RAWK "Insider" about the Salah deal:
Ok guys, I was the source the RAWK source during this whole thing. I didn't want to reveal myself cause I didn't want to get bombarded with PMs every couple of hours about him, but since this one is basically as good as over for us, there is no harm in pointing out some details about this transfer to let the RAWK universe know how much we fucked up during this transfer as my source is as close to the player as you can get.
First of all, let me tell you that I'm not a fan of the club overpaying by any stretch, I hate it when clubs like City or Chelsea pay over the top fees for the likes of Lescott or Shaun Wright Phillips cause that means the market is inflated. However, just because the market is inflated doesn't mean that there are some players out there who are worth a good chunk of money to be paid for.
There is also a fine line between being too smart and being too smart for your own good, I didn't exactly followed the ins & outs of our other negotiation models with the other targets in the summer but there is a pattern developing of us missing out on first targets like Dempsey, Mkhitaryan, Costa, Willian and bar a miracle now, Salah. It is hard to properly judge the transfer committee plus I feel for the scouts who have their hard work cut out for when a club comes in and gets the players we have been following for months.
Now we were following Salah closely since October, we sent a lot of scouts to Basel games, began negotiating in November and his agent met with Ayre in the West Ham game to discuss terms with them. We had a verbal agreement with Basel regarding everything and we quickly became Salah's favoured destination as he saw us as a club where he can grow, get a lot of 1st team action and become a world class player. I don't know what happened between Salah's agent and Ayre, but the impression that the club got from that meeting was that, in reality there is no way Salah is going to leave for anyone bar Liverpool and/or there are no real offers on the table for Basel bar us. When we got to sending Basel our opening offer, it was a laughable offer well below what was verbally agreed upon, think of Wenger 40 million plus one pound bid, this was even more laughable.
Basel raised their as a result of being pissed off. We tried to up our offer but it was again well below what was previously agreed upon and Basel didn't want to lower their demands as they sensed that we were wasting their time. They even began courting other clubs that Salah is available. Milan & Inter thought that Basel's original demands were too high for them, Leverkusen, Wolfsburg & Monchengladbach were ready to pay but Salah didn't want to go to Germany. Basel tried to claim that Atletico was interested but it was a bluff by all accounts, however a host of other clubs wanted to be kept updated on the deal one of whom was Chelsea.
Since we saw that Salah didn't want to go to the Bundesliga and with no other club offering Basel any offer, we assumed he'll stay there till the summer and we can re-open negotiations, but Newcastle offered Basel a good first offer and now him coming to us in the summer was in doubt if Basel & Newcastle agree a fee. That's why we came back with a much more improved offer, almost what was verbally agreed upon before the window even started. Salah's personal demands were also agreed previously so there was no problems with him & his agent, just us agreeing some minor details with Basel. Chelsea, who were updated on the deal, at last asked about his availability and Basel asked about 8 million more than what we were offering (they tried to fleece Chelsea and I'm sorry last night I got confused cause I misunderstood my source as telling me Chelsea offered 8 million more, which isn't true) but Chelsea really offered a couple of million more than us but with a lot of add ons that favour Basel heavily, we didn't even hesitate and backed off, not even matching their deal.
The only thing stopping Salah from going to Chelsea is that he doesn't want to go there, full stop. Him & his advisers believe he won't get much playing time there and if it is in his hands, it is better to stay at Basel and wait till the summer to get his move, however Basel want to sell & get their money now and begin scouting their next target (who will also be from Egypt). There is a third club who asked for Salah's availability (my source won't tell me cause Salah doesn't want this to go public as he prefers to join that third club over Chelsea and doesn't want a repeat of the fiasco surrounding his negotiations with Liverpool) but like I said barring a miracle, most probably he won't be our player come the end of the window.
What makes this irritating is that we wasted three months of scouting him, weeks of negotiations and then tried to lowball Basel and looked stupid at the end when we fell flat on our arses. Board wise, there have to be some questions asked about how good we are at negotiating some deals.
