trousers

"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]

Ah, ok - Cheers

What's the press conference for?

Cheers WG

Thanks. Done that. It came up with this thread. What next? I'll get the hang of this internet malarkey one of these days...

That's one of my favourite goals against us. I find it amusing that, to this day, Pompey fans still celebrate (with bus-parade and ticker-tape exuberance) the goal that earned them a draw.... a point that contributed to us being promoted and a loss of 2 points that contributed to them being relegated. A satisfying goal on more than one level

Would be hard cheese for Villa if he ended up here... (yes, I know that wouldn't even be funny if the play-on-words actually fitted properly )

Greetings fellow travellers, Having bent your collective earlobes a few months ago seeking advice on a potential holiday to Mexico, Lady Trousers and I have ended up booking a trip to the Hawaiian islands instead.... (long and slightly dull story) So, now seeking any tips, advice, recommendations, etc, from anyone who has been to Hawai'i before We're doing 6 days in Honolulu followed by 7 days on the 'Big Island' and then 2 days in San Francisco on the way home. Huli pau!

I don't wish to sound too much like a wise-after-the-event smart arse (oh, go on then, just a tinsy bit...), but it was always going to be a prime candidate for TV (IMO). Caveat Emptor. Or, to put it another way.... Mea navis volitans anguillis plena est

c.2009 Keep up

Transform it into 20 pence over the course of 3 years and then start up a new forum whilst pretending that the bad parts of the old one never existed yet forever extolling how wonderful it was?

The words 'disaster' and 'recipe' spring to mind....

http://www.tribalfootball.com/articles/southampton-bournemouth-battle-for-saint-etienne-winger-max-gradel-4084569 ?

Benali sold his chair for £8m

Boney M