Firstly, a manager may try to save face, but I remember Ramos's remarks about being unhappy with Pav, Bent and Campbell as his only striking options, and I remember Harry's desire to get Cahill and Tevez and his eventual acquisition of Nelsen and Saha on deadline day. Extrapolating from those two instances, I can quite believe AVB when he complains about players being railroaded into his team and not being given the ones he wanted. As for Baldini liking them versus AVB liking them, didn't AVB fall out with Baldini as well by the end? Hardly conclusive proof of AVB lying post-Spurs to protect his image.
We did talk earlier about Joe Allen, and I think it's important to go back to him because in a way he seems like a microcosm of the difference between Levy and FSB when it comes to transfer policy. Allen was secured quite early into the summer, early on in Rodgers' era, likely before he'd had a chance to properly assess the importance of his signing. Swiftly signed, for 15 million (after an initial bid of 12 million plus Shelvey failed), on three times the wages that he was on at Swansea, with Rodgers happily commenting that he'd have paid a lot more to get him. Sure, his transfer didn't have the impact Rodgers hoped it would, but you can't deny that he was very probably ardently waiting for its completion at the time, much like Poch was in all probability very, very keen on the Osvaldo transfer in the summer of 2013 despite his later struggles. Was there a delay in Allen's transfer due to Rodgers being instructed to evaluate the squad first before making any decisions? No, there likely wasn't given the speed of its conclusion. Was there a low-ball bid to possibly acquire him for less than his release clause? Yes, but that is financial prudence, and more importantly wasn't that far below his clause in any case (12 million vs 15 million). Overall, the deal was swiftly concluded, with little quibbling over the price, based on a likely understanding that Rodgers saw the 'Welsh Xavi' as central to his plans for the coming season.
Fast forward to Schneiderlin. Saints are being informed of our interest in the lad, and his desire to join us, when public outcry arising from the many sales and the prospect of Schneiderlin being the next one forces them to set a very high price on the lad. What do we do? If the Guardian and the BBC are to be believed, we low-ball them with a ludicrously low offer (10 million pounds), before sending subsequent low offers that never rise to anywhere near what they're asking for (27 million). How does that look? To them, and to the player himself? Add in the long, long duration of this sorry saga (the last news of a rejected 17 million pound bid was a week ago, and this all flared up in late July) and you can see why it looks very much like Levy isn't committed to bringing Schneiderlin to Spurs nearly as much as Liverpool were to bringing Allen in. And I find it hard to imagine that Poch sees Schneiderlin as being less important to his system than Rodgers saw Allen. And yes, I know you'll refer to the fee, so allow me to preempt you with a suggestion: the difference in the fees is not the issue, the issue is Liverpool's preparedness to strike a deal for a player their manager saw as vital versus our seeming unwillingness to do so: given Levy's history with Harry (January 2012, the fabled 30 million pound bids that never came to anything the year before that) and AVB (Moutinho, Hulk, Villa, et al), it is easier to believe the latter being the case as opposed to disbelieving the former.
If Levy doesn't want or feel able to secure the majority or even the most important of the manager's primary targets, then that's still fine as long as he doesn't judge the manager on his performance within timescales that are more regularly applied to managers that have been backed and have been given the players they wanted, that's all. But he fell out with AVB pretty quickly, and that doesn't bode well for Poch. If we get Stambouli instead of Schneiderlin, it will lengthen the time Poch will take to implement his philosophy: that is almost a certainty. Yet I can almost guarantee that both Levy and the fanbase will be getting uppity by around next October or November at the latest. And that isn't fair, wise or a good way to run the club.
