Berahino in January for £25m?

[Raziel]

To answer this point - I would imagine it is because Levy thought that he was in a position to get Berahino for under his market rate due to the fact that the player was putting in transfer requests, WBAs manager was open to selling him and he knew that the player was going into the last 2 years of his contract. I guess we'll never know what would've happened if 2 weeks before we'd offered what we ended up offering with a couple of hours of the window to go, but my thoughts are that it would've ensured a deal was done.

Speculation at best .. without any of us knowing the full details ...

The last few pages on this thread is a repeat loop, lets leave it at

- Some people feel Levy is cheap, never does business early and has created a disaster by not paying whatever it cost to get Berahino
- Some people don't

Neither party is going to convince the other of a different point of view

 

[Finney Is Back]

Actually the seller on Ebay would already know how much money he was going to get at minimum, make his purchases and wait for the cash to come in at end.

An even better way to look at the Spurs, WBA thing then.... As in this case the seller (WBA) couldn't really make any purchases based on our opening 4 yearly instalments of £3 million bid.

 

[StephenH]

To answer this point - I would imagine it is because Levy thought that he was in a position to get Berahino for under his market rate due to the fact that the player was putting in transfer requests, WBAs manager was open to selling him and he knew that the player was going into the last 2 years of his contract. I guess we'll never know what would've happened if 2 weeks before we'd offered what we ended up offering with a couple of hours of the window to go, but my thoughts are that it would've ensured a deal was done.

What was the market value for the lad?
Personally around £18m - There were hardly a stampede of bids @£20m+ for the lad. I was expecting at least a couple more suitors for the lad.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Speculation at best .. without any of us knowing the full details ...

The last few pages on this thread is a repeat loop, lets leave it at

- Some people feel Levy is cheap, never does business early and has created a disaster by not paying whatever it cost to get Berahino
- Some people don't

Neither party is going to convince the other of a different point of view

Everything in just about every topic on the forum is speculation. I don't feel that Levy is cheap, I just feel that he misread this situation. IMO making a first offer for a player available all summer in the middle of August and then 2 more offers on deadline day isn't the best way to go about signing a player unless you feel the selling club is able to be bullied. As a result of not getting Berahino (or any other number 9) we are playing the first half of the season with a huge burden on Harry Kane.

 

[StephenH]

Speculation at best .. without any of us knowing the full details ...

The last few pages on this thread is a repeat loop, lets leave it at

- Some people feel Levy is cheap, never does business early and has created a disaster by not paying whatever it cost to get Berahino
- Some people don't

Neither party is going to convince the other of a different point of view

Bless

 

[Finney Is Back]

What was the market value for the lad?
Personally around £18m - There were hardly a stampede of bids @£20m+ for the lad. I was expecting at least a couple more suitors for the lad.

I have been led to believe that our final bid was £14 million up front with another £9 million on the never, never. I think that is probably about fair market value. Levy was trying to use the situation to get the player for less than this. When Levy eventually realised on transfer deadline day that it was Peace and not he who held all the aces, he seemed to panic with increased offers, only for it to be too late for West Brom to do business and hence too late to help our manager have a good season.

 

[StephenH]

Everything in just about every topic on the forum is speculation. I don't feel that Levy is cheap, I just feel that he misread this situation. IMO making a first offer for a player available all summer in the middle of August and then 2 more offers on deadline day isn't the best way to go about signing a player unless you feel the selling club is able to be bullied. As a result of not getting Berahino (or any other number 9) we are playing the first half of the season with a huge burden on Harry Kane.

I truly believe the Saido sale had been agreed in early August between the parties and someone upped the price, in part due to silly price being paid up in Manchester. Peace wanted a bit more of the action.
But its total conjecture, just ticks my logic box, partly confirmed by the grandstanding from the Midlands and Saido's reaction.

 

[Gazza Dazzla]

I'm still amazed that you think Levy was somehow out manouvered here! We're not obligated to pay whatever the selling club wants! We had our limit and it proved not high enough for WBA. Why the pointing of fingers? I'm glad we weren't held to ransom like Utd were.

Poch seems chilled out about it, we have Kane and Njie until Jan with a whole load of attacking midfielders behind them. I think that's fine for now?!

 

[Gazza Dazzla]

I truly believe the Saido sale had been agreed in early August between the parties and someone upped the price, in part due to silly price being paid up in Manchester. Peace wanted a bit more of the action.
But its total conjecture, just ticks my logic box, partly confirmed by the grandstanding from the Midlands and Saido reaction.

That theory holds at least as much weight as the one Finney just provided. In which case Peace was made to look foolish as "the other bidder" never came in to create a bidding war. The trouble is that doesn't suit the narrative!

 

[Jordinho]

They were giving off no such signals. Peace says "the sale of berahino was not on agenda" he went on to say that " you can never say never" in other words we don't want to sell but we are a business and every footballer has a price. what's the difference between that and what Levy has said and done on numerous occasions when he has sold players he didn't want to? I think the mixed signals were what fans wanted to hear and we are being very one eyed on this.

Why did he bring up payment structures and the timing of the bid if he didn't want to sell? He could have just said 'not for sale' or 'fee is far too low'.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Why did he bring up payment structures and the timing of the bid if he didn't want to sell? He could have just said 'not for sale' or 'fee is far too low'.

It was obvious that WBA were prepared to sell the player, after all they had brought two new forwards in.... That doesn't mean you then sell your asset for half of what it is worth.

 

[Gazzasrightboot]

You don't need to enforce a bring to a head meeting. Just on your (say) 4th offer for the player you make it clear that this is the final offer and no more will be made and then leave it on the table. If that offer was a decent offer then you can guarantee that Pullis would've put huge pressure on his chairman to take it so that he could get some of that money himself to strengthen other areas. WBA would then probably go to the market and see if there are any other buyers prepared to beat our offer and if not, I think Peace would've got back around the negotiating table with Levy and tried to squeeze out slightly better payment terms of something like that.

Additionally I disagree with your point about WBA not being given enough time to buy other players being flawed. If they had gone out and spent (say) £20 million on new players and then Levy hadn't upped his initial £12 million bid for the player, they are then in a situation where they are either forced to try to address some cash flow problems or forced to sell their player for under his worth. You also have to consider the Premier League FFP regulations and it is possible that WBA would not have had room on their wage bill to keep Berahino AND add a couple more players.

Thanks Finney. On the first point, I am pretty sure that they would have said this is a final offer even if it wasn't. It didn't make them blink. In addition, we probably did not know that we would be able to sell Lennon as an example, so perhaps that is also a reason why we were able to bid more on the final day i.e. up our offer. The theory that Levy had this plan to screw WBA to me just doesn't hold water. It's not in his interests to do so. Nor is it in WBA's interests to accept in advance when they are desperately trying to conduct an auction.

On the second point, they don't have to have actually finalised the purchases. People much closer to the transfer market than you or I have said that transfers are a domino effect. Deals are agreed and it just needs one of the dominos to fall for all the others to happen. That is why I don't think the argument that they did not have enough time to "spend the windfall" holds water.

 

[DTA]

Let's go back to eBay. What happens in an auction when you bid your maximum early?

Well the main difference is that the seller on eBay has put his item up for sale, with either a reserve or not. Their aim is to sell the item, this is not the case with wba as they never put the item up for sale (transfer listed him) and there are also tangible benifits to keeping the item (Saido).

What we have here is a situation where a motivated buyer overestimated his hand and assumed that he was dealing with a motivated seller.

The house analogy is better, but with some cleavets

I have brought another house but I want to use my existing house for another purpose (for arguments sake rental income). This house is valued at 18million, and if I did want to sell it that's the price I would accept, but I don't, I want to use it as rental property and thus I'm not a motivated seller.

A potential buyer comes along and says he is interested in buying my house, and I say no thanks, as I'm renting it out, but if you offer way over market value, say 25mil, then I can get another rental property (that I have my eye on in a different area ) and also a holdiday home which I can either rent out or use in the summer.

The buyer puts in a bid for under market value.... I say are you mad.... I don't want to sell.

I don't hear from the buyer until very much later, when after a couple more bid, he reaches the 25million that I would have considered selling for. But because it is so late it becomes almost impossible for me to buy the other house and the holiday home, as they are either already brought or off the market. I then stick to my original plan of using the property in question as a rental.

 

[Baleforce]

I'm still amazed that you think Levy was somehow out manouvered here! We're not obligated to pay whatever the selling club wants! We had our limit and it proved not high enough for WBA. Why the pointing of fingers? I'm glad we weren't held to ransom like Utd were.

Poch seems chilled out about it, we have Kane and Njie until Jan with a whole load of attacking midfielders behind them. I think that's fine for now?!

i'm impressed it got to the point where we didn't actually sign the player, we stuck to our financial ceiling, that can only be a good thing

 

[Jordinho]

It was obvious that WBA were prepared to sell the player, after all they had brought two new forwards in.... That doesn't mean you then sell your asset for half of what it is worth.

Well, we were already offering more than he's actually worth.

 

[milo]

Well the main difference is that the seller on eBay has put his item up for sale, with either a reserve or not. Their aim is to sell the item, this is not the case with wba as they never put the item up for sale (transfer listed him) and there are also tangible benifits to keeping the item (Saido).

What we have here is a situation where a motivated buyer overestimated his hand and assumed that he was dealing with a motivated seller.

The house analogy is better, but with some cleavets

I have brought another house but I want to use my existing house for another purpose (for arguments sake rental income). This house is valued at 18million, and if I did want to sell it that's the price I would accept, but I don't, I want to use it as rental property and thus I'm not a motivated seller.

A potential buyer comes along and says he is interested in buying my house, and I say no thanks, as I'm renting it out, but if you offer way over market value, say 25mil, then I can get another rental property (that I have my eye on in a different area ) and also a holdiday home which I can either rent out or use in the summer.

The buyer puts in a bid for under market value.... I say are you mad.... I don't want to sell.

I don't hear from the buyer until very much later, when after a couple more bid, he reaches the 25million that I would have considered selling for. But because it is so late it becomes almost impossible for me to buy the other house and the holiday home, as they are either already brought or off the market. I then stick to my original plan of using the property in question as a rental.

I think that WBA were trying to start an auction by speaking publicly about our interest. Both their manager and the player seem to think that they were willing to sell.

The parallel with an auction that I was trying to draw was that by going in with your highest bid early, you are facing a very real chance of being out bid or if you do manage to win the auction, you are paying more than you could have got it for.

I do accept that it is a slightly flawed analogy though.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Well, we were already offering more than he's actually worth.

We weren't offering anything like his worth until the afternoon of the 1st of September.

 

[Gazzasrightboot]

To answer this point - I would imagine it is because Levy thought that he was in a position to get Berahino for under his market rate due to the fact that the player was putting in transfer requests, WBAs manager was open to selling him and he knew that the player was going into the last 2 years of his contract. I guess we'll never know what would've happened if 2 weeks before we'd offered what we ended up offering with a couple of hours of the window to go, but my thoughts are that it would've ensured a deal was done.

Sorry this is nit picky I know but just as a point of principle, there is no such thing as a market rate as the active market is made up of clubs willing to buy said player. Pedro, Lukaku, Welbeck, Sturridge, Sterling, Mitrovic, Barcelona Kid that went to Villa, Van Persie, Martial, N'Jie, Son, Dzeko all have varying transfer fees that suggest that there is no real "market price", it is just whatever a buying and selling club can come to some sort of agreement on. You say Berahino is worth £25m, another says he's worth £30m there is no way of proving that until he moves for said amount. There are so many variables with players (nationality, age, performance, international caps, speed, position, years left on contract) that make up a price that are valued differently by different participants

On the last point, you're right we will never know what would have happened. My personal feeling is that WBA would have dragged it out till the end anyway. Peace was interested in driving an auction, didn't succeed in doing so and failed to meet his expectation of fee as a result. In the process he has tinkled off the player and allegedly the rest of his board and the manager.

 

[Gazzasrightboot]

Well the main difference is that the seller on eBay has put his item up for sale, with either a reserve or not. Their aim is to sell the item, this is not the case with wba as they never put the item up for sale (transfer listed him) and there are also tangible benifits to keeping the item (Saido).

What we have here is a situation where a motivated buyer overestimated his hand and assumed that he was dealing with a motivated seller.

The house analogy is better, but with some cleavets

I have brought another house but I want to use my existing house for another purpose (for arguments sake rental income). This house is valued at 18million, and if I did want to sell it that's the price I would accept, but I don't, I want to use it as rental property and thus I'm not a motivated seller.

A potential buyer comes along and says he is interested in buying my house, and I say no thanks, as I'm renting it out, but if you offer way over market value, say 25mil, then I can get another rental property (that I have my eye on in a different area ) and also a holdiday home which I can either rent out or use in the summer.

The buyer puts in a bid for under market value.... I say are you mad.... I don't want to sell.

I don't hear from the buyer until very much later, when after a couple more bid, he reaches the 25million that I would have considered selling for. But because it is so late it becomes almost impossible for me to buy the other house and the holiday home, as they are either already brought or off the market. I then stick to my original plan of using the property in question as a rental.

The addition to that analogy is that on receiving the first bid not only do you say "you are mad" but you also take a full page advert in the newspaper to say that you have refused the offer on the basis of the valuation being too low and the fact that he was paying in installments that you did not like, whilst at the same time saying the house is not for sale.

If the negotiation had occurred like your analogy, then we wouldn't be talking about it as we just never would have known that a bid went in.

The other bit of your analogy is that where I would be, perhaps because I am proactive, is that when said person comes in with an offer and says he is interested in my property and I have refused it on the basis that I want a higher amount, I would start looking at other properties that I could do with it so that I can get on the front foot and not lose any time on finding the best deals. If there was a deadline to a transaction, that would make me want to do that research even more especially if it means I could get something that I previously thought was out of my reach.

Bringing that analogy to the reality (!!), WBA didn't want to sell. If they really did want to strengthen other areas of the team, they would have done the research. Ultimately we didn't meet their valuation, they got tinkled and unprofessional about it and we didn't buy.

@indianspur - There was one point about payment structure that you rightly pointed out there were differences in the relative players. I see what you are saying, but again I don't see how proposing a payment structure that was similar to one they had proposed is a wrong starting point. That is all a negotiation is. The insinuation here is that Levy was wrong to suggest payment structures purely on the basis of what WBA have said. No credit is given for the fact that Levy's payment structures change and tend to suit the selling club and he has managed to negotiate a number of transfers with plenty of time. My real issue is that people here are taking WBA for their word and using it to criticise a chairman who has shown that he can be quite flexible with payment terms.

 

[StephenH]

We weren't offering anything like his worth until the afternoon of the 1st of September.

What is his worth?
You can't answer that - it just is an arbitrary figure until the sale is agreed. It could be £40m if LVG starts to playing silly buggers or £12m if West Ham flex their considerable muscle.