WEEKLY TRANSER RUMOR ROUND-UP PART III

By: John | July 3rd, 2009

Hotting up.

IN:

Lisandro Lopez: JMA himself was supposed to be in Portugal today to personaly finalize the deal for Lisandro, but management dropped a bomb today on Porto! In L’Equipe, Bernard Lacombe announced that management had called-off the trip to Portugal today, as well as divulging that negotiations for Toulouse striker Andre Pierre Gignac were underway(see more below). I love this man, Aulas! Reportedly, last week, JMA made a bid for 18mill plus performance bonuses which pushed the price to 20mill which met Porto’s intial valuation of the player, but after this week saw Lucho Gonzalez’s sale to Marseille, Porto pulled the rug out-from-under OL and jacked the price up to 25mill. At first I thought that Aulas seemed to have found a negotiating nemesis, for all those headaches he’s given other teams in the past, but I don’t ever remember him raising the price after negotiations have begun. Do any of you veteran fans with longer historical references know if that is the case or not? JMA was thought to be ready to up the bid to 20mill today, but Porto apparently got a taste of their own medicine- although their ian official statement by OL stating that an offer of 20mill was submitted today, so maybe JMA might not be playing hardball after all. Anyway, either Porto want more money or they don’t want to sell Lisandro, either way, hopefully this the last bid OL make.
The one postive thing is that Lopez’s agent Fernando Hidalgo is really steamed and declared that Lisandro will never sign an extentsion with Porto, hence they risk him leaving on a free tranfer at the end of this season and getting nothing in return. Hopefully Hidalgo continues to twist Porto’s arm. We’ll see if this thing’s over or not in the coming week; management have rescheduled the meeting for next week.

Andre Pierre Gignac: According to comments made by Bernarde Lacombe in L’ Equipe, Gignac has told him that he would like to move to OL. Despite TFC’s president Olivier Sadran’s adamancy about Gignac’s not being for sale, Lacombe insists that negotiations are under way, although TFC has released an official statement on their site stating that Andre is not for sale. Supposedly, Lacombe has spoken with his agent and father, and all seem to be in agreement. Let’s see how the other signings play or don’t play-out. No terms have been disclosed.

David Trezeguet: Most probably a fall-back after Lisandro, and Gignac, the purchase price is supposed to be around 8mill, but I don’t know what his salary is. The concerns are obviously his age and the serious knee inury he sustained last year, possibly hampering his production.

Ruud Van Nistelrooy: Another fall-back, RVN supposedly wants to stay at the Bernabeu, and is happy to stay on the bench. The only problem with that is that Real have 29 players and can only register 25, so a few players will remain without a chair when the music stops, and most speculate it will be the Dutch players who are shown the door. I don’t know if it’s official, but you can already see that two players have been left without numbers, on Real’s official site, both M. Diarra and Ruud appear without numbers.
Ruud’s wages are quite heafty, much more so than Trez’s, plus his age- he’s even older than David- and again last year’s injury and how he will rebound from it are real concerns.

Andre Pierre Gignac: According to comments made by Bernarde Lacombe in L’Equipe, Gignac told him that he would like to move to OL. Supposedly, Lacombe has spoken with his agent and father, and all seem to be in agreement. Let’s see how the other signings play or don’t play-out.

Richard Soumah: It seems this might be our first catch of the season. The Guingamp winger-midfielder is said to have agreed to terms today with OL. Reports are that the deal was worth 3mill. We’ll wait for his unveiling.

Loic Remy: SEE “MOUNIER” BELOW.

Klaas Jan Huntelaar: The Dutchman has made it clear in the past that he doesn’t want to come to OL, but his name keeps floating around, and at the end of the day, maybe he rethinks things and decides first team football is more important than rotting away on the bench at Real or worse, not even having a number.

OUT:

Karim Benzema: Benz is gone to Real Madrid for 35mill plus performance bonuses that would drive the price up to 41mill.

Kader Keita: Is officialy on his way out the door. The 18mill Euro flop has signed on with Galatasaray for a reported 7mill which could reach 8-8.5mill with performance bonuses, depending on which source you trust. I just have one question: What is Frank Rijkaard smoking? Well, I guess it’s not a bad buy at that price. Keita’s departure clears the way for Pjanic to become the official back-up winger, and unloads a boatload of salary. Thank you Gala! First Baros, now Keita, and maybe Mensah in the future.

Grosso: Grosso is still on the fence about whether he is coming or going. He supposedly had a talk with Puel this week about what he wants to do, but no word on what was said at that meeting. Rumors of Juve getting ready to make a play for him, continue to come and go.

Francois Clerc: A wisper is outhere that Juventus are interested in Clerc and since, from what I understand, Clerc hasn’t signed an extension yet, coupled with the rumor that Francois is getting the itch to go on a foreign adventure, there might be some truth to this.

Anthony Mounier: Hahahahahahaha. Nice are reportedly offering Loic at a very steep price: 16mill plus Anthony Mounier, plus Miralem Pjanic on a loan deal. Cohen is really trying to milk Aulas. As if the 23mill he payed for Ederson and Hugo Lloris last year, was really unfair, and now it’s payback time! Hopefully JMA tells Cohen to piss-off too.

John Mensah: Rumors are that Mensah still wants to leave, although nothing heavy seems to be in the air as of late, the Galatasaray rumors have crawled to a hault.

Cris: Goal.com France claims Cris is looking to leave, as he is at odds with manager Claude Puel.