Arruda

Still no one but the Guardian (or journos quoting the Guardian) giving this deal as done...

I can see where that comes from. Hulk can be neutralized and that has a bigger chance of happening if we're playing a superior team and he's perceived as our only threat. I think if he's integrated in a team with other top class players it won't be so easy to single him out as the rest of the team should be able to provide a constant threat as well. It's a possibility, I'm not saying I'm sure this will case. Also, of all those games you mentioned most happened more than two years ago. Last year we were in the Europa League (were he was instrumental to our success) and this year we were sh*t in both the Champions League and Europa League all together. There's only so much he can do by himself, our team took a big confidence and performance hit with the loss of AVB, of which we haven't recovered completely yet despite winning the league this year. I think Hulk improved a lot in these past two seasons, specially under AVB, his decision making improved and he became more of a team player. I sincerely hope he can deliver the goods, and hope a year from now everyone looks at him as a valuable signing, I haven't admired a player (both in and off the pitch) like I admire him in a good time, and if it's confirmed he goes to Chelsea, then you'll certainly gain a few more part-time supporters in Portugal.

Funny people doubting Hulk's stats because he plays in the Portuguese League... Like if the French League is a superior indicator, they're even behind us in UEFA rankings at the moment (almost with the same points). How many players from our league have had similar success? None. It's not that easy. Quite simply, Hulk's the best player in one of the top 10-15ish teams in Europe. To value him at 20m is condescendent and stupid. That aside, I find it stranger that no further developments have been announced today. All media in Portugal has been using The Guardian (which I reckon it's a respectable newspaper from what I read here) as source. Is it really certain that it's a done deal, and for that reported value? I'd expect our newspapers to have come with information on their own by now if that's the case.

where did that come from? ABola site doesn't have anything and their official twitter doesn't either. Sport, a catalan newspaper, reported those values today, but reporting "sources with knowledge of the operation" without saying who they were.

There is also a twit by Danilo saying Hulk's twitter isn't real:

http://fcporto24.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=47&start=3820#p265272 It does look like a fake account anyway, wouldn't make much sense for him to be smooth talking with Chelsea fans when he's still bound to us. Our club wouldn't allow it, and it's not like it's his style to do that anyway. Irrelevant nevertheless, it is well known he would welcome a transfer to Chelsea, irrespective of the account being real or not. I was just pointing out that it's likely a fake account, I'd expect Porto fans to be better informed about that issue.

Most Porto fans are sure that twitter account is fake. Hulk doesn't use social networking. I wouldn't now, I'm not much into that twitter thing.

I'd put it more simpler than that actually, it's just that the average standard of player here is lower, so a young talent has a bigger chance chance of being inherently better than the competition, even from a young age. We actually don't rotate our squad much, our league is only 30 games long and there is usually a pretty well defined starting XI. A player like James Rodríguez gets game time to develop here not because we're a less competitive league but because even at 19 he's good enough to warrant a first team place, unlike it would happen if he was at Chelsea or Real Madrid. If it were like you say than Benfica wouldn't be able to follow the same policy (and they do) because they can never afford to lose points. The dominance in the league is one-sided. He probably would get a place at a team like Everton or Palermo just like here, but we have an advantage of offering the chance to win titles and to compete in Champions League regularly. We're the perfect team for them to give the jump.

So he's a tough negotiator... How can you blame him for trying to get the most possible for his club? Chelsea will pay whatever it thinks it's fair, if both clubs disagree with the value of the player then there will be no deal. Pinto da Costa's success speaks for himself, he's second to none at his job.

That Rodriguez went for a free, his contract expired. He wasn't a regular option any more, makes little difference to our plans except lowering our wage bill. Awful player, we don't always "get it right". Atletico Madrid are broke so they're looking for free transfers, Cristian Rodriguez, Emre...

Anything less than what Falcao went for will be a bad deal for us in my opinion. He's simply to important for us. I'm sure we will try to go for higher than that, if we will make it or not, it depends who we're doing business with.

That post was just tongue in cheek because of Eva, I don't expect us to make €50m with him. Keeping an unsatisfied player is usually not good, but occasionally we do it anyway. It's not good for us to send the message that any player can just fret and leave when he wants either. Sometimes their performance is hurt and the player gets devalued (I think this happened with Ãlvaro Pereira this season) but many times they keep improving and we get the deal we want the following year. Had we allowed Deco to leave in 2003 like he wanted we wouldn't have been European Champions in 2004. No one pointed a gun to Hulk's head to sign the contract he has with us (that includes his wage, the biggest in our club, and the buy-out clause that locks him in here). He'll leave if we get what we think it's a fair deal for him. How much our management thinks that is I don't know, be it 30, 40, 50. We have other options for cashing in if we're unable to sell him this season. Ãlvaro Pereira, Rolando, Moutinho, Fernando, James Rodríguez, are all players that can go for a decent fee (we already got €13m for Guarin). The first two are very likely to be offloaded this summer, it's gotten to the point were their presence is doing more harm than good. Same cannot be said about Hulk, he has been an extremely hard working professional so far and there's nothing in his behaviour indicating that he won't continue to be, even if he is unfortunate to stay another season. Nevertheless, and like I said, I hope the deal comes to fruition. I think Chelsea's the right club for him and he deserves the "jump" for all he has given us. That said, we will obviously not damage the clubs interests at that expense. He cost us €22m in total plus wages, so he's certainly not leaving for less than €30m, he's worth more in the pitch for us.

€50m guys. Or €20m + Eva, I would take that.

Well, I wish I could say but unfortunately he played about 90 minutes of football the whole season, 10 or 20 minutes at a time. The manager we got after AVB really ignored Iturbe. I hope this changes soon as I'd like to know what the hype about him was about. Hopefully he'll have more chances next season. Otherwise he'll probably be loaned.

Thanks dkw, I actually registered in 2009 when we were in the same group but haven't been here since then. It may have been overstatement to say that he's the best player I remember but, at least in terms of attacking players, I think only Jardel, Deco and Falcao can be made an argument about being as good. Jardel was superb during his 6 years in Portugal but he didn't succeed anywhere else, and Deco only peaked here for two seasons, he was average before Mourinho. Hulk has provided us with 4 seasons at a superb level, and hence I think I will have longer lasting memories of him.