| yeekiat wrote: |
I'm still hoping that we won't sign Barry! Sure he is a good player but not when it means losing Alonso!
Heard that Spurs won't want Crouch so they want 20m pounds for Keane. Don't think we'll be able to fork out that much so that deal might be dead, unless we sell Alonso to get Keane or we can negotiate for a lower price.
Getting Keane would be a major boost for me. Always liked him as a player. |
What's the difference between giving Crouch + £5m-£10m and giving
Spurs £20m but just selling Crouch elsewhere? We can definitely get money for him as well - i seem to recall one Harry Redknapp saying "their valuation is too high. If it were £10m, then we could start talking" (or words to that effect, it was a while ago). So that's Keane down to £10m... then use all of Rick Parry's bargaining skills to try and lower the price by a few mil (albeit the most likely scenario would probably mean he'd end up getting us paying £11m instead)...
As for Barry, it is becoming a farce. I wanted Barry and £14m was what i thought he'd leave for - £17m-£18m is a monstrous inflation of his actual value. Let's not forget that is the price we paid for Mascherano around February, a man who's regarded as one of, if not the, best defensive midfielders in the world, and is 3 or 4 years younger. The "oh he's English so we'll double our his fee" principle really,
really grates on me.
For the first time this summer i think we should just tell Martin O'Neill to [beep!] off and withdraw our interest of Barry altogether. Then, even though i've said he should perhaps leave, we should use all our man management skills to persuade Alonso that he has a future at the club, and keep him. Then we use the £17m-ish money from Barry on a quality left-winger, get Robbie Keane in, get Gerrard on the f*cking right, tell him to shut up and do what he's told, build the side more around Alonso, who is stiffled by playing so deep i think, he owns people when allowed to move forward like Gerrard does, and you have something like this:
-------------------------------------------------Torres--------------------------
----------------------------Keane-----------------------------------------------
---------Silva------------------------------------------------------Gerrard-----
-------------------------------------------------Alonso--------------------------
-------------------------Mascherano--------------------------------------------
-------Dossena-------Agger/Skrtel---------Carragher----------Arbeloa-----
--------------------------------------Reina--------------------------------------
That sextet in midfield/attack, when all on form, would be devestating. DEVESTATING. To me, that would EASILY be able to compete with United,
Chelsea and
Arsenal.
Mind you, it won't happen. We won't buy Silva i don't think, we won't play 4-4-2 i don't think, Gerrard would never allow himself to be pushed out onto the right i don't think, and Keane is still a long-shot i think.
Hmm. Still, we should axe the Barry move, sadly, and show more faith in Alonso. He had more license to go forward in his earlier seasons and it showed. I've made a bit of a U-turn on Alonso, annoyingly when he's certain to leave.
I do wonder whether we'll sign Barry if Villa continue to be tw*ts about his price. £18m i heard they want. Will we pay that?
