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Saido Berahino

jabbathehut said:
There was really no reason for Peace to have to justify saying no sale by commenting on the proposed structure. I wonder how Olympiacos are paying WBA for Brown Ideye.That would be interesting to know.
We basically had one striker last year and this year we have better support for Kane so i am going to say we will score a similar amount if not more goals than last season.
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Precisely and all Peace was doing was playing up to the persona of Levy trotted out by the pundits and media to almost make his claims seem more believable. The facts are that he is the one that made everything public, he's the one that unsettled his player and he is the one that has made it into the drama that it has become. If he had rejected the bids without making it public, this wouldn't be a tenth of the drama that it already is.
 
I can forgive Levy for this one to be honest. This was a clusterfudge of a transfer and Peace was shooting his load all over the media for weeks. It was just an ego trip and he has denied his own club of millions as a result, but I guess he needs to compensate for something or other in his life. I can just imagine Peace standing in front of his bedroom mirror giving it the old "You talking to me Levy" Taxi Driver line every night.

What is more disappointing to me is that we had no backup plan. Not even a loan until Jan until the window opened again. That is the real failing here IMO.
 
Gazzasrightboot said:
Precisely and all Peace was doing was playing up to the persona of Levy trotted out by the pundits and media to almost make his claims seem more believable. The facts are that he is the one that made everything public, he's the one that unsettled his player and he is the one that has made it into the drama that it has become. If he had rejected the bids without making it public, this wouldn't be a tenth of the drama that it already is.
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Peace tried to get what he wanted - more cash. It didn't work. As above Levy has this persona - and its almost racist - of driving a hard bargain. Poch even came out with something about his own contract, in sync with the stereotype which was a little naive and unhelpful imo. Stereotypes always have a kernel of truth, which make them pervasive, but they are stereotypes! Name a successful business man who would not seek a good deal for their company? Peter Risdale the exception that proves the rule.
 
Berahino is obviously fairly p155ed off this season, having to sit on the bench, wanting to leave... so I'm not sure of his mental state. But if that is fine, and he is not arrogant and will follow orders and be happy to rotate in and out then I'm all for signing him.
 
The whole Berihino thing is a mess.We offered a decent amount,the player wanted to go .The manager wanted him to go.He is now sitting on the bench and of no help to wba at this point so everyone has lost out from this.On top of this his contract is running down and so they may we get less for him whether he comes to us or not.One thing is clear we need to sign a back up striker that is ready to play now.N'jie will be good in a year or so but we will need help for the latter part of the season.Top 4 is open this season we need to take advantage and not be sleeping in Jan
 
I think Levy will just troll them. A few hints of bids to excite them, but ultimately never following through.

Why pay £25m now, when he'll be available for £8-10m in the summer with a year left on his contract?

Or even wait and Bosman him in summer 2017, when we've had more time to assess Njie's progression
 
If we were prepared to pay £23M last summer, why wouldn't we pay that now? The need is to build a squad for Poch, not see how much of a bargain we can get (to the detriment of the squad).
Unless we have found a cheaper alternative of course.
My guess would be we go in cheaper again, and make Pearce feel like he negotiated us back up to circa £20M.
Plenty of players have gone for big money with 12 months left on their contract, let alone 18. The problem with waiting for Bosman's, is bigger clubs could buy just to sell.
 
LemonadeMoney said:
If we were prepared to pay £23M last summer, why wouldn't we pay that now? The need is to build a squad for Poch, not see how much of a bargain we can get (to the detriment of the squad).
Unless we have found a cheaper alternative of course.
My guess would be we go in cheaper again, and make Pearce feel like he negotiated us back up to circa £20M.
Plenty of players have gone for big money with 12 months left on their contract, let alone 18. The problem with waiting for Bosman's, is bigger clubs could buy just to sell.
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I guess part of the thought might be that if you get to next summer with Berahino still at West Brom having had a quiet season and only 1 year left on his contract, then what price are they likely to get for him then? Remember that Burnley are likely to only get £6.5m - £10m when he walked at the end of his contract so West Brom would take say £15m in Jan (possibly with add-ons) or else 18 months later he'd be worth half that amount
 
AdamB said:
I guess part of the thought might be that if you get to next summer with Berahino still at West Brom having had a quiet season and only 1 year left on his contract, then what price are they likely to get for him then? Remember that Burnley are likely to only get £6.5m - £10m when he walked at the end of his contract so West Brom would take say £15m in Jan (possibly with add-ons) or else 18 months later he'd be worth half that amount
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I get that, but what is he worth to us, both in terms of time and money?
 
LemonadeMoney said:
If we were prepared to pay £23M last summer, why wouldn't we pay that now? The need is to build a squad for Poch, not see how much of a bargain we can get (to the detriment of the squad).
Unless we have found a cheaper alternative of course.
My guess would be we go in cheaper again, and make Pearce feel like he negotiated us back up to circa £20M.
Plenty of players have gone for big money with 12 months left on their contract, let alone 18. The problem with waiting for Bosman's, is bigger clubs could buy just to sell.
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But he plays in a position we have an abundance of good players in.

He might be a marginal improvement on Chadli as Son's backup, but that's not the sort of upgrade you pay your second highest transfer fee of all time on. Berahino is only worth it for us on a bargain deal

Nothing will have changed on the zero net spend policy either, so even selling Townsend, Carroll and Fazio won't raise enough for a £20m+ player.
 
Gutter Boy said:
But he plays in a position we have an abundance of good players in.

He might be a marginal improvement on Chadli as Son's backup, but that's not the sort of upgrade you pay your second highest transfer fee of all time on. Berahino is only worth it for us on a bargain deal

Nothing will have changed on the zero net spend policy either, so even selling Townsend, Carroll and Fazio won't raise enough for a £20m+ player.
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I would agree with that if Berahino was genuinely only "a marginal improvement" on Chadli. But as a striker the Berahino of last season would be a huge improvement over Chadli. And he'd probably be a marginal improvement as a wing-forward. If we'd landed Berahino at the last minute (as seemed possible at one point) and had the same squad as we have now, plus Berahino, I'm convinced we'd be a couple of places higher in the league. He'd have offered us an extra bit of bite that - I think - would have been enough to turn a couple of our draws into wins.

So it's a disappointment we didn't get him in the summer. As for now though? He's definitely not the same player as he was last year... and I'm disappointed by his inability to "do a Modric" and recommit himself to the cause. It displays a potential lack of determination and professionalism that might not be what we need right now.

EDIT: Also, GB, it's 100% common knowledge that we lodged a serious £20m+ bid for Berahino on the last day of the transfer window. So the idea that Levy has an uncompromising "zero net spend" policy just isn't true. Even if it worked out that way - it's clear Levy was prepared to change the policy to secure Pochettino's first-choice striker.
 
Saido looked overweight last time he came on for WBA. And cumbersome compared to last season. But the WBA chairman has an image to maintain and selling to us just won't happen. We need to move on I reckon and find someone else who fits the bill.
 
DublinSpur said:
EDIT: Also, GB, it's 100% common knowledge that we lodged a serious £20m+ bid for Berahino on the last day of the transfer window. So the idea that Levy has an uncompromising "zero net spend" policy just isn't true. Even if it worked out that way - it's clear Levy was prepared to change the policy to secure Pochettino's first-choice striker.
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The bid probably included Townsend and Fazio in p/x, and Lamela would then have been sold to balance the books.

We've had zero net spend for 13 consecutive windows now. That's not a coincidence
 
Gutter Boy said:
The bid probably included Townsend and Fazio in p/x, and Lamela would then have been sold to balance the books.

We've had zero net spend for 13 consecutive windows now. That's not a coincidence
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Care to support that with a reputable source?
 
Gutter Boy said:
The bid probably included Townsend and Fazio in p/x, and Lamela would then have been sold to balance the books.

We've had zero net spend for 13 consecutive windows now. That's not a coincidence
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Well aware that we've had a zero net spend for quite a while. Pretty sure that's common knowledge.

What I'm suggesting is that Levy is willing to make exceptions to that policy in specific circumstances to accommodate Pochettino. He appears to have a great relationship with the manager and - in my view - is willing to look beyond the short-termism of "zero net spend this window" if the wider management team believes it will help in the long term.

I don't think that's an unreasonable theory based on what little information (and general tone) has emerged from the club since August. I certainly think it makes more sense that confidently stating "Lamela would then have been sold to balance the books" despite zero evidence for this.

In fact, given how late our final bid for Berahino was... you seem to be saying that Levy was willing to firmly commit to selling Lamela "to balance the books" four months after buying Berahino... even though there was no way of knowing whether or not Lamela would be a vital part of the team in four months time.

That makes no sense at all to me. While the notion that Levy has finally found a manager he trusts enough to plan long-term and abandon the strict window-to-window approach... that makes quite a lot of sense (just IMO).
 
We would have paid 20mill for him if wba would have dealt with us.I really don't believe that Levy would weaken the team to balance the books.
 
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