It's not so much this deal is isolation, it's the pattern emerging. Sammy Lee, Clayton, Grabban, now Ward. Every time we are favourites for the deal, and every time we fail to close it.
Ward going to Burnley
Oh, they will have. Palace made something like £70 million from PL TV last year. We will have made maybe £4 million.
Can't blame Ward. My issue is the club procrastinating for weeks over the deal when it was clear he wanted to come here and Wolves wanted to sell.
Got a source for that, or are you making it up? No doubt that procrastination cost us at least Clayton and Ward, and being outdone on wages by a club with gates of half ours cost us Grabban. Who, incidentally, went for three times the fee we'd agreed in this window.
Joke. We should have stopped quibbling over a few quid (seeing how we've sold roughly £14 million of talent since January) weeks ago. Can't say I blame him - basically saying we only want him if it's on the cheap after a great season doesn't send out a great message, does it?
Well done to the club on failing to close another deal. See Clayton, Grabban, Conway, Baldock et al. All while offloading our existing talent at a prodigious rate.