Bad Bob wrote:Look, let's be realistic about this okay? First, as noted, it's the January window and no massive squad shake-ups happen in January for all the reasons I've discussed above. Anyone expecting that is not grasping the realities of modern football, IMO.
But, going beyond that for a minute...let's look at our particular situation this transfer window. The club was obviously negotiating to bring in both Suarez and Adam. That much we know for sure. According to rumours, we might well have also been inquiring about Ashley Young and Stephen Warnock but we can't be quite so certain about those. Anyway, we were proceeding as you do in January (and as you do once more under Dalglish at Liverpool): quietly negotiating behind the scenes, trying to get our main targets without giving away the farm. The grumblings coming from both Ajax and Blackpool attest to the fact that we were after their main men in a committed but prudent way, slowly advancing negotiations. Indeed, we accomplished what we set out to do with Saurez and I think we were probably getting close with Adam too.
Then, wham, in comes Chelsea with the Torres bid and he blindsides us with the transfer request with 3 days left in the fooking window. This upset the whole applecart my friends. Now, if Chelsea had really low-balled it, we could have told them to feck off...even with Nando's transfer request. No point letting go of the lad for cheap right? We would have knocked the chavs' offer back and told Torres to get his head down until the end of the season. But, Chelsea's offer wasn't that low-ball and, when you throw in the transfer request, it needed to be taken seriously. We were looking at getting 50 million quid for a lad who's been short of his best for some time now, perhaps on terminal decline and clearly not committed to the cause. Of course we had to take their offer. Of course we did. We might not have had a better offer come summer.
But, the minute we decided to accept the offer, we had to fill the hole Torres would leave. No question about it, finding another striker was top priority given how light we've been up front for a few years now and given that Suarez is untested in England. Everything else on our wish list had to take a backseat to this new priority and the clock was ticking. I'm sure that no one wanted to pay 35 million for Carroll but I think it's interesting we did. Clearly he was the man we wanted and money for once was going to be no object. I suspect we were planning a move for him in the summer but the Torres bullsh!t accelerated that time line. We needed him now and were prepared to pay what it took to pry him lose from the Barcodes.
But, in doing so, I suspect we had to abandon some of our other transfer plans. Other clubs were no doubt starting to take the p!ss with transfer fees once they caught wind that we would have the Torres money to spend. I have a strong suspicion that's what happened with Adam. Sure, we paid over the odds to land Carroll but I don't think the owners were prepared to make a habit of that with every transfer. In addition, you can't juggle too many balls at once: I'm sure that brokering the Torres and Carroll deals ate up most of the time of the last couple of days of the window and left little opportunity to seriously negotiate other deals. Much smarter to get the striker hole addressed and then sit tight until summer, when better prices for a wider pool of available quality players will surely allow us the best opportunity to revamp the squad responsibly.
So, I can understand a little disappointment about the transfer window but I don't think any serious criticism can be directed at the owners, who showed both their willingness to splash cash on a desired target and their discipline to sit tight and wait for better opportunities in the summer. No, if you must criticize someone for our disappointing window criticize Fernando fecking Torres for driving a bus through our transfer game-plan at the 11th hour. Without his selfishness we might have seen a very different set of targets landed on the last day of the window.
Good post Bob.
No doubt about the madness of the last three days, and the way that would have upset the apple cart, but what about the rest of the transfer window?
Suarez, Adam, and yes, to a point Young, were trucking along. I would have liked to have heard the name of a CB and/or LB in the mix too.
Perhaps the eleventh hour bid for Richards was planned to happen sooner but Carroll rightly needed to take priority, but the window is longer than 3 days!
I don't think I'm being unrealistic, I wasn't execting a whole new team. And I did enjoy the window in a way I don't remember enjoying one for years. I just felt there are some significant gaps that we a missed an opportunity to even look at.
Still, I'm looking forward to the summer window.
Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2011 6:29 pm
