[Archived] Nicko's January Rumour Mill

[Oklahoma]

Veloso is a good defensive midfielder.

Sporting want 20million for them but they might accept less.

Anyway, I would prefer fpr moutinho.

[DeadlyDirk]

I'd also like confirmation that the deal with Prognoyak (sorry I have forgotten how to spell it) is off. He could be good. And please don't tell me we have been linked to Harewood. He is utter turd.

I'd also like to know what sort of player Veloso is, and whether he is good. If he is good, then if Bolton fancy their chances in signing him, then we should look at this.

I don't think he has been linked with us, just seems to be a player that's available for a reasonable price so some people will put 2 and 2 together.

He's too similiar too Roberts and certainly isn't better than him, I can't see that one happening, possibly on loan I guess, Villa still don't have a massive squad though, they'd probably want to sell him permanently or keep him.

[Billy Castell]

I presume you mean Harewood DeadlyDirk. For me he is a poor man's Roberts. And Roberts can be rubbish.

[leftfooter]

Daily Mail gives us 1 out of 5 on the Crouch deal.

PETER CROUCH

(Portsmouth to Blackburn 1/5)

Blackburn have identified the England striker as an ideal replacement for Roque Santa Cruz but Crouch is not keen on the move. Portsmouth, although strapped for cash, would still want an optimum fee for Crouch after paying £8m for him in the summer. They showed with the Defoe sale to Tottenham that they can be stubborn and they will have the same stance here with just three days of he window left. Crouch is also on high wages which Blackburn would struggle with.

Gotta love the Daily Mail; and Portsmouth won't struggle?

Let's look at Pompey.

Phoney owner Sasha Gaydamak, beholden to his father (real owner). Arms dealer Arkadi, who recently had to lodge a bond with a court in Israel in order to fly to Russia in a desperate attempt to salvage what's left of his ever dwindling fortune is also on trial (in absentia) in France for his role in an Angolan arms dealing scandal for breaching a UN embargo. He doesn't deny his role - he just says in his, erm defence, that the embargo had already been lifted M'lud. All this shadily accumulated wealth and his alleged money laundering makes Thaksin Shinawatra look like Richard Branson in comparison.

Portsmouth play in a ramshackle ground straight out of the 1950's with probably the smallest capacity in the Premier League. Even at the peak of their success last season, our 'Arry was complaining about the conspicuous number of emtpy seats around Fratton Park. Porsmouth's club debt alone is probably higher than the entire quoted worth of Blackburn Rovers.

Their annual wage bill is virtually equal to their entire annual turnover. Peter Storrie's bombastic assertions of financial good health at PFC are remeniscent of Saddam Hussein's hopelessly optimistic information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, who we came to know as Comical Ali for amongst many daft comments that "...They are not in control of any airport..."as news channels screened footage of coalition troops patrolling Saddam international airport.

Sure they've sold players, but how much did they receive for Diarra, after Arsenal received their cut (Philip is a bit more informed than I am on this subject). Likewise how much was the 15m worth to them after Spurs wrote off money already owing to them?

To cap it all they have just appointed Tony Adams as manager.

If we can afford to pay the wages of the likes of Bentley and RSC, we can certainly stretch the wage bill to paying for Crouch's. As Nicko said there are ways to make up any shortfall, and let's face it, Crouch would receive a nice windfall out of any transfer if any offer is accepted.

Either way, he can't lose out financially.

[Sparky Marky]

Or is it either South Coast, probably lives near sea in top house...maybe a boat.....loveley lifestyle.....

or Blackburn...Hmm...

[Esulx]

Sky Sports reporting that we're going to miss out on Dzeko.

[philipl]

Crouch is on appreciably more than RSC is on currently or the deal we offered to Bentley.

That is how Pompey beat other suitors for his signature and if (that's a big-if, sales of Diara and Defoe have solved their immediate problems with money) Pompey are selling I doubt Rovers would be the only bidders this time round.

[Roost]

Or is it either South Coast, probably lives near sea in top house...maybe a boat.....loveley lifestyle.....

or Blackburn...Hmm...

Coz all the Rovers players live in Blackburn and catch the bus to the ground on match days..........................

[leftfooter]

Or is it either South Coast, probably lives near sea in top house...maybe a boat.....loveley lifestyle.....

or Blackburn...Hmm...

Stop with the defeatism already.

Blackburn is a hole (and I'm from there). It looks and sounds like a cross between West Beirut and in some parts northern Gaza. But Crouch played for Liverpool for goodness sake and didn't feel the need to move to Toxteth!

Within half an hours drive of training he can move to Cheshire stockbroker country or the north Merseyside/Birkdale area.

The Ribble Valley is one of the most scenic parts of England.

[Mr Creosote]

Or is it either South Coast, probably lives near sea in top house...maybe a boat.....loveley lifestyle.....

or Blackburn...Hmm...

There's no reason why he would have to sell his South Coast pad and boat. Footballers have loads of free time and there are plenty of flights from Manchester to Southampton. Crouch could be neighbour's with Her Maj in Lancashire's beautiful Ribble Valley.

I think he'd be a top signing for us.

[leftfooter]

Crouch is on appreciably more than RSC is on currently or the deal we offered to Bentley.

That is how Pompey beat other suitors for his signature and if (that's a big-if, sales of Diara and Defoe have solved their immediate problems with money) Pompey are selling I doubt Rovers would be the only bidders this time round.

Would you say it's a non-runner then Philip?

[EwoodGlory]

If they want him off the wage bill so much, then they might have to pay something towards his wage or pay him off?

[hawkiiz]

how are the relationship crouch-warnock? maybe he can do some talking?

maybe we should have held on to fowler for another month or two to get crouch in?

[LeChuck]

Forgive me if I'm missing the point, but why would Crouch come to us because of Robbie Fowler's presence?

[philipl]

Would you say it's a non-runner then Philip?

I think the Mail might have the probability right at the moment.

After all, neither Man City nor Spurs have apparently troubled the Rovers with a bid which has required any more than a "your bid has been rejected" response as yet.

Only then do the factors the Mail consider to be important come into play.

Nicko's story means Rovers cannot catch the world unawares by doing the deal on the QT now either so Crouch's other admirers who might have been thinking Pompey won't sell him now are alerted.

As I suspected, the whole thing is in the fridge now until tomorrow's games are out of the way- Rovers and Pompey (and Spurs and City for that matter) have Premier League survival at stake in their games tomorrow so they are not going to allow their prize centre forwards to be out of action mucking around on transfer business right now.

So there is a car crash 47 hours realisticaly between 6pm Saturday and 5pm Monday.

Incidentally's leftfooter's wonderfully graphic description of Pompey is pretty acurate in all respects.

My point is the Defoe and Diarra deals have put them in a cash flow position to survive, just, to summer when something like 13 players including several of their mega-earners are out of contract. That in itself should point to a need to retain Crouch for avoiding relegation as he will be one of the not very many still contracted to the club and worth a transfer fee if they go down.

[Billy Castell]

I'm cooling on Crouch now. I think if we sold RSC, I'd prefer to sign one or two of Ebanks-Blake/Doyle/McCormack or Fryatt/Lambert/Mackail-Smith and use the money to buy one or two banging midfielders who'll feed the strikers a hatful of chances.

[mclove]

i thought Crouch was going to Villa, MON was interested in him

[leftfooter]

I think the Mail might have the probability right at the moment.

After all, neither Man City nor Spurs have apparently troubled the Rovers with a bid which has required any more than a "your bid has been rejected" response as yet.

Only then do the factors the Mail consider to be important come into play.

Nicko's story means Rovers cannot catch the world unawares by doing the deal on the QT now either so Crouch's other admirers who might have been thinking Pompey won't sell him now are alerted.

As I suspected, the whole thing is in the fridge now until tomorrow's games are out of the way- Rovers and Pompey (and Spurs and City for that matter) have Premier League survival at stake in their games tomorrow so they are not going to allow their prize centre forwards to be out of action mucking around on transfer business right now.

So there is a car crash 47 hours realisticaly between 6pm Saturday and 5pm Monday.

Fair assessment.

It's unlikely must agree.

Mind you, there is an ever dwindling pool of suitors. Villa just bought Heskey, Spurs don't look up for it and Crouch would not appear to fit Gary Cook's corporate profile.

Who does that realistically leave in the EPL? Newcastle? Wigan? Everton 'Boro?

[hawkiiz]

Forgive me if I'm missing the point, but why would Crouch come to us because of Robbie Fowler's presence?

but didnt they play together at pool for a while? i bet crouch look up to fowler, so he could be tempted by that? im just playing with the thought... but seriously. like all other people, these footballers would like to play with their pals, no? and i try to find out how on earth we will get him here

[roverich]

Absolute rubbish, at no stage did I suggest spending £25m-£30m on any one player. My point is that when you lose a player worth £15m, that same amount (or the VAST majority of it) should be reinvested in the playing staff. It's that simple, and it's only fair to the fans.

There's talk of selling Roque for (now) £20m, yet the replacement strikers we've looked at have to cost less than £6m or they're "too big a risk"...

Look at the figures being spent by Bolton, Wigan and the like. Blackburn aren't a special case, other than our funders refuse to open their wallets.

We didn't get much more than £10mil (after paying Arsenal the sell on clause) for Bentley and Ince managed to spend a few million himself on the likes of Andrews and Robinson (a full million more than Friedel). It's funny how often people but the blinkers when talking about how much money we have got based on what's come in. You're completely ignoring what's gone out, not just on players but running costs as well. As I said, 20k regular fans paying lower prices than a lot of Championship clubs charge does not generate enough revenue to keep a premiership club in the black. I'm sure RSC's new contract in the summer included a signing on fee and increased wages, for both of which the money must come from somewhere. Then there's the compo package that Ince and his mates probably received when they left, the cost of bringing in Sam's support staff, Sam himself. If you take ten minutes to think about all the money the club is spending versus the money coming in, you should see yourself the club doesn't have enough money to pay big transfer fees for anyone unless that player is a 100% certainty to be a great player and unfortunately the players who bring such a guarantee do not want to join a club currently battling against relegation. The fact of the matter is, the only £6mil+ players remotely interested in joining Rovers are the overpriced ones so it's absolutely pointless saying we should be buying more expensive players.

[BuckyRover]

Robinson is a whole ten years younger than Friedel, and much better at kicking, and OUR current goalkeeper.

[philipl]

i thought Crouch was going to Villa, MON was interested in him

They have got Heskey to lead the line now but MoN might be despairing of Carew and have noticed how well Heskey and Crouch functioned together for England on one or two occasions. Certainly if Villa want to go to having four absolutely front line out and out strikers in their squad, they are short at the moment.

But there have been foreign suitors for Crouch (for Eurozone clubs he is 30%+ less expensive than he was in the summer because the £ has fallen) and right now there are striker crises at Everton (Cahill having a scan) and Newcastle (Owen out) whilst Wigan could be about to have even more spending money if Valencia goes and you cannot rule out the chap who signed him for Pompey who might still want a striker if he loses out on RSC. Even Chelsea are short numerically on striker cover.

[modes98]

i thought Crouch was going to Villa, MON was interested in him

and then he signed Heskey. End of Story.

[PAFELL]

Or is it either South Coast, probably lives near sea in top house...maybe a boat.....loveley lifestyle.....

or Blackburn...Hmm...

Some of you in Blackburn under estimate Blackburn. I live on the south coast - less than 5 minutes walk to the sea. Often travel to Blackburn for the games and to meet people I know up there. I come up via train or coach as I cannot be bothered to drive the distance. I use public transport in and around Blackburn - with no complaints. We can all get complacint where we live - but it is often when you move away from a place and return that you learn how good the area is.

The north of England is often a lot more friendlier than the south, who can be a bit snobby.

For crouch or anybody with his type of income, it wouldn't matter where they lived. They know that their careers are often finished by 35 years old - they have loads of dosh and then can go where ever they want to do so after their careers are over. So for awhile they make do with their surrondings.

[LeChuck]

but didnt they play together at pool for a while? i bet crouch look up to fowler, so he could be tempted by that? im just playing with the thought... but seriously. like all other people, these footballers would like to play with their pals, no? and i try to find out how on earth we will get him here

He'll have played with hundreds if not thousands of different players throughout his career.

I doubt he'll know Fowler/Warnock better than he does the majority of his current team mates, if he was wanting to play with friends he'd probably stay where he is.