I’m going off the explanation of people who quite clearly had knowledge of this. Their explanation was he was left hanging by Bayern the previous summer and wanted to avoid that again. When we didn’t/couldn’t do what was needed with RB and Chelsea came in, he decided to go there rather than wait and see. Seems pretty plausible and pretty much what you are saying too but without the desperate attempt to make it seem like we stepped away instead of him taking up another option.
Now you’re free to believe who and what you want. But, you can’t dig out the likes of Orstein and Honigstein and say they’re covering they are just trying to save face when your entire argument is based on hunches and guesswork. Unless of course you know Timo personally and are able to vouch first hand that we were his first choice.
And no one is suggesting we only have one target. That would be silly. But Werner was announced by Chelsea in mid June and Jota by us in mid September. That three month gap would suggest that, given how far advanced we were with Werner, there was somewhat of a return to the drawing board once Werner was gone.
Anyway, it doesn’t make a difference. Some rumours will be 100% bullshit, some will have elements of truth but whether they come off or not doesn’t diminish the validity of the link in the first place. And very occasionally a deal comes out the blue. Probably best not get too invested until the club say it is done via the usual mouthpieces.
As we are talking about Werner I have a question about Werner’s knees.
Are they permanently fixed in that/their position?
Never seen a player at ‘this’ level so stiff.
No, they weren’t. You just said we were “far and away Werner’s first choice”. Now you’re claiming they were saying the same thing up until they were wrong inferring they were guessing at something you’ve just said to definitively be the case. So which is it?
For clarity, here’s Honigstein, three weeks before Werner completed the Chelsea move. His wording is “strong chance” not, “us or no one” but that it would have to be later in the window for it to happened.
Chelsea came in, he went there and then later in the window we did a deal for a not too dissimilar fee for Jota. It’s almost like he actually has some inside track as opposed to just hunches isn’t it.
Maybe “wants Liverpool or will stay one more year” means something different?
Basically these journos said the move to Liverpool was happening or he’d stay.
Then it didn’t happen.
Then he didn’t stay.
They’ve never come out and admitted they were simply wrong or jumped the gun. Instead they come up with all this convulsion as to how things happened in such a way as, if you fully believe them, their reputation and reliability is still secured.
I’m more cynical. They either didn’t know as much as they made out or they’re trying to come out of it looking better than they deserve to look.
And then Chelsea rocked up, sold him on their project, offered him a ton of cash and he thought he’d take that instead of waiting like Honigstein points out he’d have to do if we were going to do it that summer.
You think because they didn’t know about something that probably hadn’t happened yet that they were wrong in what they were saying. The arrogance to dismiss what is clearly quite well sourced information from journalists of good standing in favour of your own hunches is quite remarkable.
Yeah even before the actual clusterfuck of the transfer where we had to apologise and then pay a premium price for our incompetence there was loads of rumours about him coming here.
Would love it if we did nab Sancho. Very good player now, assists, goals, pace, tricks, versatility… with years of improvement and service to come.
It would also add to the unrest at Man Utd as the Clampetts try to keep the restless natives from spilling over. And if we did it, it might make them react with an expensive wrong signing to appease their fans.
