Should Milner, Ferdinand and Berbatov be criticised for wanting to move?
Anton Ferdinand jumped ship from West Ham to Sunderland this week. James Milner turned in a transfer request at Newcastle United, presumably so Aston Villa can snap him up before the transfer window ends. Dimitar Berbatov is reported to be holding ‘crisis talks’ with Tottenham officials who themselves are waiting for Pavlyuchenko to sign (or maybe someone else as well) before letting the Bulgarian head to Manchester United.
Why are they leaving? Is it for the money or is it for the chance of success?
For Berbatov it’s clear - both. Manchester United can offer Berbatov the wages and the chance to challenge for top domestic and European honours - similar to Keane’s situation with Liverpool - and when your footballing culture is built on glorifying heroes and forgetting the rest, and when your social status is based more on what you earn than who you are, it’s hard to fault Berbatov for his choice.
In addition, like Robbie Keane, Berbatov simply doesn’t believe that Tottenham can qualify for the Champions League - at least not enough to bet his career on it. It’s down to the manager and the club as a whole to instill that belief in their players and whether it’s the teammates or the board, either way they haven’t come through if they can’t keep strikers of Keane’s and Berbatov’s quality onside.
With Milner and Ferdinand it’s different in the sense that Villa and Sunderland, while on the up, are not immediately MUCH better clubs than Newcastle and West Ham. In fact, West Ham would argue that they still have a good chance of finishing ahead of Sunderland than the reverse, so you have to look at other factors than just league/European ambitions.
Faith in the manager is one thing. I’ve always thought of Curbs as a good man but an average manager - he doesn’t have the inspirational qualities of a Mourinho nor the motivational capabilities of a Ferguson. Hell, Redknapp and Keane are better man-managers. It’s something that West Ham’s board will have looked at closely and will need to fix next summer (now it’s too late) - I don’t think Ferdinand believes that Curbs can take West Ham to Europe, but he apparently does think that playing for Keane at Sunderland gives them a better chance of matching the likes of Everton and Villa and Pompey, not to mention improve his chances at the international level.
And Milner? For a player to hand in a transfer request at this stage of the summer means he’s obviously tried to get out the roundabout way and is now trying to force the issue before the summer’s over. He’s a good kid but seems to have stalled after showing initial promise. It’s not unreasonable to assume that Villa are after him but he could just as easily be headed to Everton if they stump up the cash.
And like Ferdinand, he’ll be looking at his international prospects as well and might consider that playing for a different club, without the pressures that playing for Newcastle United brings, may help him grow to the point where he can get a crack at England’s 2010 World Cup squad.
It’s easy to criticise players, especially those who push for moves that wouldn’t help their career (Chimbonda away from Wigan, before he was ready for it, or Adebayor away from Arsenal, again before he was ready for it), but sometimes they need to move for their own good - and at that point sacrificing them at the altar of your club’s failings may be asking for too much.
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Rather simplistic approach. By your reasoning contracts are only for the benefit of the players and can be torn up if the player wants to move. Nice to see that you don’t think players should have any respect for the fans. Taking the tone of this article,players should treat fans with contempt and clubs should not have any ethics just backdoor unsettling and let the players sulk their way to a move. Childish reasoning or perhaps I missed the pice mentioning the cannonfodder-sorry fans.
Ferdinand as it happens turned down a 40K per week new contract, attempting to hold out for 50K.
It back fired and instead of bowing to player pressure, the board quite rightly said, no, you are now on the transfer list and nothing will change our minds, even if you do, if you don’t want to play for West Ham with such a reasonable contract that we have offered for someone who is an O.K. (not England quality) defender then go somewhere else and we ill get something for you before you run down your current contract.
Personally, I think this is a good bit of business and this may prove to players that you can’t hold the owners over a barrel just because you were born and bred the colours of your team. Perhaps others will see they won’t get away with it in future, this could be the turning point of player/agent domination over the clubs.
It has nothing to do with what he think of Curbs because quite clearly West Ham ARE a much betters team than Sunderland.
I dont think so expecially players that handed in their transfer request like Milner and Berbatov. But players that still have a contract but refuse to hand in theirs instead starts to grant interview to Marca should be allowed to rot in the reserve. Thank you.
I don’t think too many people would have begrudged Berbatov his move, (some Spurs fans excepted), but it is the way he has gone about it that gets on people’s nerves. As to Milner there are not enough people who want to leave clubs handing in transfer requests for my liking. Oh as to him coming to everton I thought he was overpriced when they were saying he might cost £6m! I can’t see how he’d start ahead of Arteta or Osman OR Pienaar. He definately wouldn’t start ahead of Cahill or our holding DM.
Its the way Berbetov has behaved that has annoyed Spurs Fans!! Man Utd cannot hold clubs to ransom either - he is our player and under contract to us so we say what price we want for him!! Funny how it was ok for Fergie to threaten that Ronalda would rot in reserves before he would let him go, was ok!! and look at the price they put on him!! He will go next year anyway if he recovers from his op ok!! At least Barry has behaved like a professional and we all know he wants to go to Liverpool but he hasnt failed to still give 100% to Villa while the clubs try to sort it out. If I was a Man U fan I wouldnt want a player like Berbetov!!I never want to see him in a Spurs shirt again!! Roy Keane has the right attitude on how to deal with players bad behaviour!!
No problem as long as the same players realise that if they don’t perform to expectations then the Team can tear up the contract and walk away from it with no penalty! After all what’s sauce for the goose……!!!!!!!!!!!!
Another short sighted self-fulfilling prophecy article
Let me explain it to you so you can understand
If the likes of Berbatov and Keane join Man U/Chelsea/Arsenal/Liverpool because they think that is the only way to get CL football, then that will become the only way to get CL football.
Your article’s idea would lead to there only being Man U/Chelsea/Arsenal/Liverpool playing football in England.
The whole transfer system needs an overhaul. If a player is under contract then any team interested in signing him should approach his club in secret. if that bid is turned down then the player does not need to know about it. if and only if it is accepted then the player will be told of the interest. Any leaks to the press of any kind should be heavily punished with fines that will seriously hurt the pocket of the clubs, players or agents found responsible. If blame can not be apportioned to any one party fine the lot of them. I realise this will put a lot of journalists out of business but hey they usually get it wrong anyway, i think sometimes these rumours are circulated by journalists who just want to get a particular player in a particular team anyway. we need to restablish the contract as a binding piece of paperwork.
This topic is tired, are we going to start talking about the state of footbal and the transfer market everytime a player wants a move.
It’s part of football get used to it and stop with the the player power articles already.