August 31, 201014 yr is it offical? bloody w**ker said he'd only go to Utd and now he ends up at spuds.
August 31, 201014 yr Author is it offical? bloody w**ker said he'd only go to Utd and now he ends up at spuds. My mate works in the Spuds ticket office - he said it's a done deal, apparently he was offered to us as well but we declined.
August 31, 201014 yr If its true that we declined him then I would be a bit upset, 8 million is a bargain for VdV but I guess he wants to get regular footie and we felt that we could not give it to him.
August 31, 201014 yr If its true that we declined him then I would be a bit upset, 8 million is a bargain for VdV but I guess he wants to get regular footie and we felt that we could not give it to him. We should of if for no other reason than to sell him for 15m in Jan or summer! RM and MC will be giving out some quality bargains next few windows! (Barca likely too, especially if they dont win a lot of prize money this season!)
August 31, 201014 yr What I would love to know is how he was about to sign for a German side for £18m yet a day later hes signing for Spuds for £8m? That says to me one of 2 things, hes either got an injury problem (which might be why we turned him down also) or its a load of sh*t.
August 31, 201014 yr Van der Vaart is, for me, a top 6 Premiership club player but not a top two player. We would be paying £8m for a squad player and we already have that in Benayoun. It would have been a pointless signing and so personally I am glad we rejected the chance (if we did).
August 31, 201014 yr I would have liked this signing and if we turned him down for £8m I'd be disappointed. Perhaps even... gutted.
August 31, 201014 yr I think it's a case of madrid just wanting to get rid dkw, they have way too many options in the attacking midfield anyway. I can see why we rejected the offer, we're strict on money and Van der vaart would of asked for silly wages in my opinion and Benayoun is more versitile accros the midfield.
August 31, 201014 yr Not confirmed, despite what itks say, and it will either be a fact or a non starter in 12 hours. Typical tottenham, buying someone they dont need in a position where they are just fine. Redknapp and Levy are like the ultimate FM transfer muppet duo. How many player careers have they ruined in the last ten years with their bloated squad? Its hard believe no other top club was in for him if he was that cheap. Man Utd spent that much on a Portuguese nobody people had only seen on youtube. Do they honestly believe Bebe gives them a better shot at winning something than a talented dutch international? Forget about Benayoun, I think van der Vaart at 8 million is a good price fullstop, and if we were offered him at that price then i guess nobody at the club thinks much of him. I guess we will see how overrated or underrated he is soon enough, though.
August 31, 201014 yr Author Star, why bring up Benayoun in this? Just wondering, if given the choice, posters would like to debate who they think has got the better deal, us or the Spuds, even if we should have waited later in the day ourselves before replacing Coley. Think the Bayern link was a naff one, my mate reckons as soon as he was left out of Jose's plans for Madrid's game he told them he was off and asked his agent to alert clubs in England of his availability after Jose agreed to sell him. Liverpool, us and Spurs were contacted, we declined and the Champions League edge of Spurs swayed him toward them. Just how Joe Cole did the opposite remains a mystery to me, unless his true instinct as a Chelsea fan was not to do a Gus, Jukebox or Cundy. My take is siimple i'd have replaced Joey with Ozil and early in the day and not bothered with Beneyoun. Saying that, I trust Carlo's judgement, even though I am convinced that the purse strings were tightened and budgets were the order of the day, without signing that Stoke keeper our plans went up in smoke and Ramires was destined to be our only 'real' 1st team contender purchase of the summer. We will never know who *that* player was, what is clear is we never got him and cut backs and all that affect our transfer policy's these days. Who cares if the kids from our youth set up do actually step up to the mark. Roman just cannot make a knee jerk reaction as he done in the past and sack a manager in Carlo who is as every bit as special as the Special One if he doesn't win the Champions League in the next five years. We are destined not to win it I feel until that Special player comes from within. Di Santo and Sinclair sales were right on the button, neither will be top class players, Stoich time will tell, but at least we are not pissing about as we did in the past sending players out loan when they clearly were not going to make the grade here. Bertrand and Matic are the exception, think they have a chance here, but Ben Sahar situations are bloody pointless I've had a few glasses of the best red on the market, LA Paz Merlot from Chile 12 per cent montgrass 2009 or 2007 that was the last bottle, if my post doesn't make sense, the Red Wine does, buy a bottle and see!
August 31, 201014 yr Sorry but I dont drink red, im halfway through a lovely Chablis though, mmm. The thing is theres no way VDV would have come to us and been happy being a squad player, and im guessing he will be on a pretty high wage, which goes against the way we are now lowering the wages at the club.
August 31, 201014 yr You can only really compare and contrast players at the price they would have been at the time the first was signed. i.e. when we signed Benayoun VdV was not available for £8m - it was more like £15m-£20m. If I compare those two then I would say that Benayoun was the better deal as that is a ridiculous price for VdV. As it transpires vdV appears to have been allowed to go for a lot less because Real wanted shot of him before the window closed and nobody was prepared to pay well over the odds for him. So we made a move for Benayoun to play the part of a squad player at the time he was available and at a price the club felt was fair. If VdV had been available for the same price at that stage then maybe we would have bought him instead of Benayoun however he wasn't and Ancelotti maybe decided he wanted his new players at the club earlier to give them to time to play themselves into the team.
August 31, 201014 yr I don't see why we couldn't get VDV for 8m in addition to Benayoun. If Benayoun is supposed to replace Cole who's supposed to replace Deco? Of course there's Kakuta but getting a quality player in a position we're not exactly overstocked at for a decent fee seems like a good deal to me.
August 31, 201014 yr I don't see why we couldn't get VDV for 8m in addition to Benayoun. If Benayoun is supposed to replace Cole who's supposed to replace Deco? Of course there's Kakuta but getting a quality player in a position we're not exactly overstocked at for a decent fee seems like a good deal to me. Not overstocked in? Current players capable of playing as attacking midfielders in our squad:- 5 Michael Essien 7 Ramires 8 Frank Lampard 10 Yossi Benayoun 15 Florent Malouda 23 Daniel Sturridge 39 Nicolas Anelka 44 Gael Kakuta
August 31, 201014 yr Not overstocked in? Current players capable of playing as attacking midfielders in our squad:- 5 Michael Essien 7 Ramires 8 Frank Lampard 10 Yossi Benayoun 15 Florent Malouda 23 Daniel Sturridge 39 Nicolas Anelka 44 Gael Kakuta Well there's a different between being capable of playing in a position and being good at it. Neither Ramires or Essien are attacking midfielders and I doubt they would excell there. Malouda is a winger and as far as I know hasn't been great as an attacking midfielder at Chelsea. Sturridge can hardly cut it as a striker, so I doubt he would be good enough as an attacking midfielder (or have we played him in the wrong position all this time?). Anelka - doubt it. Kakuta - unproven and probably not ready (might be able to come on a few times, but that is all). Yossi - yes. Lampard can do it, though not as a tip of any diamond, if we were to play that formation again. VDV would have added another dimension to us and could have been useful if we needed someone to play higher up the pitch behind our strikers.
August 31, 201014 yr Well there's a different between being capable of playing in a position and being good at it. Neither Ramires or Essien are attacking midfielders and I doubt they would excell there. Malouda is a winger and as far as I know hasn't been great as an attacking midfielder at Chelsea. Sturridge can hardly cut it as a striker, so I doubt he would be good enough as an attacking midfielder (or have we played him in the wrong position all this time?). Anelka - doubt it. Kakuta - unproven and probably not ready (might be able to come on a few times, but that is all). Yossi - yes. Lampard can do it, though not as a tip of any diamond, if we were to play that formation again. VDV would have added another dimension to us and could have been useful if we needed someone to play higher up the pitch behind our strikers. Where to even start on that. Essien plays as an advanced midfielder for us, the same position VDV plays. as does Malouda, who doesnt play as an orthodox winger for us, more an second attacker, same position Anelka takes up and one VDV also plays. Kakuta unproven, yes and wont be unproven if we keep buying players in his position. Studge can hardly cut it as a striker? youve came to that conclusion after how many games?
August 31, 201014 yr Not overstocked in? Current players capable of playing as attacking midfielders in our squad:- 5 Michael Essien 7 Ramires 8 Frank Lampard 10 Yossi Benayoun 15 Florent Malouda 23 Daniel Sturridge 39 Nicolas Anelka 44 Gael Kakuta VDV is a playmaker. Out of this list Benayoun(if played in the hole) and possibly Kakuta have the ability to play that role. Lampard,Ramires and Essien are box-to-box, Malouda is a winger, Anelka and Sturridge are strikers.
August 31, 201014 yr We aren't going to be playing the diamond again though - not if Ancelotti doesn't have a mental break down. The 4-3-3 has now won us three titles, domestic cups and got us further in the CL than any other formation. The diamond nearly cost us the title and the 4-3-3 saved it. So we play 4-3-3 which means for our three midfield positions we have the following options Holding - Mikel, Essien, Ramires Both Essien and Ramires can also play just as comfortably (and even more so in Essien's case) as one of the two in front of the holding midfielder which means we have two positons to be filled by Essien, Ramires, Lampard and Benayoun. Malouda is not as capable but can play there and the same same can be said about Zhirkov. Kakuta being the up and coming option. The front three being shared between Drogba, Anelka, Malouda, Kalou and Sturridge. We have a lot of players who are versatile and that reduces the need for us to buy players to fill very specific roles. Arguably VdV would fit out formation less than any of the above players.
August 31, 201014 yr Well, to be fair, the formation we employ is dictated by the players we've got. You could argue that not having the true playmaker in the squad forced Carlo to forget the diamond, if I'm not mistaken he tried to play Lampard in that role early last season and it was a disaster. Deco and Joe Cole were the closest players to fill that position but first was on his last legs and second was coming back from the long term injury and was too inconsistent and often simply not good enough to be relied on let alone having a system built around.
August 31, 201014 yr But the point now is that irrespective of why the diamond didn't work the 4-3-3 is clearly our golden ticket. It didn't just work once, it worked time and time and time again and our midfielders and strikers who are intrinsic to our squad know it well, react well to it and deliver in spades. Why bring in a player just because he is more suited to a tactic that the majority of the squad aren't. Players like Lampard, Drogba, Essien and Malouda are far far better than VdV and they suit the 4-3-3 much better so why bring in a player more suited to a formation these players don't play. Deco was supposed to give us the diamond option but it failed. It didn't fail because Deco couldn't play at the tip of a diamond. It failed because they players around him were not comfortable playing the diamond. Far too often we saw Deco being bypassed as players looked to hit the front two early and ignore Deco. VdV in the 'hole' would end up suffering the same outcome.
August 31, 201014 yr I've made no secret of the fact that I thought he would be a good signing on the cheap at some point during this window, but I didn't mean for bloody Spurs. Obviously our signing of Ramires probably put this one out of play for us, particularly as he is a lot younger and perhaps more suited to our style of play. I also disagree that we should consider this signing against Benayoun's. VdV is a much more centrally orientated player, whereas Benayoun is a bit more versatile and gives us a different option in terms of running at defenders than we perhaps have now in midfield. So I guess you have to consider this as a signing in addition to Benayoun. I would have taken him because we still have a foreign spot available and despite having a very flexible squad it's a reasonably small one compared to recent seasons, these guys will face up to 50 games+ this season and in terms of straight central midfielders we've gone from (Lamps, Ze German, Essien, Mikel, Deco, Matic) to now having only three of those guys + Ramires. Now obviously Benayoun and Malouda can cover, but they are being played outside of their best positions in that case, something that's not ideal. If it does go through Spurs will have some passing quality in that midfield, assuming the 'wheeler and dealer' came keep them all fit.
