Quote Originally Posted by selassie View Post
It was widely reported that we were discussing a 23million deal with Real for Higuain and Napoli came in and offered 35million for him or whatever the fee was. We refused to up our offer to match Napoli's. All of the evidence pointed to that happening, it was reported everywhere. Sure we didn't need Cabaye but that's not the point I am making. My point is our laissez faire approach in the market and the fact we have form for not following up or increasing our offers for our transfer targets due to having some principled stance on setting our own valuations, what's the point? It gets us nowhere, the Higuain & Suarez examples are proof of that, we screwed up massively.

I see your point and you can't always take what you read as the gospel truth but let's face it, it would hardly be a surprise to anybody if the club came out and confirmed what everybody has suspected regarding not meeting selling clubs valuations. There is no reason for the media to report on us doing this kind of thing multiple times. Also, Wenger has hinted on more than one occassion that he's not followed through on bids for certain players because it would kill player x, y or z.

I wouldn't be so bothered if we had a complete squad but we have gaping holes in certain positions yet wont address them due to our principles, it's absolutely ridiculous TBH.
Leaving aside media speculation, we have enough examples of our laissez faire approach when it comes to doing business. Vardy and Suarez are recent examples. Looking at how we dealt with RVP, Nasri and Fabregas leaving….there is enough there to suggest we’re not really on the ball when it comes to getting these sort of things quickly. I won’t even start on how we can lose key players because we drag out contract negotiations. But we’re looking at next level incompetency if we didn’t even table a bid for Higauin in 2013 when a striker was needed.

No, I take that back. We’re looking at a club that signed a player with a broken back after we lost Ramsey to injury during a key part of the season. That will still take some topping.