Re: Gareth Bale
Everyone seems pretty tinkled off with RM and rightly so cos theyre ****s.
IF there was manure coming in with 80m would you take it? to tinkle off RM and show a true stance... or deny a PL team with having him.
im talking about next yr and not this yr.
No way in hell would I accept any money from Man United. We sell our best player to them and we give up any chance of ever finishing above them.
I would be more willing to sell Bale next summer, for something like 60/70M, than accept any money for him now. And I mean that. 120M, whatever, I would not sell. Because there comes a point where the money simply means nothing, and if you keep selling your best players, you give up any chance of being successful.
The 'margins is what matters to Levy' line from The Guardian actually makes me really flipping angry. It's a crap line from a journalist that is supposed to be well connected. Levy proved beyond a shadow of a doubt with Modric that on field success is more important to him than money. Our refusal to sell to Chelsea was I would argue the single biggest factor that meant we finished above them that season - if AVB got him there his style would have worked a lot better - and it was incredibly unlucky for Levy that we somehow managed to screw up third place, but it's the same principle now.
We sell Bale for a ridiculous amount of money and so what? Who exactly can we buy for 30M each that our definite upgrades on our existing players and would definitely want to come? That list of players is sparse. What actually makes the difference to success is having a good squad, which we already have, plus a genuine difference maker capable of winning games on his own. We have that in Bale and it's irreplaceable. And that's not even considering the commercial profile he helps us build through Fifa 14, Times Square etc.
We already have the money to buy the players we need as we have seen with (hopefully) Soldado. If Bale stays one more year, makes us genuine title challengers he can then leave for a reasonable fee, with our profile raised and our name established at the top of the English game. Levy wants us to be genuinely successful, and I believe he knows that selling players does nothing other than setting us back about 3 years. There comes a point where you have to look beyond the monetary value of a deal and realise that it isn't what football is about. Levy knows this.
There is no benefit to selling Bale. We could buy 3 or 4 20/30M players? So what? Are we really going to find someone that is a definite 20M worth of improvement on Dembele? Sandro? Lloris? Vertonghen? Paulinho? Are squad is full of quality players, to be successful we need a difference maker. And if we sell Bale next year we will have an easier time of attracting top class players after a successful season.
