Godders

I thought personal terms were agreed in principle when we were going through our financial issues, I seem to remember seeing somewhere?

Who have also said: We don't have to sell players

Levy doesn't pay much in wages. Alli has only recently (as in this year) got to £100k a week I think. I don't think Jack will be on much more than what we could offer him.

Skybet still offering 1/3 on him staying. Seems they're not convinced he's moving on.

Just sign a contract with a release clause, take us up and go next year kid. Your career will be better off for another guaranteed 70 hours of first team action this season.

I assume we've offered Jack a sweetener for keeping him here. New contract with a £30mill ish sell on clause and the end of this season maybe.

What makes you think we're accepting the £25mil bid?

I would hope we're being as transparent as possible with him over this, so I would expect he's aware that the club have a figure in mind, which will mitigate the risk of a transfer request. As for seeing him leave for less further down the line, I don't have an issue with that. I'm sure if he stays we'll offer him a new contract. I wouldn't blame him if he doesn't sign it. If we get another tilt at promotion with him in the side, and he gets another season of playing week in, week out (which is no guarantee at Spurs), everyone's a winner in my book.

Where are you getting that from? Rumours last night were that this is less than we value him so will be rejected.

Or, perhaps our new owners have a way of meeting our FFP obligations, without having to sell players, as they've said.

Why is the club tweeting press reports that a player has turned up at the club? I would hope they knew he'd turned up, rather than relying on sky sports to act as a doorbell. "Steve, is that someone in reception?" "Hang on Dave, let me check sky sports..."

Spurs fans I think have visions of grandeur at the moment I think. They think they should be challenging for the title, but don't see ambition in the transfer market. The fans want big names and big reputations. Jack doesn't fit that vision.

Blimey, Scottish football must be incredibly poor if we have to be "awash with cash" to bid an extra £2mill!

Ah OK, so you think Spurs will stump up the cash. Personally I'm not so sure. Levy is Levy and will hate paying the going rate. If our owners are to be taken at their word, we won't let him go for anything less than what they feel he's worth so I don't think we'll have an offer from Spurs that meets our valuation. There may be a last minute hijack from another club, but I'm not so sure Levy will pay what we're asking. Edit: there's an interesting psychological aspect at play here as well. Studies have shown that people will shy away from perceived losses, even if they're not actual losses. Here, Spurs could have had him on the cheap a few weeks ago, but they held off. Fair market value now may not look like fair market value to Spurs, it may feel like they're now being stung for £15-20million.

What do you make of Bruce's comments yesterday that we haven't had a realistic offer for him yet then?

Yes, that we've apparently made a bid for some chap called John McGinn who plays for Hibs.

I don't deny that we have certain obligations to meet under FFP. However, as I've said previously, I'm taking what our owners say at face value as we have no reason to assume they're pulling the wool over our eyes, and it's fair to assume they know more intimately what can and can't be done in our situation, with our finances, in the context of FFP. If they say we don't have to sell players, I'm taking that to mean we don't have to sell players. Hell, they may even have had some sort of undertaking from the EFL that the worst we'll see is a fine, and have taken the decision that it's worth paying rather than gutting the squad. I'm sure they have very knowledgeable accountants and lawyers advising them. You are obviously welcome to your opinion that we absolutely have to sell players to meet FFP. I personally can't see any real logical reasoning behind this though when our owners, who have a far greater understanding of our situation than I do, and have apparently met with the EFL to discuss this, are telling me we don't need to sell players.

Today's events seem to back up that we don't have to sell players to balance the books. £6mill bid on a player without having offloaded Grealish or anyone else. If our hands were truly tied by FFP, presumably we'd be on a sell to buy basis, but it currently (as of 10:53 this morning) doesn't seem that we are.

Young and hungry with something to prove? I'm sure I've heard that somewhere before...

Yes, I agree completely. If we're offered what we think is more than fair value for a player, we should look to sell. That's a good use of resources. The original comment was asking why we're looking at getting players in before offloading some, on account of our finances. I was pointing out that the new owners think our financial situation is comfortable enough that we don't have to sell before we get players in. Of course, we may still want to sell players, but we don't have to.

This is disappointing. I personally think he's worth much more than that.

The reports prior to the new owners coming in? I think it was, and it's not now. They've said no one needs to be sold. Let's take them at their word until they prove their word isn't to be respected. It seems as though then whatever plans they have to get around FFP, it doesn't include needing to offload players.

Shouldn't be any reason not to bring better players in though surely.

Why? We've already lost that many, and we didn't have massive strength in depth last season.

Disagree Blandy. If players have to be sold to meet FFP, why would the new owners say they didn't? All it serves is to royally piss the fans off immediately when players are inevitably sold, at below market prices, to get around FFP. They'd be better off saying something softer, or non-committal. I don't have them peg as liers at the moment, so taking their comments at face value, no one has to be sold. The message they're giving is they're comfortable we can meet FFP obligations without being forced to offload players. So, the maths are quite simple. Tottenham can either shit, or get off the toilet, because it doesn't matter to our finances whether Grealish stays or doesn't.