There is some sympathy for Moises Caicedo, but he should not have signed that contract – or at least put in a release clause – if he wanted to join Chelsea.
A fan messages in
This is the most stupid article that I have read. What sort of idiots are you employing this disinformation, fake news at the highest level. It proves without doubt that your writers are completely clue less and no zip about football.
Anyone who has any savvy would know that the worlds best goalkeeper isn’t going to be sold to anyone for £15m or £30m that’s total nonsense and an insult to Aston Villa try thinking £80 to £100m and you will be close. Even then it ain’t going to happen.
What a bunch of absolute crass numpties allowing the garbage to be published.
Colin
READ MORE: Emi Martinez for £12.9m? Six other ‘derisory, insulting’ bids including Man Utd and Arsenal offers
Moises basket
MAW, LA Gooner, I get the point you’re trying to make. I think…
West Ham spent more time and money developing Rice than Brighton have with Caicedo. Arguably, Rice is also harder to replace for the Hammers than Caicedo would be at Brighton (what with their magic transfer-roundabout).
Also, from the player’s perspective (which I think is where you were coming from) it is unfair for Brighton to turn £70million down and hold out for £100mil or more. Were I in his shoes, I’d be a bit miffed too. Chance to play for an established elite club and regular Champions League football? And Brighton wont let me? That’s not fair. Even worse for me, there is absolutely nothing I can do about it…..oh wait, I can hand in a transfer request.
For me, Clive (4th wall break) that’s where your argument falls down. Caicedo signed the contract, presumably with free will so it’s not about being fair. He committed to Brighton for however long it was and the club don’t have to sell him. He could hand in a transfer request to try and force their hand a bit, but no-one ever does that. It was the same with Kane last summer, spitting his dummy out because Levy wouldn’t let him leave ”on the cheap” whilst conveniently ignoring the huge contract he had signed.
So although I agree that purely from Caicedo’s perspective, it is a tad unfair, he put himself in this position. No-one forced him to sign the contract, it was his decision so he can’t expect any pity. Brighton are fully entitled to value him at whatever price they like and honestly, if Rice is worth £100mil+ and the way transfer fees are growing exponentially, then why isnt he worth north of £70million?
Agree with you on the hypocrisy surrounding the transfer market food chain. I’m guilty of it myself though. How dare Barcelona come in and steal Suarez and Coutinho from us? And the audacity of Southampton to not give us Van Dijk for a tenner and a return ticket to Beaulieu car museum!!
Cheers
Clive LFC
I have read the Caicedo riposte by MAW, LA Gooner 3 times now (there should be a limit by which if a mail exceeds a word count it does not make the mailbox) and I still don’t have a clue what he is trying to say.
What are Brighton being criticised for? Demanding a fee they think is acceptable for their player whom signed a new contract only a matter of months ago after going on strike to try and force a move? The absolute bastards!
Why is Declan Rice (sorry ‘Declan’ as he is obviously MAWs mate) spoke about so much? The only similarity is that they nominally play the same position on the pitch. Other factors such as age, nationality, contract length etc means that they can’t be used as an exact comparison.
J Belfast (my head hurts)
READ MORE: Who do Brighton think they are by demanding Rice money for Caicedo?
Spurs better without Kane? Pah
Which Brazilian North Londoner scored more league goals last season? Arsenal centre back Gabriel or Spurs striker Richarlison?
It ain’t Richarlison, Barry.
It may well be the right time to sell Harry but you’re going to need at least three forwards to replace his output.
Graham Simons, Gooner, Norf London
As soon as I got to the second point of the opening mail I knew it would be Barry Fox.
Only he would spin the loss of our greatest player ever as the means to restate Richarlson’s case as an adequate replacement
Silly season indeed.
Jon (Barry’s under 12’s would be a sight to see though), Lincoln
Popping out to the shops
Barcelona actually contacting PSG abt Mbappe is akin to me walking into the Patek Philippe store and asking the salesman to show me their Sky Moon Tourbillon.
Ironically, the watch is likely also only made available to Saudi Royalty and priced accordingly as well.
Hats
How much is that journo in the window?
Seb, you say every man has his price. I would argue that what you actually mean is that YOU have a price at which you would happily sell your integrity. That’s fine. It’s your conscience. But please understand that your lack of will and moral strength does not apply to all, no matter how much you insist otherwise. You are a purchaseable item. I am not. You don’t have to believe that. You almost certainly won’t. You fairly sensibly explain why JN wouldn’t make the move, then immediately dismiss it because MONEY. Not everyone is so avaricious Seb. No point surrounding yourself with shiny things if you can’t look yourself in the eye when you pass them.
The fact that so many people insist that everyone would sell themselves for a suitably-high pile of bloodstained notes is depressingly sad, and shows how corrupted people have become by the rampant capitalism that is going to be the end of our supposed civilisation. To excuse it is to support it. It is to be complicit in the horrors. There are those who move to Saudi Arabia (or the UK) from desperate situations, out of a grave financial need. That is a world apart from moving out of a financial want. If the end result is simply better toys, and that alone is enough to buy you, I feel truly sorry for you. That is no path to peace and contentment.
In the second world war, a horrendous number of men chose to fall in with the Nazi regime for financial gain. Massive financial gain, some of which was used to build very large and successful businesses that continue to thrive today. You know several of them. You have used their products. That money was made directly through the murder and enslavement of people, and those hateful transactions leave a permanent stain on humanity’s collective soul. Please understand that by arguing in favour of money over integrity, you are arguing that those people acted just as any others would, and that such things are just what people do. And recognise what an awful failure we are as a species if that is the case. Personally, I will instead remember all of those who chose death rather than live such an evil, greed-filled life.
The wealthy will never give us freedom from their gold-tipped claws. That does not mean we should allow them to buy us. Your decency should be priceless.
thayden
READ MORE: Did Saudi-bound Jordan Henderson become an LGBT+ ally by mistake?
Moral certainties
I always find it really interesting just how offended some people get by the idea that other people try to live ethically. First Hugo and then Seb yesterday writing it to complain about “high horses”, self-righteousness, pretentiousness.
Thing is we can all dream up hypotheticals where you’re offered such a life changing amount of money to do something unethical that it becomes impossible to turn down and therefore everyone has their price, right? But you can also run the hypotheticals the other way too – no amount of money would persuade most people in most circumstances to participate in genocide, slavery, murder or rape. There are things for which most people fundamentally do not have a price.
The reality is that we live our ethics in the world as it exists, not in these hypotheticals. We do live in a globalised society where simply by consuming and living we are implicated in exploitation and human misery but that does not absolve people of the obligation to try to behave ethically. Most of us generally do our best to have a positive impact on the world and to seriously weigh potential harm to others against our own needs.
We make choices that are shaped by our place in the world. For some of us those choices are about trying to behave ethically towards neighbours and co-workers, about making decisions about what work we do or what we consume, in order to minimise harm. We won’t always get it right, but most of us are trying. The elite footballers’ place in the world is very different, they’re public figures making enough money to live in great luxury. They are in a position to impact things in ways that most people aren’t. When some of them choose to cause harm to augment their personal wealth, that’s a real decision in a real circumstance, not a hypothesis about the soul of man.
People are quite right to discuss those decisions and think about how they affect the world. Accountability for your actions and their effect on others is crucial to the creation of just societies. You just can’t expect to build any liveable world on this kind of moral nihilism – where everyone’s choices are their own and anything is justified with a big enough bag of cash.
Jack
Genuine questions
I would like to pose a few genuine questions to the mailbox.
1. Do you, as a fan of your respective club, actually care how much a club spends on a new signing? (At the time of signing only and not considering whether the player turns out to be a success or failure)
2. If yes, then how much do you care. Would a singing like Declan Rice for 100M make you upset or happy or a combination of both?
3. Does Citeh’s treble mean any less than United’s given how differently the respective squads were formed?
Pherain, AFC
Man Utd: an absolute clusterf**k of a football club
Can’t tell you how many times now I have watched a contest for the ball, and immediately pre-emptively start to sigh at yet another break in the game, before remembering, oh this is allowed again, 2 players can put their boots through the ball at the same time, and both attempt to remain standing, neither slamming themselves to the floor in apparent agony while their team mates harass the referee for what they feel entitled to, an edge, courtesy of blatant gamesmanship.
Is there a way to go in the game for women? Of course there is. I think the same holds true to aspects of even the men’s game, especially as you go down the ladder towards grassroots level, so enjoy it for what it is, a football world cup.
As a Saffa I found our game in Sunday morning terribly nerve wracking, even more so because for a fair period of time there we thought we may grab all 3 points, nevermind be denied even 1 right at the death.
But a look at the goal-scorers puts it all into some perspective.
Rolfo just scored the winning goal for Barcelona in the champions league final last month.
Ilestedt towered above our ladies, literally, and won numerous headers, an aspect of her game which Arsenal were keen on when they just signed her, CB with heading prowess at both ends.
Anyway, all this talk of top performers and transfers is going to irritate me actually, because I cannot help but bring myself back to United, and starting with Russo to Arsenal. On a free.
A team who finished 9 points behind us last season, as we only just missed out on the title to Chelsea by 2 points, because despite that, Russo didn’t see or feel the commitment to her as a key player, and thus, to winning the WPL at United.
Who doesn’t want to keep their star striker if the club hierarchy really want the title they just missed out on?
Alessia Russo’s departure from Man Utd wasn’t about money. It was disappointment in what they perceived to be slow progress in negotiations. It isn’t something that came up overnight, it went on for 18 months. There will be an urge for Utd to act faster to prevent losing others.
— Emma Sanders (@em_sandy) June 16, 2023
When the game is still very reasonably priced for star players, especially when contrasted with the men’s game, there is absolutely no reason that Manchester United cannot stump up reasonable wages for our star striker, and England’s current 3 Lionesses starting striker, until well after Arsenal have entered the scene and valued Russo from the outset as she wanted.
You know, it’s almost like Manchester United is an absolute clusterf*ck of a football club, at all times, for all teams!
We can never plead poverty, for either of our teams, but it’s still an absolute shite show.
Without the massive revenues that we generate, for now anyway, earned through creating our history and carving our subsequent place in the footballing world, we would surely sink within a couple of seasons with this kind of, well, everything.
Recruitment and retention, just for starters on a long list, and the valuations thereof, are absurd, so as to invite sincere accusations of amateurishness.
Moving over to the Lads, and City constantly embarrass us as much in the transfer market as they do on the pitch when we look honestly at value for money, and while you can’t replicate Pep for us, you can absolutely replicate some competency elsewhere, I mean come on!
The season will be underway soon, with an absolute shambles of a pre-season given to Erik, this is not what world class market leaders in their field look like a few weeks out from the new Financial Year for example, but it is a club owned by so called investors.
We arent even being affected by the Saudi spree it seems, no pillars being pursued that we must suffer through to conclusion before we can settle on a squad.
No, we are free to address our needs but we won’t even bid 100m for Kane, but we did bid 80m for Antony, who bless him, is a gamble of note. (Resell value is also not a genuine argument here, again, the resources at United are huge actually, so go and win, and do it now.)
Then I hear it’s because Levy is nasty to us since Dimi, you see.
Oh great, well ok then, that explains….absolutely nothing.
I can only guess that it infers that if getting us back to the top is going to be hard, well, I shouldn’t want to be an imposition or anything and still expect it from the club.
Manc from SA (Glazers and their caravan of execs have really have poisoned this great club)