[Archived] Nicko's January Rumour Mill

[Anti-Dingle-Brigade]

You are a hero LeChuck!

So many posts on here are a complete waste of time because people are not reading the thread and the answers are on here already.

I think mods should start banning people for posting questions which have already been answered.

Not all of us have the luxury of excessive leisure time, but I know what you mean.

Banning them is a bit of a stupid suggestion though.

[alexanders]

It is these questions and different information from everybody which does this thread / forum unique.

Both PhilipL and Lathund stop being such tough guys.

[Alan75]

Another day gone by and City have not shifted their rear ends on Roque despite yet more guff that he is their number one target.

If they were that desperate they'd put a number on the table which meant Rovers could do a City in getting a money no object replacement like the way they have paid over the odds for Bellamy, De Jong and (it seems) Given.

As I have illustrated on the Roque thread (I think it is), £18m for RSC cuts no muster for Rovers in the big picture (not that they have even offered that much!). Add another £10m and things look differently.

With City only 4 points ahead of Rovers, they will wait untill deadline to make an offer, in order to prevent Rovers strengthening. and challenging them in the relegation battle.

[donis1410]

It is these questions and different information from everybody which does this thread / forum unique.

Both PhilipL and Lathund stop being such tough guys.

watch out they might ask you for ID if your not careful, lol

[alexanders]

With City only 4 points ahead of Rovers, they will wait untill deadline to make an offer, in order to prevent Rovers strengthening. and challenging them in the relegation battle.

If they do - I don't think we will sell.

According to Nicko we are ready to sell when we have a replacement ready.

[nicko]

Rather than keeping the suspense going...and because I hoped to have a definitive answer but haven't...here is the list of players I believe were under review...fair play to some very good guessing elsewhere earlier.

These names are not necessarily in order, but the people who watched them strike me as being significant. Obviously this is excluding Marc Janko who is rated too pricey at £9 million right now.

1...NICOLA ZIGIC...I understand Sam was at the Sevilla v Racing game when he scored his third goal in three games...the chief scout had also been at the Getafe game last week...the big Serb has been watched by Sam at past clubs...he is not everyone's cup of tea, but whatever...the snags here are that he is at his second club of the season - although he did not play for Valencia in La Liga - and that makes it tough...plus the fee would be big...maybe as high as £7 million.

2...MILAN JOVANOVIC...Number two Neil McDonald watched the Serb [what is it with Serbs?] play for Standard Liege...he is ok and quite like Roque in style...problems here are that Standard are wealthy and still in Europe plus chasing a spot in the Champions League...the price could be about £8 million and it's open to debate whether he is worth it.

3...EDIN DZEKO...A leading scout saw him for Wolfsburg at the weekend...Rovers already know about him from watching his left back team-mate Schafer earlier in the season...scoring a lot of goals...no idea on price...Bosnian but not a Bosman.

I thought a move or a decision might have been taken on one today, but as yet no confirmation of that.

All I can say is that it will be hard to land any of them - or Janko - with time running out.

On top of this - and I should stress this is unconfirmed - my best Man City man tells me they want to sign Roque by midnight tomorrow or it's off.

This may be idle chat, it's not a planted threat or anything like that. I'm not even writing that part in the paper tomorrow.

So things are alive but maybe not moving towards a quick conclusion yet.

Still, that's what managers and chairmen get paid for...

[LessThanJake]

any truth in today's reports about Johnson and Sturridge?

Both would be fantastic for Rovers I think

[Majiball]

3...EDIN DZEKO...A leading scout saw him for Wolfsburg at the weekend...Rovers already know about him from watching his left back team-mate Schafer earlier in the season...scoring a lot of goals...no idea on price...Bosnian but not a Bosman.

How well off are Wolfsburg??

They have a couple of good Italians who must not have been cheap in Zaccardo and Barzagli.

German clubs seem to be a bit more realistic (price wise) than others.

I did see Pompey linked at 7.5M and Magath laughed at them, saying why on earth would he want to go there??

[imy9]

OK, so we are watching expensive strikers but are too idle to pick which one we want!!

This is too stressful, what we cannot do under ANY circumstances is sell Roque without a QUALITY replacement not being in place.

My two pennies worth? Zigic is not worth £7 million, £4 million would be acceptable, my favourite is the striker who plays in the German league, he would be worth spending upwards of £7 million on.

[gumboots]

OK, so we are watching expensive strikers but are too idle to pick which one we want!!

This is too stressful, what we cannot do under ANY circumstances is sell Roque without a QUALITY replacement not being in place.

My two pennies worth? Zigic is not worth £7 million, £4 million would be acceptable, my favourite is the striker who plays in the German league, he would be worth spending upwards of £7 million on.

Why too idle? They probably know which they'd prefer, which they think might offer us the best options, be most likely to adapt etc but unless City table a proper bid then our hands are tied. We can't go further down the line of negotiations than we possibly have done (enquiring whether there's any possibility of a deal etc) until we know what those idiots at City are planning. We'd probably like nothing better than to have the whole thing sorted and out of the way but we can't until other things work out.

[begresko]

Any further progress on Derbyshire? my mate who is a cardiff fan says his fans forum are sure they are chasing with no bids made.

Once again idle chatter i would imagine but no less someone i would ship out if a decent price came in

[imy9]

Why too idle? They probably know which they'd prefer, which they think might offer us the best options, be most likely to adapt etc but unless City table a proper bid then our hands are tied. We can't go further down the line of negotiations than we possibly have done (enquiring whether there's any possibility of a deal etc) until we know what those idiots at City are planning. We'd probably like nothing better than to have the whole thing sorted and out of the way but we can't until other things work out.

Idle because we have known for weeks that this was going to happen, plan A and B should be in effect and we should be signing players, like virtually every other premier league club. I really hope RSC does not sign for City at midnight on deadline day and we get Vassell on loan for the season.

[nicko]

Let's be fair, you can't call people 'idle' who have been chasing round Europe for weeks...

The manager has been away three times that I know about...the chief scout has never been at home by the sounds of it.

The fact is that players are hard to find. Look at some of the trash moving in this window.

So, call them 'choosy' or 'under pressure' if you like, but 'idle' is incredibly harsh.

[thenodrog]

Yes but don't you get a medical team and an insurer to check this out.

Surely his medical record will have been requested and inspected by our own medical team?

[donis1410]

Idle is very harsh indeed, considering that we haven't lost him yet and that the release clause is 18 or what ever in summer, we wont be losing out that much by not selling him in this window!!!

[alexanders]

Choosy is the word and I really agree with the part about trash moving in this window.

Cheers for the Info.

Rovers1995 said that he had it from a very good source that we were represented at Malaga - Atletico Madrid yesterday. Anything here Nicko?

[Lars-Erik]

Perhaps a bit off-topic, but the largest norwegian newspaper reports that Christian Panucci has recently spoken on TV claiming to quit/terminate his contract with Roma due to being benched the last couple of games. (Won't bother posting a linke, since it's all in Norwegian). Surely, he would make a great makeshift right back until summer, providing great strength and composure to our defence, as well as a dead ball target-man of equal significance as Samba up front! ..if we only had a couple of decent crossers in the squad

[gumboots]

Idle is very harsh indeed, considering that we haven't lost him yet and that the release clause is 18 or what ever in summer, we wont be losing out that much by not selling him in this window!!!

Thing is too that Allardyce knew there was an issue with Santa Cruz and City but it probably wasn't high on his initial agenda. More important issues like stopping us losing football games probably came before it. you must kind of hope when you come in as a new manager too that a player will allow you to get your feet under the table before he starts spouting again about wanting to go elsewhere and that by the time he's ready to atart spouting, he might have changed his mind because he's bought into what you're trying to do, he's got a long contract on good wages and so on and a club like city who are the only ones who want him might have found bigger fish to fry. too much looking elsewhere and you're going to drive the guy out of the club. so you can't just walk in from day one and shout out loud "Find me a replacement for Sata Cruz" We've probably been looking around for a while but players are commanding silly fees in this window and we can't afford to buy on the off chance that City come in with the right bid before the end of the window. All we can do is look, enquire about possibilities and try to do our business professionally. We can't help it if certain clubs are rather less professional. Most of the players who have moved have either been big fees, only wanted to go to a specific club, been moved on because they make trouble, been near the end of contracts and so on.

[B.R.F.C]

The same Milan Jovanovic who said that Everton were not big enough for him? Don't get a good feeling about the possibility of signing of him. A good player he is but a bit of a prima donna type attitude.

As for Zigic I really can't see it being him considering he only joined Racing on loan from Valencia around 2/3 weeks ago?

As for Dzeko it would be a lot of cash to stump up for someone a bit unproven and who is helped by the players that surround him.

Wouldn't mind either Zigic or Milan.

[thenodrog]

Not having a go at you nicko but how can there possibly be any issues about doing any sort of deal "within the budget" unless the plan is to stash away a very sizeable chunk of money?

Whilst we are still playing catch up I'm scared of taking any sort of risk with our Prem status and I'd rather keep RSC but I don't know what is happening behind the scenes so should this pan out well it's good business rev. Surely you don't expect BRFC to sell RSC for 20m just so they can blow it all on one player? We cannot exist like that. In the current environment we are a developing and selling club.

[philipl]

So far as I am concerned, if Search were working on this board we could find out when Man City first made a bid for Roque.

We are more than seven months after that underwhelming day and City still have not made an offer worthy of more than a one line fax reply and press release.

There is clearly an issue at the City end to say the least as to whether they are going to get serious about signing him in the way they got serious about Bridge, Bellamy, De Jong, and Given.

If Chelsea, West Ham, Hamburg and Newcastle are worthy of payments of £11m, £14m, £18m and £10m respectively for those less than overwhelming players then a Champions League medal holding, star centre forward of the run away leaders of the South American World Cup Group, ex-Bayern and 20+ goals in a season Premier League player is being massively under-valued by City.

There is a risk in keeping RSC of course, but if he knocks in 10 in the second half of this season, he will be worth £20m in the summer window, no sweat.

[thenodrog]

I disagree with that, if we sell players for a certain amount then a player/players of equivalent ability and value should come in. Otherwise the squad just gets progressively weaker.

No it doesn't. RSC will be no different nor better a player should City stump up 20m than he was when we bought him for 3.5. Ditto for Bentley and should the situation arise Warnock and Samba too.

As I have said many times Hughes provided the business model and early days yet but hopefully SA seems to be emulating it. Buy cheap / add value / sell dear but replace with at least equal first. Hughes scouting system was superb I only hope we have people that can do similar.

[gumboots]

So far as I am concerned, if Search were working on this board we could find out when Man City first made a bid for Roque.

We are more than seven months after that underwhelming day and City still have not made an offer worthy of more than a one line fax reply and press release.

There is clearly an issue at the City end to say the least as to whether they are going to get serious about signing him in the way they got serious about Bridge, Bellamy, De Jong, and Given.

If Chelsea, West Ham, Hamburg and Newcastle are worthy of payments of £11m, £14m, £18m and £10m respectively for those less than overwhelming players then a Champions League medal holding, star centre forward of the run away leaders of the South American World Cup Group, ex-Bayern and 20+ goals in a season Premier League player is being massively under-valued by City.

There is a risk in keeping RSC of course, but if he knocks in 10 in the second half of this season, he will be worth £20m in the summer window, no sweat.

I'm quite happy to keep him too and I suspect so would allardyce be if he could be sure he was going to be able to. it's just that he presumably has to cover all bases now and be prepard for that very big bid to come in late with City mucking about the way they appear to have done so far. If we sell, provided we've done our homework and the replacemant is in quickly and is the best we feel we can get, then I've no real problem (although he is very good eye candy and I'd hate to lose him on that score) If we don't sell, then fine.

[RevidgeBlue]

Let's be fair, you can't call people 'idle' who have been chasing round Europe for weeks...

The manager has been away three times that I know about...the chief scout has never been at home by the sounds of it.

The fact is that players are hard to find. Look at some of the trash moving in this window.

So, call them 'choosy' or 'under pressure' if you like, but 'idle' is incredibly harsh.

A lot of expensive, time consuming and unnecessary chasing our tail if you ask me.

As there is no "clause" at the current time, all this could have been easily avoided by telling Citeh and RSC that he is not for sale at any price until the summer.

Hughes provided the business model

Indeed he did.

He didn't sell our better players and built round them.

[gumboots]

A lot of expensive, time consuming and unnecessary chasing our tail if you ask me.

As there is no "clause" at the current time, all this could have been easily avoided by telling Citeh and RSC that he is not for sale at any price until the summer.

The problem is that if they pay a big enough price he, like most other players, is for sale, so you have to do the chasing just in case they find that figure you really can't resist. We all know allardyce was joking about 40 million but he did say he'd have to accept that.