Gorgiesaint

Saw a report in the press yesterday that Werder Bremen were interested in him.

Swapped players, don't try and re-write it into something its not. He was make-weight in removing any future add-on's from the Bale sale, at a time when we needed cash there & then, not in 6 months time. In hindsight, it was a terrible deal, but the alternative might have been administration much earlier than it happened - and who know if Markus & Nicola would have stepped in? Laugh all you want, but remember SISU were sniffing around at that time - we could've avoided Forecast and done a Coventry instead...

You're kidding, they've still got Bale, Suarez & Rooney to talk about. Is there anyone else?

Some updates from pompey on-line this evening would appreciated soooo much... (if anyone has a log-on?)

I know how you feel... Whittingham was just interviewed on Talksport, and instantly rolled out the old cliches aboutsell out today, how players have turned down bigger offers from other clubs just so they could play for pompey & their amazing fans... and how many season tickets have you sold ? ....

So as Coventry go into liquidation... pompey sign another player... http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/pompey/pompey-sign-powerhouse-defender-n-gala-1-5347902 mind you only on an initial one month contract.

What needs to be asked now is how a company can go into liquidation so soon after the administrator has taken a decision to sell the club out of administration. Surely someone needs to question the administrator because he surely cannot have made the best decision on behalf of the creditors otherwise he would have liquidated them previously. Hopefully this will put a stop to the dubious practice of selling to the same people who took the club into administration - as Otium who bought the company are basically SISU in a different name.

Not strictly relevant but interesting none the less, Talksport had Danny Higginbotham on on of their shows yesterday and they were talking about wages. He was at Derby when they got relegated and had a 10% wage cut built in for relegation, he then agreed to join Saints on a lower wage, with a clause saying it would be reviewed after he played 40 games for us. That 40 game review came in the middle of our relegation scrap so he felt it was wrong to mention it, but he did confirm that when we were relegated, his contract had a 60% wage cut built in. He did say the club were pretty underhand as then offered another new contract on an even lower figure (I'm guessing this must have been under Wilde and admin was already looming) which was then withdrawn, and eventually he felt hounded out of the club (accused the club of feeding false info to the media) and left for Stoke. It's the first time I've heard anyone confirm what the relegation clauses were.

Most of them don't though...

Some random guy in Istanbul....

There's a huge difference between MP being selective with the youngsters, giving some game time to those that he believes might be good enough & gently bringing them into a first team that's already performing at a reasonably high level.... and taking 8 or 9 youngsters because that's all we can afford and throwing them into the deep end of a Championship relegation struggle, where the team has been already looking out of its depth & then expecting this youngsters to play week after week. Not that I'm saying any of those youngsters would have turned out any differently... who knows... but it certainly didn't help their development in having to play them they we had to under Poortvliet.

Just left work at 6pm tonight and flicked onto Talksport for the drive home, and was listening to Neil Ashton hosting the Transfer tavern. He's also a Daily Mail journalist and he was interviewing Danny Higginbotham. They were talking about Saints academy and what they do right, the interesting comments was Neil Ashton's whose parting comment was that we had another rising star coming through the ranks in Calum Chambers, who he feels will go all the way. Nice bit of recognition.

Oops, sorry, wasn't supposed to be that big. The writing looked tiny when copied from the Mail.

No he didn't. In case you have difficulty reading the exact phrase, I've cut it from the article for you

I see that one-time rumoured transfer target Lucas Biglia appears to have joined Lazio from Anderlecht http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/12691/8833078/transfer-news-lucas-biglia-thrilled-to-link-up-with-lazio

Seems Ryan Dickson has been turned down by Plymouth... ouch... http://www.sportsmole.co.uk/football/plymouth-argyle/transfer-talk/news/dickson-fails-to-earn-plymouth-deal_93973.html

Going back to Toby Alderweireld, a few days ago on the 14th it appeared Bayer Leverkusen were in pole position to sign him according to this article on Football Oranje http://www.football-oranje.com/leverkusen-in-pole-position-for-alderweireld/ According to Sky Sports Foreign Paper Talk this morning, Bayer are no longer interested having made a couple of signings http://www1.skysports.com/transfer-centre/foreign-papertalk So he's stated he wants to move from Ajax and still available. One to follow as I get the feeling it may drag on a bit, similar to the chase for Alex Buttner last summer.

That's possible as an outcome, maybe I read the swap deal into it... still he seemed pretty confident in our interest in Alderweireld which I not heard anywhere else before.

Back to the subject... just listening to the Press Pass on Talksport, and they were talking about Liverpool targets. The Ajax defender Toby Alderweireld was mentioned, and one of the journalists said that they thought Southampton would scupper that as they were interested in him. He then probably blew any credibility by saying Ryan Bertrand wouldn't go to Liverpool either and indicated that some sort of swap with Luke Shaw.

http://www.football-italia.net/36413/osvaldo-reject-zenit-move Issue is, if he's turned down Zenit with an annual salary of 4.5m euro's, we won't be in a position to match or beat those wages (roughly £80k pw). Not sure he's coming across as that keen to leave Roma, yet....

Bad news from our perspective, Pellegrini saying that Edin Dzeko is staying at Manchester City so that one less player that could fill Cavani's spot at Napoli. Really does look like its coming down to Damiao for them, unless they've got someone in mid on the quiet. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/manchester-city/10177836/Manchester-City-striker-Edin-Dzeko-will-not-leave-Etihad-says-manager-Manuel-Pellegrini.html

It's all one big game of poker... This from Sky Sports News website from yesterday afternoon http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/12691/8820793/Napoli-yet-to-make-an-approach-for-Brazil-striker-Leandro-Damiao

Totally agree, Chaplow has been a model professional around the club and put in some fantastic performances as we rose from L1 through the Championship. Can only wish him the best with his new club, whoever that is. Whoever he goes on to play for, they'll have a great midfielder in their ranks. Amazing that we got him for £50k!

The issue with someone like RVP won't be the transfer fee, it'll be his wages that go with it. RVP will be on north of £200k pw, that's £10m a year just on his basic, then you've got his bonuses and NI contributions. If you spread the transfer fee over, say, a four year deal with everything in you've got to be looking at £20m a year. No way would Saints be able to afford that, although the initial transfer fee is within reach.

Do they dislike pompey as well then? That's 2 things in common with them....