Transfers After CL Returning

Well as usual the only winner is Chelsea. Their rivals Arsenal have an upset young player on their books who will wait for his contract to expire. they keep on to Gallas who will keep playing for another season until hes what 30 and then he can go. Its not like they need the money.

Originally Posted by Jim_UK

If Nesta & Kaladze had been partnered together for years then this idea of Gallas not playing in the middle would have some merit. But they haven't been a pairing for years and Kaladze is a left back and not a centre back ... so why is it such a hard thing to realise that Gallas could have easily started this season in the middle with Nesta ?

Maldini puts a wrench in the works there, but theres no guarantee he wont be out all season again. Otherwise Gallas is quite simply a better player than Kaladze.

Kindly be aware Jim, that Kaladze´s preferred position is CB, the position he plays for his country.

Well you learn something new everyday Warro.

It is his preferred position but has always said he will play where ever he is needed as long as he plays regularily. He gets injured without consistent games or thats what Lobanovski told him anyway.

Last season at centre back was one of his best though.

To be perfectly frank, I would have questions about Gallas' attitude anyway. He's been a regular in the lineup of a team that has won two consecutive Premiership titles and advanced as far as the semifinals of the Champions League, yet he has been unhappy the entire time because he wasn't playing the position he wanted to play. There are a lot of fine players who would gladly have exchanged places with him and been happy no matter what position they were inserted in the lineup. Maybe it's better to have guys like Kaladze who are willing to do whatever they are asked. Maybe that's why Mourinho was interested in Kaladze two years ago.

It is strange, but he did keep banging on about a new experience and knowing you have made it when you pull a Milan shirt on. I always thought he was one of those players that sought a new challenge a little like his mate Zidane.

I'm sure Rick your attitude would be questionable if you were told you would play at cb only to find you keep getting played out of position. Yes Gallas voiced his opinion, he let be known that given the choice cb was the position he wanted, but he always accepted the other positions.

He only started voicing his opinions in a stronger way at the start of the year when he mentioned it might be time to move on.

You can dress it up how you like, you can try to find excuses why we didn't get him or even try to gloss over it, but it seems we didn't try hard enough to get a player that would have improved our squad when he more or less begged to move to us before the world cup. That to me is a mistake.

Maybe Gallas not coming to Milan got something to do with the things he said after the world cup about Italians and cheats, I mean come on, insult his new team!!! thats a good start yeah good work man

*sighs*

When was the time Gallas was making all the right noises about wanting to play for us? Before the world cup. When was he saying he really wanted to leave? Before the world cup. When did Chelsea want Shevchenko? Before the world cup .... so the best time to have concluded this deal? ... Anyone? .... Yes, before the world cup.

Had this deal been done at this time, which is something i've said all along, then he wouldn't have made those exact comments would he. Which would by and large make this point against him quite irrelevant.

Originally Posted by Jim_UK

*sighs*

When was the time Gallas was making all the right noises about wanting to play for us? Before the world cup. When was he saying he really wanted to leave? Before the world cup. When did Chelsea want Shevchenko? Before the world cup .... so the best time to have concluded this deal? ... Anyone? .... Yes, before the world cup.

Had this deal been done at this time, which is something i've said all along, then he wouldn't have made those exact comments would he. Which would by and large make this point against him quite irrelevant.

Is this aimed at my post? If it is I´m just saying that he talked a little to much after the WC final, don't you agree?

Originally Posted by Jim_UK

*sighs*

When was the time Gallas was making all the right noises about wanting to play for us? Before the world cup. When was he saying he really wanted to leave? Before the world cup. When did Chelsea want Shevchenko? Before the world cup .... so the best time to have concluded this deal? ... Anyone? .... Yes, before the world cup.

Had this deal been done at this time, which is something i've said all along, then he wouldn't have made those exact comments would he. Which would by and large make this point against him quite irrelevant.

believe it or not, Jim, I expected that you are gonna go this route ... yesterday, so I dutifully prepared my answer

The thing is that there is a good chance that Milan management had reasons, aka signals from all those calciopoli tribunals, to believe that Milan might end up being relegated just like all three other teams originally were. These reasons/signals are something we, fans, would hardly know about but they would ... especially if their lawyers had prepped them for the worse ... and by saying this I don't wanna go into a debate whether we were clean or guilty because I am sure we both know that a courts decission is just that, a court's decision and one could be punished no matter whether guilty or not.

Anyways, there is a good chance that they had reasons to fear a relegation ... and of course in a situation like that, you can't just assume that the appeal would work - as it did for Lazio and Fiorentina - so they had to prep for the worse and sold Sheva for as much hard cash as they could possibly get - no makeweights liek Gallas, Crespo or whatever becuase in a possible demotion to Serie B, one would hardly need such players (chances are they wouldn't have stayed even if we wanted them to), while the financial losses for the club would have been enormous ... so, Milan board wanted to make sure that if we were dropped, we had money to cover at least partially those losses.

Why we didn't sell Sheva after the world cup in an attempt to geth more cash from Chelski and maybe give it some time to see what the chances of us being relegated really were? Well, what if Sheva got seriously injured during the WC? Imagine what effect that would have on his price ...

Also, Galliani was well aware of what Gallas had said about Milan, and he made that clear by referring to teh Frenchman as "a very interesting player". When the time to deal Sheva with Chelski came, do you really believe that the thought of including Gallas in the deal didn't cross his mind? I mean, one doesn't need to be a genious to connect to dots and reach an obvious conclusion, right?

Again, we fans, just because our transfer campaign wasn't as headline-making as Inter's, are pretty quick to go ahead with assumptions for this and that - and I mean this for everybody, including myself - but we have to remember that the people we call so often with names like meatheads, idiots, dumb-butts or whatever, are people who have been doing what they are doing for a long, long time - for most members here, before they were even born - and given the heights Milan has conquered, I would say they know what they are doing.

We shouldn't also forget that they have resources that allow them to know certain things about players or other clubs for a fact, things that we simply cannot know, so when they make a certain decision, reast assured my friend that that decision was well measured on the basis of many more possible outcomes than any of us here could have come up with our limited resources, which consist of mostly 2-3 websites and unfounded rumour(s) we somehow manage to pick up here and there.
well, that was about it ...

I can't say i totally agree no. The guy just lost a world cup on penalties and he spoke out of anger. Maybe he did go too far, i don't know, it's not for me to decide.

Chelsea paid Arsenal 5 million pounds + Gallas for Cole... Arsenal once refused 20 million pounds for Cole... so basically Chelsea valued Gallas at about 15 million pounds... and imagine had we gotten him in exchange for Shevchenko... he would have been valued higher since they were not so desperate to sell him back than... for all you know... the only way Chelsea would allow Gallas to join Milan back than was a straight swoop of the players... imagine... Shevchenko to Chelsea & Gallas to Milan... no other cash involved... that my friend would have been stupid...

Originally Posted by Jim_UK

I can't say i totally agree no. The guy just lost a world cup on penalties and he spoke out of anger. Maybe he did go too far, i don't know, it's not for me to decide.

Not me either but I´m happy that we didn't got him because i would have a hard time seeing him in the Milan colors after that outburst

p.s. I don´t doubt his football qualities he´s great but man he really disappointed me that day.