"The Championship is not an option" - I Love Football off-season and transfer speculation thread 2012

look forward to him laying out one of Stoke's CBs with a metal chair to the head next season

hes roman arkadyevich's bitch now

£32m! No wonder Arsenal haven't been mentioned for months.

Not the right move imo - he should've gone to Utd.

i dunno guys, this is WWE-level heeldom already, i'm amused

― Cyders from Mars (Noodle Vague), Monday, 28 May 2012 22:53 (13 minutes ago)

eden hazard is drew mcintyre getting the intercontinental championship because he would rant about "the kids" using their "twitter and facebook", only for no-one to give a shit and for him to end up in tna next year. (p certain i already got excited about one overpriced winger from lille before, can live without seeing another one disappoint next season).

we need more balotelli and barton heels. in football and in wrestling.

xp they've got the best wee amc in the league tho

when tony blair joins the qpr consortium i'm done with it all

mata?

Hazard's pedigree is a little bit more impressive than Gervinho's tbf

'they' referred to utd

Chelsea have beaten off competition from Manchester City — who had been clear favourites to sign the exciting Belgium international but grew frustrated at the negotiations — Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur after becoming the only club who would go close to meeting the forward’s demands.

City are thought to have walked away from the deal last week with Spurs giving up some time ago. Hazard, currently on international duty and preparing to face England in a friendly this weekend, indicated to Chelsea on Saturday that he was set to accept their offer and yesterday took to the social media site Twitter to announce that he had “made up my mind”, adding last night: “I’m signing for the Champions League winner.”

Chelsea will pay a fee of around €40 million (£35.3 million) to Lille, with Hazard having demanded wages of £4.6 million a year net of tax, so around £9  million a year for his new employer. That averages out at £170,000 a week.

In addition his agent, John Bico, who has conducted an aggressive auction has made it clear that he wants a fee of £6 million. If all the demands are met and with Hazard expected to agree a five-year deal, it means the overall cost of the signing, fees and contract will amount to around £78 million which, even by Chelsea standards, is a substantial investment.

Chelsea hijacked City’s deal after receiving a call from Bico on the eve of the Champions League final with the agent telling them that he could persuade Hazard to join them if his demands were met.

so much for abramovich losing interest eh

Ah but Battersea's the big test, and they're way out of the running for that apparently.

swansea in for dos santos, more good stuff from brendan

That would be great.

Spurs have apparently released Saha.

otm, otm

Moyesy kind of merked you with the whole Saha/Pienaar thing

depends on yr pov, 'spose.

We got a very good midfielder we could have used a lot more.

They got a fee for a player who was about to leave on a free, and got him back a couple months later on loan.

His wages prob doubled.

Arry didn't do it for nothing, i'm sure.

One for the scrapbooks, that.

Saha was ok, but i mean we're 451 and he's no 1. didn't cost anything tho.

oh right, i thought there was a fee of some sort for Saha. That's not so bad then

p sure it was a free or a nominal

free

Mrs. van Persie (his wife):

"'Arsenal showed faith in Robin when he was going through a lean time, so we should not repay them by thinking about other clubs.

'Our home life and our children are happy in London.'

Mrs. van Persie (his mum):

"Arsenal love him and that`s a great incentive to stay. Arsenal are a fantastic club, They have no debts and Robin is idolised there."

aww.

Do what you're told, rvi.

he'll sign a four year bumper contract and get a three and a half year injury

well Mrs van P will be glad to have him at home i'm sure

he cd pick the kids up from school or something

Better than him signing a four year bumper contract with someone else and not getting a three and a half year injury. xpost

how!

sell, sell now, before he sols you up the river. You'll still get 20m and his stock can only go down

because he'll score goals and win championships with someone else and i really can't be doing with that again and arsenal don't need £20m as his mother points out.

He's probably getting a lot of "banter" from his team mates about his wife/mother running his life and he'll go to Spain/Manchester out of spite.

deems I get your point re his history of brokenness but getting rid of the best striker in the country because he might get injured seems a tad wrong for a club with any pretence at challenging for anything

20m plus his wages isn't sniffy money tbph

Sell sell sell. We should sell modric. If bale opens his mouth sell him too. Market price pretty much always favours the selling club, get him out get a few players in, what odds?

Ye'll never win anything under wenger again and ye'll never finish outside of fourth, why bother with any one individual player so much? If wenger has proven anything over the past seven years it's that selling key players has no bearing on the mission.

Well yeah, I think this has been the single point I've been labouring the most on this board over the past three/seven years that I've always felt has fallen on deaf ears. But that doesn't mean you actually WANT the best players to leave.

I'm not sure they finish fourth without RVP. Depends on the business of Chelsea & Spurs I suppose - or Man U sinking like a stone.

the russians offered 40m and nasri went for 25m so... selling for 20m does seem unwise

so be it, get price but sell

lol what point on deaf ears? that no player is irreplaceable?

the only question is is wenger capable of replacing departed players the way he once did

£25m is good money but £25m can also buy you mertesacker, santos, random korean bloke, arteta and a bumper new 50k a week deal for djourou

pienaar tbf like kranjcar was never going to be a good squad player the way he is a good player for everton, it's first team main man or nothing

i guess there's an art in spotting your kalous and o'sheas that goes beyond just talent

saha was a decent free but weirdly overused, arry vanity idk?

that 5-0 v newcastle is probably gonna be the high point of arry's life

lol what point on deaf ears? that no player is irreplaceable?

the whole "arsenal are fucked if they lose [insert name of star player that inevitably goes to barcelona/man city]" line that gets rolled out every summer that i've always dismissed on the basis of football being a team game, and that good teams make star players, not the other way round.

yeah... not so much deaf ears as basic simplistic truism that isn't worth acknowledgment

missed all the xps, sorry folks

truism that's tested at arsenal a lot more than's usual, tbf to upto11

i knew i'd stayed out of this thread for a reason.

awww

xp to onimo- not sure that spurs haven't just peaked for a while tbh

Yeah I think so too, I also feel that Man U are in the last throes of holding onto any kind of supremacy over the league, and not just because of City. Chelsea will surely improve. Everything from 2nd-5th up for grabs.

yeah this next year matters

it'll be city v united again far as i can see

arse/spurs/chels may be a bit closer to them but still squabbling amongst themselves ultimately

wenger's arsenal getting relegated after they lost anelka to real shows that they can't just sell their star.

wenger's arsenal getting relegated after they lost anelka to real petit and overmars to barca shows that they can't just sell their star(s).

wenger's arsenal getting relegated after they lost anelka to real petit and overmars to barca adams, keown, dixon and parlour to retirement shows that they can't just sell/lose their star(s).

wenger's arsenal getting relegated after they lost anelka to real petit and overmars to barca adams, keown, dixon and parlour to retirement pires, ljungberg and campbell to their last go around big paychecks shows that they can't just sell/lose their star(s).

wenger's arsenal getting relegated after they lost anelka to real petit and overmars to barca adams, keown, dixon and parlour to retirement pires, ljungberg and campbell to their last go around big paychecks henry to barcelona shows that they can't just sell/lose their star(s).

wenger's arsenal getting relegated after they lost anelka to real petit and overmars to barca adams, keown, dixon and parlour to retirement pires, ljungberg and campbell to their last go around big paychecks henry to barcelona ade and toure to city shows that they can't just sell/lose their star(s).

wenger's arsenal getting relegated after they lost anelka to real petit and overmars to barca adams, keown, dixon and parlour to retirement pires, ljungberg and campbell to their last go around big paychecks henry to barcelona ade and toure to city cesc and nasri in one summer shows that they can't just sell/lose their star(s).