‘F*** Manchester City’ and ‘f*** off’ to ‘petulant’ Kane
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No Kane do
There has been a lot of hand-wringing over Kane’s apparent refusal to return to training, and I am one of those feeling a true sense of disappointment.
It is entirely irrelevant whether or not he wants to leave, and it is not in his hands. The player is under three more years of a contract he willingly signed, therefore he has to put in a transfer request if he wants to leave.
The talk of a gentleman’s agreement with Levy, if true, might well be being honoured by Levy ’sure you can go but the buying team has to meet our valuation’ that valuation is only being escalated when players like White (£50m) and Grealish (if happens, £100m) are being sold. Kane is then, and this can’t be argued, closer to £200m. His record is daft, and his importance/value to the club (which is the most important aspect when selling) is far in excess of the figures I have seen banded about, which includes £160m.
The only argument as to why he should be sold now is the diminishing value between now and 2022 but even then he’ll still be valued at around £100m so f**k City, and, sadly, feck off Kane – he’s playing a weak hand here, and being made to look petulant…
The true sadness of this is that most fans don’t begrudge him leaving at all, and wish him the best but between this and the Neville interview that sentiment is dwindling.
Dan
Greal deal
The price paid for anything, whether that be for a box of six inch nails or a football player is a matter of supply and demand. It’s not a matter of whether Grealish is worthy or not.
I remember when Forest broke the transfer record for Trevor Frances from Birmingham City. Everyone thought the world had gone mad. Now, Leeds just bought Bate, unproven at a senior level, from Chelsea’s academy for more money than Frances got sold for all those years ago. Yes, inflation has had a part to play in the value differential, but even so, the premiums that football players‘ transfers now command, has way outstripped inflation.
The reality is that the market is never wrong and the price that a club is willing to pay for a player will always find its true level.
It’s the combination of rarity of talent at the elite level, the continuing influx of TV money into English football year after year, and the incessant never-ending appetite to watch the English game all around the world, that continues to drive demand for those teams at the top of the game to strive to be the very best. It’s a perfect storm of supply and demand factors that brings us here. The fact that it happens to be Grealish carrying this mantle today, is actually irrelevant, just as it was for Francis all those years ago.
Jim
With the recent transfer news involving Grealish, Varane, White et all I’ve seen all the usual guff involving fees.
“Player X is not worth £Y”
“Player Z will have to live up to the price tag”
“Player A should cost less than Player B”
Every year I see this and every year it irritates the life out of me. Let’s take Grealish as the example. Is Jack Grealish worth £100m? Yes he is, because that’s how much Aston Villa value him at should they decide to sell him. That’s the only necessary requirement.
Oh, but what about talent and ability? Is he worth £100m and being the most expensive British transfer of all time based on that? What does a £100m player look like? Tell me. What stats and figures constitute it? If not Grealish then who? Is there a blueprint for a £100m player worthy of that price? Please show it to me if there is.
Ben White cost Arsenal £50m because that’s how much Brighton valued him at. Is he not a so called £50m player? Why would he need to live up to a price tag that he has no control over? None of it matters.
These players have nothing to do with the fee their clubs demand if another club wants their services. It’s no reflection on how good they are per se. It’s simply what the club themselves value the player to cost.
Is VVD worth £75m? Yes, because that’s what Southampton valued him at for sale. Is Harry Maguire worth £85m? Yes, for the same reason with Leicester. Is Andy Robertson worth £8m. Absolutely, according to Hull. Is Coutinho worth £142m. He certainly is, thank you Barcelona.
Let’s stop this nonsense.
Curtis, LFC, Belfast.
The Rashford riposte
I’m seeing the responses and all I’m seeing is people saying I hate Rashford. I don’t hate Rashford at all. I hate all the media and utd fans overhyping an average player. So all I’m doing is resetting the balance.
When you all continue to completely brush over the facts and put my criticism of a player, purely on footballing terms down to hate it shows where we are as people right now. Talking about players getting mental health issues because I called a spade a spade and said Rashford has been playing poorly which is the truth is worrying. Then pointing out the mountains of excuses made on his behalf when every other players does not get that luxury is hardly hate. It just goes to show if you’re opinion is not what people want to hear they put it down to hate. A dangerous path. Did I hurt peoples feelings?
As you have seen, Man City and Liverpool have upped the level it takes to become premier league champions. Breaking 100 points etc. Now utd fans claim they want to win the title again, some might say they rioted against their club in order to do so. When the bar is set so high you have no room for sentiment. Like making excuses for a player who has been massively out of form or I hear wan bissaka is the best slide tackler about lol so what? Are you here to win trophies or are you going to hold underperforming players hands?
Winners are ruthless, they do not think about how many charities a player is aligned with, simply his performance on the pitch. If that’s not good enough then they don’t play. Simple. Some Fergie knew rightly.
How many years have I heard martial is going to come good or Rashford is the new Ronaldo. Absolute nonsense, Rashford and martial have been there for 5 season and haven’t lit a season up once. They’ve had spurts but that’s what an average player does. You look at mo salah for instance, if he has a bad game it’s a 6/10 minimum. Martial and Rashford can knock out a 2/10 easily. That’s a bad sign.
I might have gone hard on Rashford lately because I’ve listened for years now how good this guy is and I’m yet to consistently see it ever. So utd fans you continue to make excuses for poor performance and you’ll continue to win nothing.
JB
Window pain
This is my first time writing into this column but while reading the excellent article about the attitude towards and the future of the transfer fee in football one thing stuck in my mind.
You mention that without transfer fees players would have to see out their contracts like they would at Asda or Tesco. I actually experienced leaving Morrisons for a better job at Tesco, having worked for Morrisons for 4 and a half years I was only required to give Morrisons a week’s notice for every year I’d worked for the company so 4 weeks after accepting the job with Tesco I was their employee and even then if I’d simply walked out the worst Morrisons could have done is not paid me what was left of my entitlements.
My point is while I actually agree that transfer fees make no sense, is it not also true that we’d all have to accept the possibility of players simply leaving a club mid season with a few weeks notice? As it’s not like you have a “transfer window” in the “real world”
Andy, Cornwall
I appreciate John Nicholson’s sentiments about getting rid of transfer fees, but a player moving to a new club is nothing like an ordinary worker moving from Asda to Tesco.
In the case of a supermarket worker there are tens of millions of people who could do the job every bit as well. In the case of a footballer, it’s more like having the CEO of Asda decide he’s joining Tesco, which is probably something he can’t do on four weeks’ notice.
Anyway, even if they could somehow abolish transfer fees, I suspect the money would start flowing even more towards agents and investment companies who hold the rights to portfolios of players. The richest clubs would still end up with the most valuable players, and money would flow out of the game.
The only way around it is surely the franchise system used in US sports, where the league has power over everything from setting salary caps to allocating new players, and clubs are obliged to play by the same set of rules.
Basically, to safeguard the future of football at all levels we need a European Super League for the ‘elite’ competition, with the lower tiers operating partly to provide new talent for the ESL in the form of an annual draft – this being the only way to register new ESL players. These lesser clubs would replace the costly academies and scouting networks currently operated by the top teams, and in return they would receive the income they need to keep running.
Martin Florentino Perez, BRFC
Dirty Harry (and dirty Mediawatch?)
I think Mediawatch this morning was being a touch too pedantic in its takedown of the various reports about Harry Kane not showing up for pre-season training.
Whilst yes, technically, Kane has not missed “training” this morning, he has missed a club mandated medical appointment which is a prerequisite to joining training tomorrow.
Unless, completely possibly, Kane has had both vaccinations and Tottenham are allowing this as a reason for not having Covid test, Kane will not be allowed enter training tomorrow due to the fact that he has not attended the test this morning.
Obviously these papers want to sensationalise the “news” for us dear readers. And obviously every must be taken with a vat of salt due to the veracity issues. But for all intents and purposes, Kane has not shown up to (a mandatory prerequisite for) pre-season trianing.
Conor, London
Here we go
They’re back. Of course they’re back.
Over the last few months we’ve experienced an intoxicating surge of footballing emotion in a seemingly drip-fed, curtailed, shrunken world.
We saw it in Leicester’s surprise FA Cup victory and the vanquishing of the ESL. Euro 2020 itself was a journey. Already loaded with pathos and nostalgia, the awful scenes of Christian Eriksen collapsing and receiving CPR after suffering an on-pitch cardiac arrest lent the tournament an emotional heft and showed us the best of the football ‘community’. This Summer we’ve had Nessun Dorma, Messi leading a post-Maradona Argentina to a big trophy for the first time and Southgate’s England exorcising and then succumbing to the ghosts of past tournaments.
But now we’re heading back to normal. Any thoughts that this newfound solidarity might survive seems a little more like wishful thinking after the disturbances at Wembley and subsequent government-sponsored abuse of the black English players.
And now *they’re* back too. As welcome as the sight of tragic punk-rocker GG Allin tarmacking a stage at a wedding reception (look it up, kids), Barcelona, Juventus and Real Madrid have vowed to carry on with their plans for a European Super League. Of course they have. Did you ever think that widespread outrage within the game would stop these debt-magnet megalomaniacs building their Death Star of uncompetitive perma-football.
“Our aim is to keep developing the Super League project in a constructive and cooperative manner, always counting on all football stakeholders: fans, players, coaches, clubs, leagues, and national and international associations.”
Whatever.
As Alf said in ’66, “Now you’ll have to go out there and win it again.”
Quarantino, Chairman of the Bored, ITFC.
