Tuesday 15 July 2008

Rochdale test cancelled

The Rochdale AFC website is reporting that we have pulled out of the promised showdown in Spain (thanks Chicago Addick). They cite our late arrival and unwillingness to travel the long distance between the partying squads. Apparently we offered to honour it if they took the 3 hour drive from Marbella to Cadiz. I hope this is untrue and more reflective of the fact that our own website has yet to make any comment on who we might be playing whilst out there. Give Rochdale their due, however, you get to know exactly what their boys are up to in a fair amount of detail.

Disappointing as I head for bed that Marcus Bent is still officially a Charlton player. I do not like the McLeish comment that his transfer to Brum "is not done yet." Relatively strong words for a man who apparently hijacked a done deal to Cardiff. It feels as if we should have a legitimate cause for complaint if nothing comes from the Birmingham interference, now that Cardiff have rightly pulled out. It will be good to understand exactly what permission we gave to whom. On the basis that we agreed a fee and greedy-bollocks agreed terms, why would we give him permission to approach a third party if we were unlikely to gain anything?

2 comments:

  1. It would be easy to blame Bent for taking a u-turn, but it's a given that he is self-motivated (the kindest words i could think of), surely all involved should have kept their mouths shut until it was a done deal.
    It seems to me CAFC accepted the Cardiff offer because it was the only deal on the table, Pards went public because he wanted to kick start a bidding war, and it has backfired drastically.
    If Birmingham try to screw us on a transfer fee, I'd rather we told them to get stuffed, on principal, rather than accept a lower fee than Cardiff were offering.

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  2. Johnny - I don't think we would have allowed Bent to talk to Birmingham at the last minute if there was any chance it would lower the agreed fee with Cardiff. Possibly the opposite and we thought we might get a bit more, but my suspicion is that it's Bent who has most to gain in all this. If Charlton have agreed to this on the back of what is presumably a relatively small possible gain in the fee, then we deserve to get nothing and be left with stroppy Marcus.

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