Ferguson Hands in Transfer Request

[Tris]

Like philipl, I think the delaying tactics are significant.

Williams has (again) come out with a class line about the response from fellow board members ... it might be Friday ----- but actually it's far more likely to be Monday.

Paraphrased (and with the rest of that statement labelling the current (and only) Rangers offer as preposterous) that seems to be telling Rangers to go swivel.

And at the same time tells Ferguson and Viola to go figure. I have no doubt that Viola tried to engineer this scenario in the light of the Savage saga. But Williams has handled both situations absolutely brilliantly.

Things will have to move very fast for any transfer to happen. As I posted earlier, the Boumsong money cannot finance a big money move for Ferguson - of the reported 8 million, 1 mill went to Boumsong, 1 mill to his agent, and Rangers have signed Buffel for 2 and now this Greek geezer for 1.75.

For a club recently massively in debt and - even after the 8 mill windfall - having to move players out to bring players in, I'd say that the chances of them being able to bid an amount to tempt JW and co to sell, are precisely nil.

Which leaves us with the problem of keeping the player.

Like Scotty, I have lost all respect for him. I'd never boo any player picked to play for our team, and I also recognise that he's a good un. I think that with Savage, he'll be an even better un.

However, I have total confidence that if Ferguson is still here on Feb 1st, the people around him (except Viola) will be able to ensure he can do his job for Rovers. Even if that means dangling the carrot of a move back home in August.

It might be kind (and sensible) to take the armand off him and give it to Savage - this is inevitable in any case at some stage. And just tell Ferguson to get his head down and play his football for the remaining dozen games. Then sort out what happens next in the summer.

[thenodrog]

Your point about the fans would carry a little more validity if Ferguson had come out slagging off us or the club. However, I think Hughes has established such a high regard with the fans that if the manager continues to throw his weight behind Ferguson, the fans will follow.

Not sure about that Philip. I can only go on how I feel but I don't want Ferguson to play for us again until he withdraws his request and apologises. Hughes can say what he wants - can't see it changing my opinion of our captain.

Letting emotions influence business dealings will most certainly not help any situation.............. and we cannot afford em to! Rem we do hold the stronger hand and Rangers are potless. No matter what rhetoric they use, money talks and with no money they are weak.

[thenodrog]

"It might be kind (and sensible) to take the armand off him and give it to Savage"

I think part of his transfer request was down to the knowledge that that would happen anyway.

"Like philipl, I think the delaying tactics are significant.

Williams has (again) come out with a class line about the response from fellow board members ... it might be Friday ----- but actually it's far more likely to be Monday.

Paraphrased (and with the rest of that statement labelling the current (and only) Rangers offer as preposterous) that seems to be telling Rangers to go swivel.

And at the same time tells Ferguson and Viola to go figure."

It certainly tells em that we wont be pushed about and that they are not as important as they think.

[Scotty]

Letting emotions influence business dealings will most certainly not help any situation.............. and we cannot afford em to! Rem we do hold the stronger hand and Rangers are potless. No matter what rhetoric they use, money talks and with no money they are weak.

I've no idea what point you're making, I didn't say we should let emotions influence any business dealings, but if Rangers are potless then it just means we're left with a player who wants to play somewhere else.

[Izzitnot]

and becomes disruptive on the training ground

[Tris]

Letting emotions influence business dealings will most certainly not help any situation.............. and we cannot afford em to!  Rem we do hold the stronger hand and Rangers are potless.  No matter what rhetoric they use, money talks and with no money they are weak.

I've no idea what point you're making, I didn't say we should let emotions influence any business dealings, but if Rangers are potless then it just means we're left with a player who wants to play somewhere else.

which doesn't for a moment mean that he's incapable of playing well here ...

Mark Hughes' stance so far indicates not only does he want to keep BF but he's even already made it easier for both parties to put this situation behind them if he does stay.

[thenodrog]

If Rangers are not willing to pay anything like Rovers' asking price and he has stuck himself into this extraordinary "it's only Rangers or Rovers" corner, what other option does he have short of going on strike and losing his income?

There are so many possibilities to all this.

Could that situation precipitate legal action by us to sue Ferguson for damages / breach of contract? This sort of action has not happened in football before but I believe it should. Things are far too one sided in favour of the players. It might be ironic that I am saying this so soon after the Savage situation but we did not offer less than generously for Savage whereas trying to get Ferguson for buttons by engineering the situation as has happened could be tantamount to extortion / fraud.

Who is to say that this situation was not a Murray / Viola set-up job from the start?

July 03.

"Listen Bazza, We've been thinking. We'd like you go to some Premiership suckers for big bucks, then play for a reasonable time, that will serve to get the Bank manager off our back for a time, then kick up and insist that you will only come back here and they will have to let us buy you back for buttons....... Oh and btw you can have 25% of any profit"

[Scotty]

which doesn't for a moment mean that he's incapable of playing well here ...

Mark Hughes' stance so far indicates not only does he want to keep BF but he's even already made it easier for both parties to put this situation behind them if he does stay.

No, you're right it doesn't. But it doesn't help does it.

I was looking forward to Savage and Ferguson playing together, and I guess it could still happen, but any pleasure I get out of it will be tempered with the fact that Ferguson wants to play at Rangers and will almost certainly leave in the summer.

Obviously if we start winning games and Ferguson plays a blinder then my resentment will diminish over time, but the bottom line is that I just don't respect him anymore.

[thenodrog]

Not sure about that Philip. I can only go on how I feel but I don't want Ferguson to play for us again until he withdraws his request and apologises. Hughes can say what he wants - can't see it changing my opinion of our captain.

Forget being irate at me for a minute and you will surely realise that ideally there are two situations which we need to try our best to achieve out of this issue.

1. Hughes wants him to stay at least till summer.

2. We need to realise as much value for him as possible when he eventually leaves.

It will serve no purpose to back Ferguson into a corner from where he cannot find a way out should the need arise. Rem he has not fallen out with the club at all yet so there is still a way back should no move arise by Jan 30th. Even if we agree to let him go back in summer we need him to still be a valid and useful member of the first team squad until then. There is simply no justification and there is no place for girly strops and stamping of feet in business.

[allan]

Speaking on 5 Live this evening Harry Harris a tabloid journo( admittedly not a beacon of truth) said there are circumstances behind Ferguson wanting to leave that he could not mention on air. There better had be because otherwise he looks a complete numpty by the way he has behaved.

[thenodrog]

ooops sorry Scotty I guess you just conceded that point to Tris whilst I was writing.

[philipl]

I love it when these football journos increase their own self-perception of having everyone think they are on the inside and therefore valuable fonts of knowledge who gullible football fans will buy pints for just to listen to the titbits using "I know something but I cannot say it" comments. Phew. Must happen at least two or three times on different subjects every week in the incestuous world of journalists interviewing journalists dressed up as factual programming.

Back to Ferguson, the guy is going to have the rather big carrot of re-establishing his reputation if he stays at Ewood. He will also be playing for the Rovers to offer a decently remunerative (as opposed to perfunctory) contract extension.

Then it will be the Dunn test. Either he signs up for a two year extension or he gets sold on the Rovers' terms to the highest bidder.

Edited January 20, 2005 by philipl

[Scotty]

Not sure about that Philip.  I can only go on how I feel but I don't want Ferguson to play for us again until he withdraws his request and apologises.  Hughes can say what he wants - can't see it changing my opinion of our captain.

Forget being irate at me for a minute and you will surely realise that ideally there are two situations which we need to try our best to achieve out of this issue.

1. Hughes wants him to stay at least till summer.

2. We need to realise as much value for him as possible when he eventually leaves.

It will serve no purpose to back Ferguson into a corner from where he cannot find a way out should the need arise. Rem he has not fallen out with the club at all yet so there is still a way back should no move arise by Jan 30th. Even if we agree to let him go back in summer we need him to still be a valid and useful member of the first team squad until then. There is simply no justification and there is no place for girly strops and stamping of feet in business.

I agree Theno and if Ferguson hadn't submitted a transfer request there wouldn't have been a problem. Rovers could have agreed to sell him in the summer, started negotiations with Rangers to agree a fee, and the fans would have supported Ferguson for the rest of the season without any problems.

Sadly though, the dumb bast@rd did put a transfer request in so he's pi55ed off the fans, tried to exert pressure on the club to sell him now (he's out bloody captain remember), and wants to bail out in the middle of a relegation fight.

Of course the club have to appear like they're not being forced into anything, we need to get as much money as we can for him, but I can't help thinking we'd be better off just getting rid of him asap.

Anyway, I'm just repeating myself now!

[thenodrog]

The decision to follow your head or your heart is never easy in such issues but the answer is usually............Your head.

[RevidgeBlue]

With all due respect to Paul who earlier put across his point of view extremely eloquently I still think everyone is massively over-reacting to the fact Ferguson has handed in a transfer request.

Let's take off the blue and white tinted specs for a minute and look at it objectively. Ferguson is far from a Dunn or a Duff who came through the Rovers ranks, he is a Glasgow lad through and through. In fact from what I recall the only reason we signed him in the first place was that Rangers couldn't afford to keep him any longer given their extortionate debt level, and we were flush with cash having ushered Duff off to Chelsea.

So to him it is just a job, it is unrealistic to expect him as a player to have the same huge level of commitment to Blackburn Rovers the club as a fan.

That said he is a quality player, he is our player and under contract for another two and a half years. Rejecting Rangers initial derisory bid is hardly an act of genius by John Williams and the Board, it is the only sane option.

Unless we are offered a fee of £5m plus at some stage that would enable us to go out and buy a Scott Parker, it's a non issue as far as I'm concerned.

If he is allowed to leave on the cheap it would just be yet another severe let down from a Board that have stood back and allowed Dunn, Duff and Cole to leave in recent times.

We do nothing, sit back, tell Ferguson to be professional, and put him and Savage together in the probable expectation that this will shoot us up the table, and in the hope this will prompt a change of heart from Ferguson.

If it doesn't, does anyone seriously think we would get less than the £3m currently offered in summer? At this stage it's a no lose situation for us.

[Ste B]

With all due respect to Paul who earlier put across his If it doesn't, does anyone seriously think we would get less than the £3m currently offered in summer? At this stage it's a no lose situation for us.

We still need our best players to be sure of avoiding relegation. The moneys we gain by keeping him till the end of the season and staying up will be far greater than the comparative pittance we could get now.

[Tris]

If he is allowed to leave on the cheap it would just be yet another severe let down from a Board that have stood back and allowed Dunn, Duff and Cole to leave in recent times.

To correct (for the 9,648th time) re Duff

Had the board (and Williams in particular) not worked damned hard in 2002, not only would we have seen Duff leave a year earlier, but we'd have got 1/3rd of the money Chelsea paid for him. At the most.

Dunn and Cole are not really worth commenting on. Neither has done anything to suggest we should have kept them.

The Rovers board is running this club exceptionally well, in the most difficult of circumstances.

[AussieinUk]

Let's take off the blue and white tinted specs for a minute and look at it objectively. Ferguson is far from a Dunn or a Duff who came through the Rovers ranks, he is a Glasgow lad through and through. ...

So to him it is just a job, it is unrealistic to expect him as a player to have the same huge level of commitment to Blackburn Rovers the club as a fan.

Rev, he (BF) has been here a year and a half, (injured through most of this time) was transfered under a large contract and transfer fee and then hands in a 'written transfer request'.. I dont think it is lack objectivity influencing peoples opinion, it is Barry's apparent lack of professionalism to the club he signed for.

[RevidgeBlue]

If he is allowed to leave on the cheap it would just be yet another severe let down from a Board that have stood back and allowed Dunn, Duff and Cole to leave in recent times.

To correct (for the 9,648th time) re Duff

Had the board (and Williams in particular) not worked damned hard in 2002, not only would we have seen Duff leave a year earlier, but we'd have got 1/3rd of the money Chelsea paid for him. At the most.

Dunn and Cole are not really worth commenting on. Neither has done anything to suggest we should have kept them.

The Rovers board is running this club exceptionally well, in the most difficult of circumstances.

The most difficult of circumstances? Buoyed up by numerous years of Sky money, the infrastructure instigated by Jack and the backing of the Trust Fund?

Bet Bill Fox would have loved such "difficult" circumstances.

[moerpho]

I have a growing feeling that Ferguson will be staying with Rovers and (sadly) will be allowed to continue as captain. How that will work out for Rovers as a team remains to be seen. In regards to fans reaction to the player - two words (and one name): Andy Todd. After his runout before the Leeds-game last season, lots of people on here said they would boo him if he played and never wanted to see him play in the blue and white halves again. After a good run under Hughes he is now a favourite for new captain according to the poll on this forum. This shows that the fans can and will be turned around if the player performs no matter what has happened that turned the fans against him. I'm only (sort of) thankful that Ferguson is injured while this debacle is going on so that he can't play until the transfer window closes, but I'm sure that if he strings together a good run of games during february all this will soon be forgotten. No matter the outcome I trust JW and the board will go about this as professionals and the club will come out of this on top.

On a different note (should perhaps be in a different thread), when talking about Souness coming in with a bid - anyone else surprised that good old Souness hasn't tried to buy one Rovers-player during the transfer window? When he left I was quite sure he would try to buy one of Ferguson, Emerton, Stead or Neill during the transfer window, but perhaps he made a gentlemans agreement with the board?

[philipl]

Moerpho, you could be right about the gentleman's agreement with the Board about poaching. Certainly, the Rovers could have made his passage to Newcastloe a lot rougher than it was and no doubt they got something from Newcastle in return.

Nothing much in the Scottish Newspapers this morning apart from hopeful comments about the inevitability of Ferguson's return and it only requires an extra £1m on Murray's original offer (you mean raising it to £1.5m ) to secure Blackburn's agreement.

Some interesting comments in this article from a journalist who has steadfastly criticised Ferguson's desire to go back to Rangers on footballing grounds. The derision he heaps on Murray's management of Rangers and the extremely tenuous position McLeish's job is in are highlighted. Given Rovers have the larger turnover the comment about Rangers being a much larger club needs a little qualification as well.

The comment that Ferguson's "unhappiness" at Blackburn is linked to Souness' departure is another sign that even the enlightened Scots are very out of touch with reality or have chosen to ignore at least two press comments made by Ferguson within the last two months.

Elsewhere, I saw a comment that Ferguson's very best mate at Rangers was Craig Moore- of course he is no longer there.

However, the most telling observation I saw from north of the border was the comment that if Murray is to succeed in securing Ferguson, he will have to dig deep into his own pocket.

Therein lies the rub. Murray is totally exposed on this one.

I suspect if he doesn't get Ferguson now, Ferguson will never go back to Rangers. How could he when having publicly encouraged Ferguson to put in the transfer request from Rovers, Murray fails to follow through and pay the neccessary amount to secure the player?

One final point for now.

The reason why tapping up charges are so rarely seen is that the successful buying club pays enough to buy everyone's silence. Villa got charged by Southampton after an alleged failed tapping up. Rovers might have enough dirt to have the ability either to force Rangers to buy Ferguson at their price (if they want to) or have Viola and Rangers face a UEFA investigation which would be a bit different to the FA exercise O'Leary has just been through. Perhaps someone who knows UEFA rules could help but wouldn't Rangers and Viola be suspended from transfer activity whilst the accusations are investigated?

Edited January 21, 2005 by philipl

[broadsword]

Let's take off the blue and white tinted specs for a minute and look at it objectively. Ferguson is far from a Dunn or a Duff who came through the Rovers ranks, he is a Glasgow lad through and through ... So to him it is just a job, it is unrealistic to expect him as a player to have the same huge level of commitment to Blackburn Rovers the club as a fan.

Oh please!

What you mean is, he doesn't kiss the badge while celebrating. Why do players kiss the club badge? Because they can't kiss their pay-packet on the field!

I didn't realise Irishman Duff was Blackburn "through-and-through", strange as he's recently made comments to the effect that he wants to stay at Chelsea for good, so maybe now he's Chelsea "through-and-through". As for Dunn, he was so Blackburn "through-and-through" he consigned his Rovers career to the dustbin by being a tub of lard and picking fights with the manager.

So let's not disguise this with ersatz club affiliations, footballers only have one loyalty and that's to themselves. It's not about that, anymore than Shearer to Newcastle was about "boyhood club" dreams.

It's about backbone, and repaying faith shown in you by your employers. He doesn't have to stay here forever, but neither should he be allowed to take the micky out of the club.

The club captaincy will have to be taken off of him even if he does stay as he has no moral courage at all. Which made him a great candidate for it in teh first place - another good spot that, Graeme!

[jim mk2]

The Rovers board is running this club exceptionally well, in the most difficult of circumstances.

This week's prize award for the daftest comment.

With the millions in funding available to them from a variety of sources, this lot are on easy street compared with the boards of the 1970s and 1980s.

Poor old Bobby Saxton wasn't allowed to use the club telephone until the afternoon when the GPO charged lower rates.

And Jim Smith used to bring his own (soft) bog roll to work because the club had the shiny paper (and cheaper) Izal stuff !

[Duff's Minder]

I love it when these football journos increase their own self-perception of having everyone think they are on the inside and therefore valuable fonts of knowledge who gullible football fans will buy pints for just to listen to the titbits using "I know something but I cannot say it" comments. Phew. Must happen at least two or three times on different subjects every week in the incestuous world of journalists interviewing journalists dressed up as factual programming.

Back to Ferguson, the guy is going to have the rather big carrot of re-establishing his reputation if he stays at Ewood. He will also be playing for the Rovers to offer a decently remunerative (as opposed to perfunctory) contract extension.

Then it will be the Dunn test. Either he signs up for a two year extension or he gets sold on the Rovers' terms to the highest bidder.

Harry Harris is one of the few who really knows what he's talking about. He got his first big break on the Mirror when he got hold of Robert Maxwell's personal home number and (that only about 3 people knew) asked him for a job.

If Harry says there is more to it then there probably is, it would certainly make sense, who else believes the homesick stuff?

We all know players can leave clubs for reasons that never come out, everyone has heard the rumours about why Cantona left Leeds so quickly, who knows if something like that has happened here?

[philipl]

OK fine. But why make the comment without disclosing what it is he knows? Just comes over as a supercilious know-all.

Of course there will be a multiplicity of reasons why Ferguson has suddenly pushed a move to Rangers to the top of his agenda.

...and what were the rumours about Cantona?