Does the exit beckon for Tiote?
Posted on November 20th, 2011 | 58 Comments |
The latest news from the rumour-filled world of Toon speculation has Chelsea considering a £20m bid for Cheick Tiote in January. The report, coming from Brian McNally in the Sunday Mirror, seems to suggest that Tiote would indeed be sold, although only if big bucks are offered.
On the prospect of losing players in January, Pardew said:
“It is going to cost a hell of a lot of money, a hell of a lot of money because we’re in that position now.
“I think any of our players that get linked to other clubs, those clubs are going to need to know they’ll need to pay a shed load of money to get anyone out of this football club.“
He was then asked if buyers would have to come up with the sort of ‘mega-bid’ that saw Andy Carroll leave for Liverpool, to which he said:
“Absolutely! I don’t envisage anyone going out in this window. But if a club, one of the top clubs, comes in and wants to pay way, way over the odds we’ll have to look at it.”
I would think that £20m for a player we paid £3.5m would indeed class as a ‘mega-bid’ and, if there’s any truth in Chelsea’s intent to bid such an amount, I think Ashley would take it and Tiote will be on his way in January.
But should he be sold?
Every player has their price, or so it’s said, but where do you draw the line between the team and the player? Let me explain. Selling a player for 500%+ profit does indeed sound like very good business and I think you can get away with that for a player here and there, but a high league position is also valuable to the club – beyond the alleged £800,000 each position is supposedly worth – and if you let too many of your star performers go the whole team’s performance could suffer. Things like ‘consistency’ are valuable assets to a team too.
Of course, some of us thought that might be the case when we sold Carroll, Barton and Nolan but we have survived – and indeed flourished – without them. However, I don’t think we can point to the sale of one player and say that because we survived without him we’ll survive without another player. I tend to think there’s likely to be a ‘tipping point’ somewhere where calamity awaits if you get rid of too many top performers.
Is Tiote that tipping point? Probably not. I think we’re a better team with him than without him, although I have no idea if he’s worth £20m to us in the grand scheme of things.
This could of course merely be a scurrilous rumour but the principles still apply, particularly given what Pardew said above.
What do you think?
NUFCBlog Author: Hugh de Payen
I'm a baby-boomer of the punk rock persuasion, currently exiled in Somerset for crimes committed in a previous life where locals keep trying to poison me with something called 'scrumpy'. Hates sprouts, coat-hangers, Cilla Black, ornaments, Steven Seagull movies and 50 Cent (he's not worth 10).
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He will be gone if the offer is big enough. For me though I would keep him as I believe he will get better.
Lets just hope that if there are any bids that they don’t come in at the last minute, like the Andy Carroll deal.
I believe that if both ManUre and Chelski both make serious offers we could see a big money auction, potentially for more money than we got for Carroll.
Lets just hope Graham Carr has a few more gems hidden up his sleeve to come in and replace any outgoing players.