren't getting new contracts offered despite being at the club longer than a year

d) create a three month contract negotiation resulting in him not signing it, suggesting to the club and his team mates he isn't that committed

e) clever agent feeds "X Club are interested in Mane" as part of those negotiations, creating even more meltdown on this forum

 

I just think the idea of committing to more contract interventions earlier and earlier is going to solve any more problems than it creates.

[Batman]

I would say that starting talks with vic now is pretty sensible. May take a fair few months but hey ho

[Redslo]

Can someone please summarise the key points apart from Toby stuff? Or did he say nothing else of interest?

 

I will be posting a transcript on my blog later today. (Today in California time, not that crazy English time.)

[CB Fry]

I thought we were told that no player will leave unless we are happy for them to go, so that would infer that we could enforce a player to stay.

 

One, I don't think we've ever said that, maybe something about ensuring clubs meet our asking prices. With Chambers for example Les/Ronald basically came out and said "he wanted to go".

 

and

 

Two, we weren't enforcing a contracted player to stay, but for Toby to sign for us, which we cannot enforce.

 

Other than that, bang on.

Edited 10 July, 2015 by CB Fry

[Ex Lion Tamer]

I would say that starting talks with vic now is pretty sensible. May take a fair few months but hey ho

There's just no way he's interested in signing, he'll want to keep his options open for next summer. No matter how much we all want to believe there is a solution, sometimes there isn't. The club isn't that incompetent that they wouldn't give him a longer contract if they could

[Ex Lion Tamer]

I will be posting a transcript on my blog later today. (Today in California time, not that crazy English time.)

Thanks, appreciated

[Batman]

There's just no way he's interested in signing, he'll want to keep his options open for next summer. No matter how much we all want to believe there is a solution, sometimes there isn't. The club isn't that incompetent that they wouldn't give him a longer contract if they could

 

Jay signed. He didn't have to

We probably shouldn't have bothered offering him a new one. And made it public too

Edited 10 July, 2015 by Batman

[CB Fry]

There's just no way he's interested in signing, he'll want to keep his options open for next summer. No matter how much we all want to believe there is a solution, sometimes there isn't. The club isn't that incompetent that they wouldn't give him a longer contract if they could

 

100% this.

 

Victor would be stupid to sign anything with us now, what's the point when he might get a clutch of better offers.

 

As I said earlier, it's just another version of "Why don't we do our transfer business early??" type stuff. Like the people running the club have never considered such a thing but forum geniuses have. The wisdom of the bleeding obvious.

[eelpie]

So Toby's gone, That's business. We lost.

 

Meanwhile, are we suing AM for the 2m euros, or not?

[Batman]

So Toby's gone, That's business. We lost.

 

Meanwhile, are we suing AM for the 2m euros, or not?

 

Seems not

[diggers]

Haven't got time to read the whole thread but the one snippet that caught my attention was when Les said "Athletico returned our Deposit" rather than buying us out of our option which is what I thought the general consensus was??? Being the case, we didn't make a dime on the deal, even more gut wrenching :-(