Virgil van Dijk

Would agree with all of them, and then sell Stokes maybe if the right offer came in.

 

It'll be the agent saying they haven't offered us the right deal, or any deal, any acceptable deal, so technically speaking their is a deal from one side. If it's not enough to the other side - there is no deal. So therefore one side can say there was a deal, the other can say there wasn't.

Add to that Palace come in with a sneaky deal and we walk away with £2.5million and even if he had signed a new deal, we may have struggled to get that for him.

 

If he was on a longer contract we would have easily got £7m/£8m for him. I've not once said there wasn't an offer there, just that the offer came really late then we accepted a bid for him shortly after.

If you've been wanting a deal, to sign longer for 18 months, the club lets you get down to where you can talk to other clubs on a pre-contract, gives you hastily arranged deal and then we accept an offer for him without much back and forth?

That's treating a player pretty shabbily in my opinion and you can see why he said that if a club accepts a bid for you they don't want you there, I don't think the club did because he was on high wages. Lenny certainly wanted him though.

 

It's worth pointing out that the club only accepted a bid for Ledley when he had 6 months remaining on his deal, at that stage I think it's fair to say negotiations had broken down. It would just be a case of leave for free or take whatever you can get.

Imo we handle contract negotiations pretty poorly and I would like to see us be far more ruthless with them. Players shouldn't get to the stage where they have 12/6 months left on their contracts.

 

Like I said, we waited till it ran down to that length of time before starting the negotiations. It's done to us the failings with the Joe Ledley deal.

 

You got a link to that quote ?

 

Also sounds like bullshit to me, can just imagine Joe Ledley knocking back Barca for Crystal Palace because he really, hand on heart, wanted Palace :smiley-laughing002:

 

Aye , I know we have talked about this before with Ledley and you said about the friends who know/knew Joe, but its always at the back of my mind that he walked out from his boyhood team to come to us.
Its something we will likely never know the full in's and outs off though. I would just dearly love to know one way or the other :smiley-laughing002:

 

He did walk out on Cardiff but it's a different situation, I don't know the in's and out's of it down there. Was it just give another season and push for the Premiership Joe kinda deal or refusing moves until you're contract runs down etc? * knows.

I know more about this one than any other but it does strike me as similar to what we done to Jackie McNamara, what we done to Samaras, what we done to Neil Lennon, Tony Stokes and Commons (worked with those 3), think it's just the way Lawwell operates, same kind of mindset as Wicker Bhoy in the last page, the they want to be here so we can afford to * them about.

The only player whose shown loyalty who we don't * about with is Scott Brown, there's a stark difference in how we deal with him than the others. I think that's because we know there's a big risk we'll lose players treating them like that but we can't afford to lose Broony, so there's no * about there.

 

I hope we make the CL group stage and then sell him.. he obviously sees his future elsewhere so i expect him to go to a mid table english team.. if any of the big boys had wanted him they could have signed him already, even allowing him to stay with us on loan until the end of last season

he's a good player BUT (note the big) he has not really performed well at a high level, any bid near 10 million will see him out the door rapid ... a great deal for all concerned

 

Weird to think that Broony has been captain here for over 5 years......

 

I am not saying I don't believe you, I believe you believe 100% what you have said mate , its just the leave Cardiff for nothing scenario.

Yes there are similarities with the above players ,although I honestly think the time taken with Commons was down to Ronny saying he was unsure if Commons would be needed. Samaras is a strange one, could it have been Lawwell knew Lenny was leaving and wondered/decided if the next manager would want him ? (or am I mixing up the seasons, its an age thing ). But overall I do think that Pete looks at players as 'assets' rightly or wrongly.

We would be in a very different place without Broony, that's for sure

 

I know what you mean, like I said I don't know the situation there, I just know if we put an effort in for Ledley he would have still been here. We waited and waited, as we tend to do.

The Commons one you're looking at in isolation to last year, we let him get down to a year on his contract before offering a new one. We would never do that with players who weren't as loyal or who are assets as you say, Hooper/Van Dijk we tried with 2 years left on there contracts.

That's why the Ledley situation is bizarre for me, I think we thought anything we put on the table he'll take because he was an asset.

I don't think anyone knew Lenny was leaving, I think we just done the same thing we usually do to players who repeatadly say they want to be here. It's a two way street for me, if a player wants to be here we need to show them they're wanted.

 

Long may it continue!

 

Sunderland forum made a thread asking Jonny Evans or VVD you can sign one who do you pick

 

Anyone saying VVD are using FIFA as their scouting system.
Correct answer is Evans all day every day and twice on a Sunday.



Here's another.. These * are unreal

Evans all day. Van Dijk is awful at defending just decent at attacking.

 

I know VVD's pure pish.

 

Ignorance and arrogance from English fans? Who'd've thunk it?

 

Big, BIG fan of this lad

Hopefully he sticks around long enough to secure a CL Group Stage spot and then the Club sell him on for 8-10 Million

Would have him at Everton without any hesitation whatsoever. You can even have Geades back if you want

 

Lombaerts has agreed to sign for Sunderland apparently, so hopefully they won't come in for Virgil.