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Dirty Dealings or Hard Business


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Don't we look after agents a lot more than we used to? Put them up in nice Hotels and that? This has been an approach used by clubs for a while, Shakhtar Donestk are one example. Certainly we seem to be 'playing the game' with agents a bit more than we used to. Definitely an Ashley thing as evidenced by the initial appointments of Tony Jiminez and Jeff Vetere and the Nacho Gonzalez affair. Its good (and smart) to see us greasing the wheel. Look at the turnover league table. This is one way of us at least being able to attempt to level the playing field.

 

I doubt it - Stretford even had an office in SJP and employed Shepherd's son while Mckay and Shepherd were also said to be close.

 

if anything the gonzalez affair was just another low point in the club's history and i'm glad we've moved on from such amateur nonsense.

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Three times we've bid for players this year and been told publically that our bid "wasn't serious".

 

I'm all for cutting a good deal but I'm not sure what the point is of these uber low bids

 

Because if someone accepts your first offer then you've offered too much.

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Don't we look after agents a lot more than we used to? Put them up in nice Hotels and that? This has been an approach used by clubs for a while, Shakhtar Donestk are one example. Certainly we seem to be 'playing the game' with agents a bit more than we used to. Definitely an Ashley thing as evidenced by the initial appointments of Tony Jiminez and Jeff Vetere and the Nacho Gonzalez affair. Its good (and smart) to see us greasing the wheel. Look at the turnover league table. This is one way of us at least being able to attempt to level the playing field.

 

I doubt it - Stretford even had an office in SJP and employed Shepherd's son while Mckay and Shepherd were also said to be close.

 

if anything the gonzalez affair was just another low point in the club's history and i'm glad we've moved on from such amateur nonsense.

 

Fair point regarding Stretford and McKay. That being said there is probably fairly decent grounds for suspecting there was a fair bit of kicking back going on. Also Mike probably has a bit more nouse for getting things done than Freddy.  I may well be wrong but aren't the aforementioned also responsible for predominantly English based players? I think you can cite our knowledge of Cabaye's clause and the complete lack of interest from other clubs at that fee as being evidence of strings being pulled somewhere.

 

I mean its all speculation but I find it hard to believe that we can be this efficient in the transfer market without knowing who to talk to and how to get things done.

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Guest hydeous

I just think there's too much money with too few clubs right now.

We're doing a great job on a decent budget, but we're losing out on a few targets we might really need.

I just hope it doesn't come back to bite us someday.

Good scouting of multiple targets for each position seems to have saved us from any disasters so far. Let's hope this continues.

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I'm delighted with our current approach. And I can't see how it can backfire. After all, we're going for players who have release clauses a lot of the time, which means the "selling" club has to accept it. Doesn't matter one iota if they like us or not.

 

As for the low offers, it's sensible. When haggling over something, if you don't offend the other person with your first offer, then you've offered too much.

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Don't we look after agents a lot more than we used to? Put them up in nice Hotels and that? This has been an approach used by clubs for a while, Shakhtar Donestk are one example. Certainly we seem to be 'playing the game' with agents a bit more than we used to. Definitely an Ashley thing as evidenced by the initial appointments of Tony Jiminez and Jeff Vetere and the Nacho Gonzalez affair. Its good (and smart) to see us greasing the wheel. Look at the turnover league table. This is one way of us at least being able to attempt to level the playing field.

 

Not sure what I'm basing this on, but I thought we had gone the other way in the post-Wise/Vetere/Keegan disaster.

 

Got a fair memory of a Llambias article where he was laying into agents and wanted to remove them from the equation as much as possible.

 

Could have been the LSD talking mind.

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Whilst I do understand (and appreciate) the reasons behind this hard business approach, there does come a point when it's the wrong approach to adopt. For the sake of saving an extra million pounds, we could lose out on a really good player and that would be really annoying especially when more often or not, our plan B is virtually non-existent or just plain silly.

 

Btw, I think it's a good thing that we're no longer in a position where we're spending silly money on players.

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Guest Realist

Whilst I do understand (and appreciate) the reasons behind this hard business approach, there does come a point when it's the wrong approach to adopt. For the sake of saving an extra million pounds, we could lose out on a really good player and that would be really annoying especially when more often or not, our plan B is virtually non-existent or just plain silly.

Struggling to think of examples, he;lp.
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Whilst I do understand (and appreciate) the reasons behind this hard business approach, there does come a point when it's the wrong approach to adopt. For the sake of saving an extra million pounds, we could lose out on a really good player and that would be really annoying especially when more often or not, our plan B is virtually non-existent or just plain silly.

Struggling to think of examples, he;lp.

 

Well this Carroll thing for one.

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Guest Realist

Whilst I do understand (and appreciate) the reasons behind this hard business approach, there does come a point when it's the wrong approach to adopt. For the sake of saving an extra million pounds, we could lose out on a really good player and that would be really annoying especially when more often or not, our plan B is virtually non-existent or just plain silly.

Struggling to think of examples, he;lp.

 

Well this Carroll thing for one.

Ehhhhh .... thought the Luuk de Jong reports were we'd bid €10m and they're now selling him to that German club I can't spell for €15m+ ... that's ~£4m.

 

I get that the perception is we're so set on not being taken for a ride financially that we'd miss out on targets for a pittance but I don't think it's been an established pattern.

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