trousers

So, if those talks never conclude then Toby doesn't sign for Spurs? Excellent news. Keep them talking for c.9 months Les.

Precisely

"was due" but didn't turn up or "was due" and turned up? Journo in being vague enough to be interpreted in more than one way shocker....

Mods - I've got an idea for a new forum feature. It's working title is: "What Alps said on this day last year" and the idea is that every day during the transfer window we post what Alps said on this day last year (the more astute will have noticed the clue in the title). As a pre-cursor to this idea receiving mod approval, I thought I'd dig out what Alps was saying this time last year (he didn't post on 7th July 2014 so, for illustration of how this might work, I've taken the liberty of retrieving his posts from 6th July instead.) Let me know what you think. It could become quite a popular feature IMO. (p.s. no offence alps me ol' mucker. Just a bit of fun. I'm easily amused )

Source? Cheers

If one of the things he "wasn't very good at" was insuring that any 'option to buy' clause in loanee contracts was watertight, then the Toby situation could be the straw that broke the camel's back and thus directly related to his departure. All conjecture, of course, but an entirely plausible (conspiracy) theory nonetheless.

I don't recall anyone saying it would be "impossible". Some people said IF the contract was watertight in our favour then we would be in a strong position, which would be the case, but given no-one knows how watertight the contract is nothing is "impossible" as things stand.

No sign of Les Reed in the Cuco Martina photoshoot. I guess he must be elsewhere....

That would only be naive if the contract wording said: "You won't get him for £6.8m even if we (Athletico Madrid) don't pay the £1.5m option cancellation payment on time". If the contract says: "You will get him for £6.8m if you want him, unless we pay you £1.5m before 1st July" then we've done exactly the right thing. It obviously all depends on the wording of the contract, the exact content of which none of us know about.

All totally correct of course. So, are you therefore suggesting that we shouldn't try and hypothesis what might have happened? It looks like I may have misinterpreted what an internet football forum is all about. It's only taken me 38,368 posts to work it out. Hey ho, you live and learn

I'm not a 'big business' negotiator but I'd imagine we were playing the "keep a low profile so that we don't alert AM that we're desperate to sign him" card in the knowledge that AM didn't have the 2 millions euros at their disposal to buy out the contract. The only way the "bargain would go through" is if we didn't shout about it from the rooftops. IMO of course.

As I mentioned earlier, had we gone for the "offer to pay £12m several weeks ago" approach, you'd have had people on here after the event saying we'd "got our ass kicked" for blinking too soon when we could have waited and got him for £6.9m....

"What seems most likely now is that Atletico will pay Southampton the 2 million euros once they have received the initial payment from Tottenham for Alderweireld." So (as others have already alluded to), the implication is that AM, being skint, needed to sell before they had access to the 2 million euros to give to Saints, but the contract didn't/doesn't allow them to sell before paying the release fee. Saints knew this and pounced just before AM were about to break the terms of the contract. (Appreciate I'm not saying anything we don't already know there, just paraphrasing my understanding of why AM didn't pay the 2 million euros up front.)

Fair point

I'm inclined to believe that the club would only have played their "leak the legal stuff to the media" card if Toby was still telling them behind the scenes that he wanted to stay at Saints. If, however, it was clear to the club that he wanted to play for Spurs rather than us then I don't see any point in the club fighting for a player that wants to be somewhere else. (of course, the Morgan situation this time last year somewhat blows my above theory out of the water....i.e. the club did fight to keep player who wanted to leave.... still, its good to think out loud....sometimes )

Embellished it for you

If the contract situation is as watertight as the club appear to be indicating, then it would have daft (from a business perspective) to commit yourself to an additional £5m when the 'wait for the deadline to pass' approach still leaves the door open to negotiate if AM stumped up the £1.5m to cancel the contract option. I'm sure if we'd paid £12m and then we found out we could have got him for £6.9m if we'd waited a few days there would be people saying we should've waited....

As a last resort (as far as I can tell).. The accusation is that Spurs (and others) often do it as a first resort. Comparing like with like would be ironic. This isn't (IMO).

The difference is that certain other clubs often do their business via the press as a first resort, whereas as for us its a last resort manoeuvre. IMO of course.

[emoji38]