Quote:
Originally Posted by Whip Hubley
Absolutely not, if only based on all the players that LVG, Jose and Ole wanted. Why did it all suddenly change when ETH came in?
I suspect it was a case of ETH saying go for Antony then, somehow, we ended up paying about £50m over the odds. In fact i'm sure I read somewhere that that's exactly what happened, he was valued about £30m ish then Ajax didn't want to sell for that much, so we slap £80m down.
Whatever happened, it's £#%&!ing bonkers and the whole point of having proper structure above the manager is so somewhere along the way someone has the good sense to put a ceiling on what we play for any given player.
ETH makes plenty of baffling decisions to these eyes but I think saying "oh he worked with Antony so it's entirely his fault we paid £80m for him" is a very easy stick to beat him with for his detractors. It quite simply should not have got to that stage.
If you're ETH, you want the player and the club says it can get him, you're not going to care about the cost because that shouldn't be in the managers remit. Reckon Klopp gave a £#%&! about how much they paid for Nunez, or Guardiola with Kalvin Phillips?
We all seem to be stuck with this idea of a Fergie like deity who trains and coaches the players, tactics, scouts players, decides how much to pay etc etc. That's not how top clubs are run, and we've been in the ditch for well over a decade precisely because the glazers thought every manager would be like Fergie and able to work miracles and do the job of 10 men.
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I don’t understand why people think the cash is irrelevant to ETh or he’s somehow in the dark about everything- spitting out his cornflakes when Dick tells him he paid £80m ffs.
He will have a budget. A total amount available. The total cost of each player will impact on that (obvs), so Eth will be across the price and the negotiations even if it’s just updates because it will have a massive impact on other targets/the squad. Ie if we get him at this price Erik obviously Kane is off the list. Etc.
So he will have been ok with that price. If not he’d have said no, we try for X and Y so let’s kill the Antony deal.
Of course there may not have been an X or Y still on the table at that point so his choice was complete Antony at the price they want or have nothing in your Christmas stocking. He obviously said yes.
The alternative is Erik wanting other players or instead wanting to hold the budget for next window and instead having Antony foisted on him and all or a big slice of the budget eaten up. No way he swallows that and doesn’t walk.
So again, he won’t be doing the deal but he will be part of the steering group signing off and okaying the buy at the price knowing how that effects the budget they have to bring in new players.