by Agent Balti »
18 Jan 2011 07:18
Svlad Cjelli Can I give you my predictions on what will happen? NB - I have no inside knowledge on this one, just a hunch and 10+ years' experience of watching very closely how RFC operates.
- We were never that serious about signing BWP, that was just a part of the negotiations with STFC to show we were happy to go elsewhere when they quoted a price for Austin that we felt was too high. When they came back to us we didn't sign BWP.
- We will get Austin as he's been our target all along and our brinkmanship has worked.
- We will lose one or possibly both of Federici and/or Long - not to fund the new arrivals, but because we'll get an offer in for one of them that we won't be able to resist, and is over the value that we've agreed with them. I think the contract extension for Feds last week was signed for two reasons - so that the sale price has gone up and so that we could raise the "offers above this to be put to the player" price that's in his contract.
- Of the above, I think it's most likely we'll lose Long - some Premier League club will be some desperate to make a big gesture for survival that they'll splash the cash.
I could imagine a scenario of which you describe, but I really don't think that any club, let alone RFC, would go all the way down the avenue that they did with BWP...and even let him train with the first team...and then pull out just for the shits. That's not our style.
Personally, I'd think it would be Feds that would be off (if any.) We've got decent goalkeepers coming out of our ears, but we haven't got a goalscorer as hot as Shane (I'd never thought I would ever write that.) Shane, currently, is more valuable to us...but then again, so was Gylfi, so what do I know?