As an optimist, I'm looking at this as a blessing in disguise. Ngog was apparently valued at 7 million ( or maybe 4 million depending on what price you believed Henderson was) by Sunderland. This gives us real leverage when negotiating with other clubs who come calling for Ngog. I'm pretty sure that Ngog's gonna be gone this summer. A player of his age cannot afford to be sitting on the bench happy to collect his wages when he only has a year left on his contract. So, he's gonna have to lower his wage demands eventually. As the transfer deadline nears, clubs do strange things. I can imagine a newly promoted club or a mid-table side getting desperate for strikers who've played at this level and shown a reasonable level of competency. After all, the one thing that these teams struggle predominantly with is scoring goals. At that point, Comolli can point to Sunderland's valuation of Ngog as a barometer of his market value and get the deal done at roundabout that price. So, its still a win-win scenario for us.
I'm not sure that i follow your logic on this one.
How does an ill defined price on a deal that was never concluded give us leverage in other, totally separate negotiations?
You suggest there's pressure on him to lower his wage demands because he's in the final year of his contract, yet the 'value' of leaving on a free without the incremental transfer fee is one of the ways players negotiate improved salaries.
I admire your optimism though
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It may well prove difficult for the club to offload unwanted players at the level of fee we'd hope for. That in turn may affect how well we're able to complete our own acquisition strategy. But that's stating the bleedin' obvious. We have 2 months yet to see what transpires.
