Xhaka to Chelsea apparently?!
Have you been drinking @Jamiewednesday ?
2 Likes
According to Lee Ryder the chief Newcastle United writer for The Chronicle Arsenal turned down Sandro Tonali because of his £275,000 per week wage demands and the 10% agents fee though The Spuds have apparently said they will meet the players demands.
Ryder also reports that sources in Brazil claim Bruno Guimaraes has a release clause of £60 million triggered because Newcastle failed to qualify for this coming season’s Champions League it looks to be an interesting few days for Newcastle United fans.
1 Like
Apparently he wanted a new challenge? Translation, he wanted more than we were prepared to pay. He improved last season I thought but he still has regular mistakes in him. Shame he’s moving on all the same.
2 Likes
Sorry to see him leave, but, you’re right, he was never that far away from a costly error … … … though not on the supreme level of Calamity Cooper!
M.O.T.
2 Likes
Still no formal bid received by Newcastle Bob, so don’t build your hopes up yet. As for Tonali, if you lived in the North East, you’d realise how unreliable Lee Ryder is. Personally, I’d try and keep Bruno, rather than Tonali. Bruno is the heartbeat of our team. But, if he goes, it is what it is.
I do agree with what you said earlier; Newcastle need to become a better ‘trading club’. If they both go, that’s our 4 best players (with Gordon and The Rat) we’d have sold within 2 years. All of whom we had good service from and all of which we will have sold at a handsome profit. The thing we need to get better at is recruitment/buying well.
That was a pretty low offer
I saw my club after the move to the Emirates sell off all our best players. As the story goes as we where moving into the Emirates Arsenal where advised to develop Highbury themselves rather than selling it to a developer.
Fast forward a couple of years the banking crisis coupled with backside falling out of the housing market saw us in a real financial mess add that to the battle for full control of the club between Kroenke and Usmanov (neither would invest a penny they thought might end up benefitting the other later on) it was only Arsene Wenger providing Champions League football every season, a loyal fanbase and the sale of our biggest stars that kept real financial problems away. Fabregas, Van Persie, Nasri, Clichy, Toure, Adebayour where all sold to balance the books. Wenger has sited that period as his greatest managerial achievement.
When lending Arsenal the money to move grounds the Bank stipulated Wenger must stay at the club for at least five years but even after that he could have left us several times and so it was really sickening to see him treated the way he was at the end.
2 Likes
£8 million for Granit Xhaka is a ridiculous offer.
2 Likes
When you look at Sunderland with him and without him, you’d need to multiply that offer by 4
That’s interesting Bob, and I know it was a difficult time for Arsenal. All of my career (I’m retired now) was spent in Corporate Banking and I actually worked on the funding deal for the Tottenham Hotspur stadium.
I wasn’t involved with the Arsenal deal, but my understanding (from a friend at one the banks involved), was that Wenger staying was a ‘gentleman’s agreement’, rather than a condition for the loan going ahead. Also, apparently the move was driven more by Wenger, than the banks. I have that on good authority and it shows what a good egg Wenger was. I liked him, a great manager.
2 Likes
Applying nothing other than common sense at the time, I guessed exactly what you said about your clubs financial situation at the time of the ground move. I remember writing about it on this forum & was surprised to receive no comments from anyone stating how right or wrong I was.
I have no love or hate for Arsenal (unless you are luckily beating us for the umpteenth time!) but felt very sorry for Wenger over the way he was villefied for the clubs decline towards the end of his tenure.
He was incredibly loyal towards the club, refusing to state the obvious, namely that there was no money for players who could compete at the top level. He took the flack from the media & Arsenal’s own supporters that the board were too cowardly to publicly acknowledge. He seemed Arsenal through & through & should have been offered a senior position at board level which, I feel, he deserved & would have shortened the wait for the Premier League title.
1 Like
Blimey, both barrels. With silencer attached…
2 Likes
Oh lord. We’ve behaved way above out station. Splashing big money on a new player.
Here comes Bob to whine about our behaviour and tell us the player is not worth it and we are distorting the rules of nuclear physics. Naughty, naughty Spurs..
1 Like
Hopefully Fernandes will complete his relegation hat trick after Southampton and West Ham… 
5 Likes
I hope Saints had a “sell on” clause when we sold him to the Hammers!
But we’ve both done good business there 
which will keep the owner’s bankers* happy.
(*insert other letters here)
We have many things in common!
1 Like
We badly need midfielders but we didn’t badly need that midfielder at that price.
1 Like