Thing that annoys me...

Is that if you are trying to sell something you want to push the price up. Now every club in the Premiership knows there is a deal to be done and that we're looking to sell and you can probably wipe a good ?1m of his sale price.

You can't blame Ashton for saying what he thinks, after all he wouldn't have joined us in January if he'd have realised that we'd be where we are now. the last thing he wants to do is to act loyal now and then look like a bastard if he leaves in January. He joined us to take a step forward in his career, based on goals and league position he is worse off than he was a year ago at Crewe!

How many other managers do you here saying that they are considering selling their best players? Can you imagine Ian Dowie or Simon Jordon openly admitting to be looking for offers for Andy Johnson, of course not. We look amateur and

Quote 1
We'd be stupid to consider selling him in January, his goals would be worth ?25m to us if we gets us promoted and nobody is going to bid that for him.

Quote 2
Every player has his price and its up to the buying clubs to come up with an offer that is acceptable and then we'll sit down and consider it.

The difference is that Quote 1 comes from Alan Pardew when we were rumoured to be after Marlon Harewood this time last year, Pardew is king of the sound bite and spin, whereas Worthington lacks the nouse to play mind games, you saw during the interview with McCoist that at one point he was completely stuck as to what to say next and it was his sentence.

The other thing that annoys me is that when we sell Ashton in the January we may get ?3m-?4m to spend, however ever club in the country will know that we have cash to burn. Eastwood, Trundle, Halford etc will all of a sudden become ?1.5m players. David Connelly to Wigan for ?3m springs to mind. (oh its wigan they've got plenty of cash to spare).

By the time a bidding war starts and is concluded for Ashton it will be mid January, every team will know that we're desperate for a striker to replace Ashton and then we'll get ripped off because they'll know we need to get it sorted in just a couple of weeks. (That is of course if the best strikers in the lower divisions haven't been snapped up in early January while we are still trying to get as much for Ashton as possible)

Clubs after Ashton will know that we want to find a replacement asap and as such will know that time is against us and the longer it drags on the more desperate we'll be to get something finalised.

Worthington hasn't got his tactics right off the field, in the summer we heard all about how May and June were going to be quiet and that things wouldn't start until July, yet Sheffield Utd went out and splashed the cash in June and bought a right winger and a forward whilst Worthy was still mincing about on holiday.

Posted By: Pompey_Yellow, Dec 11, 19:07:22