Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Why the Delph bid failed

From leedsunited.com:

"We had accepted an offer from Manchester City on Saturday which they had to go back with to the owner in the Gulf," Bates told Leeds' official website. "Then apparently they needed a week to think about it which surprised us, considering the size of the deal.

"The problem was they might have come back and said `no' and that wouldn't have been fair to Delph, wouldn't have been fair to Aston Villa, and would have eaten into our season.

"We went back to Villa and it's a good decision for Leeds and the player."

UPDATE:

Some further comments toay from Ken Bates courtesy of Phil Hay's article in the Yorkshire Evening Post:

"Aston Villa's behavious was honourable throughout. They
never involved the media in this or did anything underhand, and they were very
clear that they wanted a deal to be done."The negotiations from start to finish
were above board and that's why the transfer went through smoothly."

Hardly a reference for a transfer negotiation policy, but saying that it isn't often you see Ken Bates and honourable in the same passage.

What I still fail to understand is why having registered at the very least a serious interest, we would then put the brakes on and ask for a week to think things through. Either we were hot on the player enough to warrant that interest or we weren't.

Clearly the fee wouldn't have been an issue, and negotiations seem to have gone smoothly with Villa so I don't see any curve balls being thrown.

From a City perspective it has been very quiet with regards this, and the MEN haven't picked up on this thread - perhaps at the behest of the club?

Yet there does appear to be a valid question to be asked of quite what happened with this deal.

vote it up!

9 comments:

Ambient said...

Great post first of all and congratulations in getting ahead of everyone on this. Why the wait for a week? Almost back to old City on that approach.

Anonymous said...

Heard about this yesterday. Sounds like a scare bid to put off Everton - same for Elm.

No Class.

jackblue said...

They can have him. He looked completely lost when SP gave him his chance with the under 21 team. Certainly no better than we already have at the club in terms of youngsters. He should have stayed in the lower leagues until he had developed.

Ed said...

Fab's got terrific potential but I'm not sure he would have made City's first team with the players you're buying. Got to say as a Leeds fan I'm looking forward to you getting in amongst the 'Big 4' and shaking things up a bit this season. Long overdue in my book and Old Red Nose might not even get his lot in the Champions league for 2010/11.

Anonymous said...

They can have him. He looked completely lost when SP gave him his chance with the under 21 team.

you mean the 3 mins he got at end of game..get a grip..this lads going to be a terrific player..have watched him from youth to reserves to first team..im glad he gone to a club like villa where he play football ..good luk fab...im looking forward to seeing you in an england shirt one day

LUFC Quej said...

Jackblue...Get a grip man. Delph is going to be one of the best English players in a long time..You have missed out on a fabulous talent there and you are just spouting sour grapes because you are becoming accustomed to thinking you have a right to sign whoever you want because of your rich sugar daddies. It was a BIG mistake letting him slip through your fingers. Good luck to him and Villa. Oneil is a far better manager than the scum left over you have in charge (Proved by the fact that he can see the talent in young players).

Anonymous said...

As a Leeds ST holder I can say without hesitation that Fabian Delph has the potential to be the best English player in the last 20 years. Its strange, living in Manchester all my life surrounded by Red and Blue I thought the 'Bitter Blue' notion was a myth... perhaps not!

Rob of LUFC said...

I'm Leeds through and through, and as such I'm a big Fab fan, but all this talk of him being the best english player of the last 20 years etc is clearly nonsense. You only have to look at Arsenal's Jack Wilshere to see that, 2 years younger than Fab and already three times the player, absolutely destroyed Atletico Madrid and Rangers last week. Heaven alone knows what he's worth, fortunately for Arsenal fans they follow a club with an excellent record of developing their own talent.

Anonymous said...

Everybody at Leeds is convinced he's the dogs but it's the same at any club. When we watch our youngsters come up through the ranks we are of the same opinon about ours. We have one called Vladimir Weiss who is absolutely incredible, I can't see the point in us buying one off another team. Its not as if we don't have a track record of bringing great players through our academy is it?