Philippe Coutinho

[zigackly]

All these people saying "if they think he is worth it, spend the extra 2m". Isnt it that sort of attitude which has got us in trouble before?

 

No, because we've never actually done it. Under Rafa we rarely actually got our target, and in recent years we've bid an extra ten million when just two was required.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

 

No' date=' because we've never actually done it. Under Rafa we rarely actually got our target, and in recent years we've bid an extra ten million when just two was required.[/quote']

 

If we managed to get rafas targets, wed have had quite the team. Silva, Mata, Jovetic, Alves, Villa...

 

 

Barry.

[RedinSweden]

No, because we've never actually done it. Under Rafa we rarely actually got our target, and in recent years we've bid an extra ten million when just two was required.

 

Maybe, just doesn't feel like this is a now or never situation. I can understand pushing the boat out to get a top player, but there is uncertainty with this chap so maybe a bit of caution is required.

[A_S]

Maybe, just doesn't feel like this is a now or never situation. I can understand pushing the boat out to get a top player, but there is uncertainty with this chap so maybe a bit of caution is required.

 

Exactly. I'm actually liking the club setting the value of a player and sticking to it, even if it means missing out on said player. Hopefully it'll mean the days of the club being a pushover in the transfer market and mostly gone.

 

Getting a player in at a fair price without having to resort to ridiculous wages will generally mean the player's head is in the right place, ie wanting to come here to play for a great club, not just chasing a big pay packet.

 

Another thing I'm liking recently is the players who have shown good form over a period here have been rewarded in the form of bigger contracts, which is exactly how it should be- performance based.

[Saucepan]

He better have his work permit and passport in order!...

[Randy Marsh]

I totally agree with the notion of setting our value and not overpaying, and RiS and others are right to point out that overpaying for players has massively stung us in the recent past. However, in a case such as this I think the notion falls down slightly. If we rate the lad in the £8m category, would we really see ourselves miss out on his signature for the sake of £1-2m? If we don't feel he is worth the extra (relatively minuscule) fee then is he worth targeting at all?

 

Liverpool and Ayre may be playing a blinder here, setting our stall out and ensuring that we drive a hard deal, all the time confident that we will sign the player eventually. We may have waited intentionally until the last few days of the window to make our move, knowing Inter's reported financial troubles, presumably having sounded out the player before making our approach and realising that our negotiating position is stronger because of these factors. The problem is that we have seen the club conduct so much disastrous business over the past few years and subsequently its now very hard to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm going to try, let's see what happens over the coming days.

[Jose Jones]

I totally agree with the notion of setting our value and not overpaying, and RiS and others are right to point out that overpaying for players has massively stung us in the recent past. However, in a case such as this I think the notion falls down slightly. If we rate the lad in the £8m category, would we really see ourselves miss out on his signature for the sake of £1-2m? If we don't feel he is worth the extra (relatively minuscule) fee then is he worth targeting at all?

 

Liverpool and Ayre may be playing a blinder here, setting our stall out and ensuring that we drive a hard deal, all the time confident that we will sign the player eventually. We may have waited intentionally until the last few days of the window to make our move, knowing Inter's reported financial troubles, presumably having sounded out the player before making our approach and realising that our negotiating position is stronger because of these factors. The problem is that we have seen the club conduct so much disastrous business over the past few years and subsequently its now very hard to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm going to try, let's see what happens over the coming days.

 

It really depends on who else we could spend the money on doesn't it?

Say Rodgers has targeted a player who can play wide attack or attacking midfield and asked the scouts to recommend some.

We may have 3 or 4 players that we think would be good to get on a shortlist for both positions - each with different valuations. If we can get Coutinho at 8 million now we will go for it. Then we know we have a certain amount for a other positions at the end of the season and can decide which would be the best way to spend the funds.

 

If we go over what we think our valuation of Coutinho is, then perhaps it's worth looking at spending that money on a better more experienced player that we could get for a similar amount at the end of the season?

[Carvalho Diablo]

If we are scratching around for a couple of million we should sell the likes of Spearing, Coates, Carroll and whoever else isn't in the boss's plans for world domination.

 

Fucks sake, some of those boys bring nothing to our table.

[jackofdk]

Getting the player we wanted regardless of price asked saw us land Carroll, Downing and Henderson for silly money.

 

I want Coutinho, but not for any price.

[zigackly]

Somewhere there must be a happy medium between missing out on Alves and buying Downing.

[Unrighteous]

He better have his work permit and passport in order!...

 

Macia, our fake passport man, isn't here anymore. We'll have to do it legit.

[Jose Jones]

Somewhere there must be a happy medium between missing out on Alves and buying Downing.

 

Spend the extra to get good players and don't buy wasters?

It'll never catch on.

[Dr Arthur De Sabre]

 

Maybe' date=' just doesn't feel like this is a now or never situation. I can understand pushing the boat out to get a top player, but there is uncertainty with this chap so maybe a bit of caution is required.[/quote']

 

Would you not thing it fair to pay at least half of what we paid for Suarez in order to secure his replacement?

[setreal]

Somewhere there must be a happy medium between missing out on Alves and buying Downing.

 

Getting Sahin on loan?

 

Oh, happy. I'll get back to you on that.

[Thants]

If we managed to get rafas targets, wed have had quite the team. Silva, Mata, Jovetic, Alves, Villa...

 

 

Barry.

 

Is this the premiership winning Barry?

(i was going to look at his stats on wiki for last season but his wiki page is currently mental!) Gareth Barry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

'When young fat boy garry was growing up as a child his dadgot shot and raped by the victim - Docor "Chubby" Barry.'

I'm not attacking you, just he gets a bad rap when he's actually been consistently fucking good.

[Heinze]

IMMINENT

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

 

Is this the premiership winning Barry?

 

It is. I didn't want him, in the same way I didn't want premiership winning Luke Chadwick, or European Cup winning Traore.

 

In comparison to Alonso, he's fairly ordinary.

[Ne Moe Imya]

Those people saying we should pay x amount and never go above that must not understand the word competition.

 

Sure, it'll work if we go for players that nobody else wants and clubs are happy to get rid of. Sounds majestic.

 

Paying an extra 2 million or so is not similar to paying £35m for a nobody. Do people think that we didn't increase our bids for Torres, Alonso, Suarez? Its fine to come in with a low offer but then you have to adjust to the reality of the situation. Is Coutinho worth £10m? Well, thats for Rodgers to decide.

 

Why exactly he is worth it at 8 and not 10 is a mystery, though. Its not like the figures are miles apart.

 

This is spot on.

 

And that's not even taking into account how the figures are arrived at in the first place. If you'd asked 10 random fans to guess the transfer fee for Coutinho before the newspapers started talking, I'd wager the average would have been around 15 million (which goes to show you what we know about the behind-the-scenes of transfer payments, wages, agent fees, etc, which is nothing).

 

So, if the newspapers would have quoted Inter as holding out for 15 million, and said that we had offered 13 million, those same people would be on here with statements about how "I'd go 13 million, but not 15 million" or "He's worth the extra 2 million, we should just pay it."

 

But now that the newspapers have suggested that we bid 8 million or whatever, people are acting like they know all about what he's worth and would make a stand at X amount for our bid or some other nonsense. It's all complete bollocks. None of us really have a clue, and won't be able to say anything about the wisdom of doing this deal or any other until we see the player on the pitch.

[Brownie]

Is this the premiership winning Barry?

(i was going to look at his stats on wiki for last season but his wiki page is currently mental!) Gareth Barry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

'When young fat boy garry was growing up as a child his dadgot shot and raped by the victim - Docor "Chubby" Barry.'

I'm not attacking you, just he gets a bad rap when he's actually been consistently fucking good.

 

Of course, the fact that he's surrounded by potentially the most expensively assembled team in the history of the game has absolutely nothing to do with it...

 

He's shit.

[JohnnyH]

Of course, the fact that he's surrounded by potentially the most expensively assembled team in the history of the game has absolutely nothing to do with it...

 

He's shit.

 

He’s not. He’s not in any way at all. It’s ridiculous how we’ve talked down Gareth Barry because he was linked to the Alonso saga.

 

Ask any proper long term Man City fans how valuable Barry was to their league title last year and you’ll get to know just how good he is.

[Brownie]

He’s not. He’s not in any way at all. It’s ridiculous how we’ve talked down Gareth Barry because he was linked to the Alonso saga.

 

Ask any proper long term Man City fans how valuable Barry was to their league title last year and you’ll get to know just how good he is.

 

Obviously he's not 'shit' because he's a professional footballer yada yada - it's a figure of speech. Ask any proper (not sure what you mean by that) Everton fan what they think of Jelavic and they'll say he's better than Suarez - that proves nothing.

 

I don't rate Barry as a player (I once did actually but it was just a bit of a purple patch on reflection). You say that it's because of the Alonso 'thing' and damn right it is. If Rodgers tried to replace Suarez with Dzeko (for instance) i'd probably have the same view of Dzeko and say he was shit (again a figure of speech but he's not in the same league as Suarez).

 

Alonso is totally relevant when discussing Gareth Barry.

 

Anyway, Barry just ran past my office window; I think he's still chasing Ozil.

[fowler9]

I used to like Barry up till that summer we nearly signed him (would never have had him over Xabi though) but for whatever reason after that move fell through he has lost all dynamism from his game and is pretty much a crab, as a box to box player at Villa though he was very good and if we didn't have such a good central midfield at the time I'd have been open to signing him

 

Didn't Rafa once say the plan was to play him on the left though? Gareth Barry providing wing supply to Robbie Keane is a bit of a frightening thought, we'd have certainly never come second and had our best recent shot at the title if that had all gone through!

[Jairzinho]

Good player, Barry. Would improve our midfield quite a lot.

[Bjornebye]

Barry Horne? fuck him off, surely even Ian Ayre wouldn't agree to this cunt.

[El Rojo]

Barry Horne was never quite the same player when Hans Segers wasn't the opposition goalkeeper.