roadrunnerswansea jack Lita signs on the dotted line. Not so sure about this especially, as mentioned earlier, due to the proximity to Brizzle...time will tell.
Appears we're still after Lee Camp but are offering peanuts for a fee.
Come in for Federici. He's the nuts!
No Fixed Abode Chelsea have signed midfielder Oriol Romeu on a four-year contract from Barcelona for £4.35m.
Toon Toon Blue armyNo Fixed Abode Chelsea have signed midfielder Oriol Romeu on a four-year contract from Barcelona for £4.35m.
"the deal includes a buy-back clause of 10m euros after one year and 15m euros after two"
Does seem strange from Chelsea. If they rate him that highly surely they would have forked out a bit more cash to avoid the buy-back clause?
M-U-R-T-Y They did the same with Bojan to Roma (was it Roma?) it's like a half-loan deal that if he turns out to be average Barcelona don't have to have him back, and if he's sensational they have the option to get him back. It's good business from their point of view.
leww_rfc Clever from Barcelona there.. very clever!
No Fixed Abodeleww_rfc Clever from Barcelona there.. very clever!
Of course, Chelsea won't play a clever game either........
Mr Angry QPR confirm the signing of D J Campbell from Blackpool.
Holloway struggling with Blackpool nightmare... and now he has a player revolt on his hands
Ian Holloway surfaced from a selfimposed silence and 'the worst few months' of his life to lay bare the devastation caused by dropping out of the Barclays Premier League.
It is 74 days since defeat at Manchester United on the last day of the season saw Blackpool's Tangerine dream end in tears as they were relegated from the top flight after one year.
It may have earned the Lancashire club an estimated £90million but, like any lottery winner, life does not always change for the better.
The usually ebullient Holloway has not spoken a word in public since, but he re-emerged yesterday to talk about the pain of failure and the problems he has faced, including the threat of a player revolt ahead of Blackpool's first Championship game of the season at Hull City on Friday night.
'You would not believe the chasm that's left when the Premier League goes away,' he said. 'The excitement, the tension, even just looking forward to the games. That's not there any more.
'The honest truth is that I've had a few weeks of soul-searching. It has been the worst few months of my life, to be honest. It was heartbreaking.
'Why should I be jubilant? The fact is we failed. The disappointment of it being so close and so late, trying to sift through and decide if there was anything else that could have been done. Now we are back to square one in the Championship.'
As if relegation was not painful enough for 48-year-old Holloway, he now finds himself arguably worse off than when he first arrived at Bloomfield Road two years ago.
The core of his promotion team have left and, with chairman Karl Oyston reluctant to dip into the £48million in parachute payments that are meant to cushion the fall from the top division, the manager has not been able to replace them.
Worse still, Holloway revealed that he is struggling to motivate those who have stayed at Bloomfield Road, many of whom may have seen their salaries halved by relegation.
Five players have kept their Premier League wages on the basis they extended their contracts by an extra year, but three more - believed to be Neal Eardley, Gary Taylor-Fletcher and Keith Southern - are holding out on half-pay.
Eardley has been so badly affected by the dispute that he is not considered to be in the right frame of mind to make the journey to Humberside.
The issue mirrors a similar row over bonus payments between Holloway's players and Oyston at the start of last season, which resulted in Charlie Adam taking the club to a Premier League tribunal.
'It's an absolute nightmare from the start,' said Holloway, who has lost his goalkeeper coach, chief scout and developmental coach in addition to 16 senior players.
Veterans Barry Ferguson and Kevin Phillips have been brought in but even the Ferguson deal almost collapsed when Blackpool insisted on sticking to their policy of not paying agents' fees.
Holloway added: 'We have ended up with a lot of money. Can we spend it? No. Does my chairman agree with the wages others are paying? No. Would we pay them? No. So we have lost most of our best players.
'Because we run the club properly and have gone back on to wages players were on before they were promoted, it has caused all sorts of uproar. I'm the man at the coal face dealing with that.
'Players have gone back to their Championship wages which were awful and while the chairman has offered some of them the same money as last year, that has not been good enough. There's a bit of a Mexican stand-off with one or two of them.
'No matter how skilful you are as a manager, what can you do if a player is despondent? Plug them in a socket and liven them up?
'This club could be damaged if we get our house running the wrong way. You're threatening the thing the fans love, which is the club. Life isn't always what it seems. Your life changes when you win the lottery, for example. You might not have any money worries, but there are other problems.
'I'm trying to batten down the hatches because I'm expecting a storm of expectation.
THE EXODUS
DJ Campbell became the 13th player to leave Blackpool this summer when the striker, 29, completed a £1.25m move to Barclays Premier League new boys QPR.
IN (£750,000)
Barry Ferguson, Kevin Phillips, Angel Martinez, Thomas Ince, Miguel Llera.
OUT (£10.25m)
Charlie Adam, David Vaughan, Andy Reid, DJ Campbell, Rob Edwards, Danny Coid, Ishmel Demontagnac, Paul Rachubka, Marlon Harewood, Malaury
Martin, David Carney, Richard Kingson, Jason Euell.
LOANS ENDED
James Beattie, Luke Varney, Jason
Puncheon.
leww_rfcNo Fixed Abodeleww_rfc Clever from Barcelona there.. very clever!
Of course, Chelsea won't play a clever game either........
well its Win Win from Barcelona's perspective, if he turns out to be Oxf*rd however, you're stuck with him!
No Fixed Abode Lukaku looks set to join Chelsea.
In his first Chelsea press conference Oriol Romeu I will always support Barca and I hope someday I can return there
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