Cahill To Chelsea - Talks Begin

[Jimbo]

Cahill done for 5M according to someone on twitter.

Fee seems more realistic to me than the 7-8m that people were talking about.

[Paul Comstive]

Cahill done for 5M according to someone on twitter.

Must be true then.

[Manny]

Fee seems more realistic to me than the 7-8m that people were talking about.

Seems realistic to me too and with his contract up in the summer, I think even £5million is over the odds. We should have got rid in the summer when we had the chance to make a profit on him. Nobody was going to pay the £17million fee that was being branded about because he simply isn't worth that much.

[aarons2009]

If we sell for £5million we have fucked up well and truley as we are pretty much making a loss as wouldn't we owe a percentage of the sale to Villa?

No doubt they will put a loanee forward our way.

[Paul Comstive]

Seems realistic to me too and with his contract up in the summer, I think even £5million is over the odds.

Give over.  Despite his form being patchy for us this season (and who's form hasn't been!) , he has proved himself to be an International class CB.  There's not many of those available in January for less than 8 digits.  Add this to the fact he's not cup-tied in Europe this makes him a very attractive proposition indeed.

Chelsea have paid a lot more than £8m in the past for a lot worse players.

[Manny]

Chelsea have paid a lot more than £8m in the past for a lot worse players.

Yes but my point is that they could have him for nothing at the end of June so £5million would be a good deal for us. He may have broken in to the England team but he still makes amateur mistakes, like the Yakubu goal at Blackburn. I'm not saying he isn't a good player but he's just another vastly overrated English player in my book.

[Manny]

Dialogue on the situation from Owen Coyle.

"Regarding Gary Cahill, there has been dialogue between ourselves and Chelsea.

"It's fair to say there's interest in Gary, and there will be. I've said from day one I believe Gary Cahill can play for anybody, I think he has those qualities.

"There is serious interest in Gary, but I've got to say we have two huge games before 1st January, before anything could happen.

"More than his ability, he's an outstanding man, and because of the lad he is, his focus will be doing the best for his team-mates, who he's stood shoulder to shoulder with for years here, and trying to help them get points in these two games. Then whatever January brings, so be it.

"There's nothing signed and sealed at the moment but it's fair to say there has been dialogue. I've got to be up front and tell you, as I always do, and that's the situation."

http://www.burndenaces.co.uk/news/bolton_open_talks_over_cahill_sale_2103

[Paul Comstive]

Yes but my point is that they could have him for nothing at the end of June so £5million would be a good deal for us. He may have broken in to the England team but he still makes amateur mistakes, like the Yakubu goal at Blackburn. I'm not saying he isn't a good player but he's just another vastly overrated English player in my book.

No arguments from me on those points mate, but English players, for whatever reason do command big transfer fees.  Carroll, Henderson, Downing, Young, Jones, Smalling, etc, etc.

I'd be a little surprised and disappointed if we didn't get £7m-8m.  I still hope we'll get this because there's known interest from both Spurs and Chelsea (and maybe Man U could enter the bidding due to their injury problems).

[H. Pedersen]

There's no denying Cahill is our best defender and arguably our best player.  However, we have the worst defense in the league so it's hard to imagine how selling him is going to hurt us all that must.  We might in fact be better off with a better partnership in central defense - like Knight/Ricketts a few years back - rather than the better player.

At least, I hope that's the logic here.  If Coyle and Gartside don't have a really solid plan on the central defensive partnership then it's hard to see this as anything other than financial preparation for relegation.

I'm hoping this is immedately re-invested on a player with potential like Onuoha.  I remember a few years ago that we turned down a deal from Chelsea for Ben Haim that reportedly included Diarra.  Ben Haim left for free, Diarra was later sold by Portsmouth to Real Madrid for a £15 million profit.  D'oh.

[Quiroga]

The club couldn't win on Cahill.  If we'd sold him in the summer, particularly near the end of the window, then folk would have said we were near the bottom due to cashing in.  I'm glad we didnt cave into that cheeky c*nt Wenger with the £6m offer then.  £5m is ok in January but any less & I'd prefer to hang onto him.

Cahill is a great player who will come on leaps and bounds playing in a better side imo

[Wiggy]

5 milion is robbery,somebody as really fucked up badly when we could have got 12 million in the summer.The extra 7 million could have brought in some decent players.

[xmiles]

£5m is disappointing but hardly robbery. Selling him in the summer would have been better but as far as we can tell we never received a realistic offer. £5m now is definitely better business than keeping him for the rest of the season and not only getting bugger all for him, but also having a key player not really committed to the club and very keen to avoid injury in case it damaged his transfer prospects.

[Jamster26]

In hindsight, of course, we should have taken the money in the summer. However, at the start of the season, allot of people would have taken having Gary Cahill, for the next six months, rather than not having him.

[H. Pedersen]

We don't even know if a solid offer was made in the summer.  I mean for all we knew back in August . . .

- We could be pushing for the Champions League and Cahill would want to stay.
- John Terry could give his entire back line Hep C in January and Chelsea would pay any price for replacements
- The Sun could reveal Cahill to be a weird sloth-humping pervert and he would unable to sign with a bigger club due to bad publicity.

[Manny]

I'd be a little surprised and disappointed if we didn't get £7m-8m.  I still hope we'll get this because there's known interest from both Spurs and Chelsea (and maybe Man U could enter the bidding due to their injury problems).

If the reports of £5m-£6m are correct, then other interested clubs would come in with the exact same offer. Unfortunately, it looks like we've dealt our hand already. It will eventually boil down to which club the player wants to join and with John Terry likely to be his Chelsea and England partner, I think there's only one place he'll be going.

[hjd]

I think whoever is in charge of our transfer policy needs to be held to account. It's getting ridiculous the number of players who are being allowed to run their contracts down and walk away for nothing. Elmander , no matter what people thought of him, is still a current Sweden international, and as such must have been worth a transfer fee, he should have been offered a new contract 18 months ago and if he refused he should have been sold.
We are now doing the same with Cahill, £5m from Villa reserves, now an established international and we are going to let him go for little more than we paid for him. A current England c/h went for £24m  18m ago. We should have done the same with Cahill last year. offer him a new contract and if he refused sell him for the maximum we could get .
Chelsea and any other interested clubs must be laughing their bollocks off at geting the current England c/h for £6 or £7m.
We also have a virtual full team out of contract in the summer, all of whom could walk away for nothing. In the last accounts our squad was allegedly valued at £60m. How can this be the case when we are allowing everyone to run their contracts down and leave for nothing
I wish someone from the club could explain our transfer strategy

[xmiles]

I wish someone from the club could explain our transfer strategy

Absolutely right. Apart from a couple of years under BSA we are a club that needs to sell talent and our failure to do this is yet another criticism of Coyle. Nice guy but he simply is not the real deal and will never be able to take us far from the relegation zone if (and it's still a very big if) we avoid relegation this season.

[tomr]

The fact that 13 or so players are out of contract should tell you whats going on,the club doesnt want them.

Correct me if im wrong but the likes of lee,holden,muamba,n'gog,riley,bogdan etc are all still in contract,we obviously see them as the future of our club.

Most of us wouldnt want half the players who are out of contract anyway.I fully expect knight to sign a new one though...

[xmiles]

Sure there are players we want to see go and there will be a saving on the wages bill, but hjd's point is still valid. We seem to be incapable of using the transfer market to make a profit and ever since a certain tosser was given money to spend (unlike BSA) we have failed to spend and sell wisely overall.

[Quiroga]

I just cant criticise the club for the Elmander situation.  He was brought in as a £10m player on huge wages.  Like him or not I dont think anyone would argue he ever looked like a £10m player for us.  A new contract wasn't an option as we would have to offer him more than his current deal to stop him going on a Bosman.  Financially that would have been madness.

We 'could' have put him on the transfer list with 12 months to go but then may have had an unhappy player on our hands rather than the guy who had his best year for us in that time.

Where the club are lacking (& have been for years) is producing its own young talent to either strengthen the team or the funds.

[Martinbwfc]

There lies the problem, I do think we have some promising players in the academy, unfortunately you would only see 1 maybe 2 at best break through, and that is because managers in the main are reluctant to give them starts over tried and trusted Premier league players, it's wrong but it's the way it is.

[H. Pedersen]

Elmander , no matter what people thought of him, is still a current Sweden international, and as such must have been worth a transfer fee, he should have been offered a new contract 18 months ago and if he refused he should have been sold.

18 months ago, our £11 million striker looked like a complete flop.  He had scored fewer league goals in two years than Klasnic scored in one season.  The club would have been rightly crucified if they had offered him a new contract.  He hits a hot streak, Galatasary doubles his wages, there wasn't much to be done.

[Malcolm Everett]

Well I am with those who are saying £5m seems fair. I think £5m is very generous, he would only play another 21 league games for us, £5,000,000 for a player who only has 21 games left with us is good business. We should have sold last summer but who knows if Spurs really did offer £11m like reported. I just think a club like Bolton cannot ever afford to let multi million pound assets leave for free. I always thought we defended better when Ricketts played in the centre of defence.

[Jimbo]

We were offered  6 rising to less than 10m from Arsenal- with two days to find a replacement.

We were offered something in the reigion of 8m rising to just over 10m from Spurs-with about 6 hours to find a replacement.

Word is we've been offered between 6-7m all in one lump sum for Cahill that will be completed as soon as the window opens. Personally, I think that is a far better deal than anything we had in the summer.

Our mistake was putting ridiculous 25-30m price tags on him 18months ago when we could have taken 15-17m for him and re-invested it wisely.

We do definitely have a problem with contracts though. We seemed to have adopted a 3-year maximum on contract length which while is probably financially prudent seeing as we're always in danger of relegation- has also hamstrung us in terms of getting the right price. It irks even more when we then break that pattern to give Darren fcuking Pratley 4 years!

The fact we're letting an England international go for less than 8m, the fact we let our record signing leave for free, the fact we only got decent money for our previous record signing because he had the courtesy to sign a new deal, the fact we've let other commodities leave on a free in the past due to contracts winding down(ie Ben Haim) and the fact that we've got 13 players- no matter if most of them are shíte- all up for renewal at the same time speaks volumes. Whoever is making these mistakes on a boardroom level is not learning and is costing the club millions in potential transfer income.

[xmiles]

Whoever is making these mistakes on a boardroom level is not learning and is costing the club millions in potential transfer income.

Does Coyle have no input? This kind of cock up was rare when we had BSA. He knew how to buy and sell, not that he was infallible. Yet another reason for saying goodbye to Coyle and the sooner the better, preferably before he wastes the Cahill money on another Pratley.