The Shay Given thread

[Stevo985]

If this is true then it's a bad signing.

I still maintain that if we sell him this summer instead of this pay off malarky, he won't have been a bad signing.

Edited May 22, 2013 by Stevo985

[Pelle]

 

 

You say he was a big part of keeping us up but having seen how Guzan has performed this season it is I think hard to argue that Given did any better than he could have done.

 

Given is perfectly entitled to the pay off and I think he will get it but it was a terrible signing from the day we did the deal and that should have been obvious to everyone including those 'running' the club.

Beauty of hindsight though, innit Trentinho.  Who could've predicted Guzan's meteoric rise way back then?

 

 

exactly. in fairness I cant remember many people that sad when eh was released last summer. be chaos if happened now

 

 

Yeah, IIRC Guzan had a few games last season and didn't impress at all. Now he has impressed so much that I voted him to be the POTY. :-P

 

Hadn't seen this thread before, but the first 8-9 pages were quite hilarious to read.

[BOF]

You say he was a big part of keeping us up but having seen how Guzan has performed this season it is I think hard to argue that Given did any better than he could have done.

 

Given is perfectly entitled to the pay off and I think he will get it but it was a terrible signing from the day we did the deal and that should have been obvious to everyone including those 'running' the club.

As I said, terrible contract. But Given was ready to step into Friedel's void. A 1-year younger and less experienced Guzan might not have. We don't know for sure. We do know Given did, and did the job. So for that I'd just cut him loose with the golden handshake.

I wonder how Siegrist is progressing these days.

[GarethRDR]

And whatever happened to that young Dutch kid we either signed or trialed from VVV-Venlo?  Jeroen... something.  Houwen?  Jeroen Houwen I think.

[tarjei]

The five year contract was to offset the wages he was on at City.

 

So he took a paycut on his say 2/3 yrs left on at city per year but by being given 5 years he would get the same money.

 

That is my understanding.

 

But I agreed with Trent, I didnt want him here in the first place.  He causes chaos in every defense he plays

It is true that he agreed lower wage for a longer contract, but it wasn't equal in any way.

He had two years left on what was said to be £80k = £8.3m

5 years on £60k is £15.6m

And then you have signing fee, loyalty bonus and agent fee on top of that. With the transfer added I'm guessing it somewhere around £25m.

Edited May 22, 2013 by tarjei

[GarethRDR]

Answered my own question, apparently Houwen was only over here on an apprenticeship and is now back in Holland with Vitesse Arnhem's youth side.

Edited May 22, 2013 by GarethRDR

[HeyAnty]

When we signed him he was a good player, but he's massively declined. One season he looked good, the next he looked shit, which is rare for goalkeepers. I don't see why we should pay him off. We cant be that desperate for him to leave surely? He's a good backup keeper. if it's Given who's desperate to leave then we should be terminating his contract by mutual agreement. Maybe pay him a million and say good bye. Paying him 5million and doing him a favour seems ridiculous.  

 

Though, I wouldn't put it past our idiotic board to do this.

 

Yeah thats what i was saying, i would even go as far to pay him 2 million.  Saves us 7 over 3 years.  And dont forget Given wont be hard done by as he will go to another club and will be earning a wage there.  For 4 million over 3 years id hold on to him and keep him as back up.

[kingysilvers]

All that has gone through my head reading through the last few pages:

 

 

 

op·por·tu·ni·ty cost  

Noun

The loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen.

 

 

£5m into Shay's pocket is £5m not going into the team next season, I know I'm stating the bloody obvious here and we're in a catch 22 as to keep him or pay him off but it's just depressing reaping what you sow when it comes to bad management choices.

[LondonLax]

When we signed him he was a good player, but he's massively declined. One season he looked good, the next he looked shit, which is rare for goalkeepers. I don't see why we should pay him off. We cant be that desperate for him to leave surely? He's a good backup keeper. if it's Given who's desperate to leave then we should be terminating his contract by mutual agreement. Maybe pay him a million and say good bye. Paying him 5million and doing him a favour seems ridiculous.

Though, I wouldn't put it past our idiotic board to do this.

Yeah thats what i was saying, i would even go as far to pay him 2 million. Saves us 7 over 3 years. And dont forget Given wont be hard done by as he will go to another club and will be earning a wage there. For 4 million over 3 years id hold on to him and keep him as back up.

You guys don't seem to understand.

The two options being suggested are paying him £5m so he will leave or paying him £9m if he stays.

There is no option on the table to pay him £1-2m and have him leave the club.

[HeyAnty]

 

 

When we signed him he was a good player, but he's massively declined. One season he looked good, the next he looked shit, which is rare for goalkeepers. I don't see why we should pay him off. We cant be that desperate for him to leave surely? He's a good backup keeper. if it's Given who's desperate to leave then we should be terminating his contract by mutual agreement. Maybe pay him a million and say good bye. Paying him 5million and doing him a favour seems ridiculous.

Though, I wouldn't put it past our idiotic board to do this.

Yeah thats what i was saying, i would even go as far to pay him 2 million. Saves us 7 over 3 years. And dont forget Given wont be hard done by as he will go to another club and will be earning a wage there. For 4 million over 3 years id hold on to him and keep him as back up.

You guys don't seem to understand.

The two options being suggested are paying him £5m so he will leave or paying him £9m if he stays.

There is no option on the table to pay him £1-2m and have him leave the club.

 

I understand very well, if he wantst to play first team football he may accept the 1-2 million and bog off somewhere else.  All down to him

[LondonLax]

You don't think we would have tried that? Obviously he'd rather £5-9m than £1-2m.

[Pez1974]

I agree with the recent posts. If he wants to play the last couple of years of his career, he can have a free transfer and good luck to him. I wouldn't give him more than a notional amount (although a footballers notional amount is vastly different to ours or mine!)

If he wants his contract paid up to leave, he can sit and be our back-up keeper for the next 3 years. If he goes, we would have to get someone else in, and with fees, etc, it ain't worth paying Shay off. Plus, it's not like he's acting like a tool about it - he is being kept out by one of the best keepers in the league.

[Richard]

Thought it was just Oneill who signed players on extortionate contracts.

 

Total waste of money this at a time the club was supposed to be hell bent on not wasting anymore

Was going to say something similar.

The contract offered to Given is proof MoN did not leave us in the financial mess that some like to claim.

or actually that it wasn't all his fault as people like to claim

[Condimentalist]

I'm pretty sure someone will come in and take him for a low fee, maybe £1-2m. We'll probably have to pay half his contract for the next three years, mind.

 

Daft, but it won't cost us £5m.

[The_Rev]

I'm still laughing at the assertion that Shay Given kept us up last season. One spectacular save in the last minute against the Baggies right at the end of the season doesnt make up for nine months of failing to dominate his penalty area. Said it a million times, Given is a great shot stopper but his all round game has huge deficiencies which caused us to concede far too many goals from set pieces last season. He has always been over rated because he looks good tipping one over the bar on MotD and based on his performances from Euro 2012 onwards you might even say his reactions which enable the great shot stopping are on the wane. Terrible keeper and I still curse the day we ever signed him.

 

I still stand by this.  Shay Given is arguably the most over rated player to have ever appeared in the Premier League.  

[Mantis]

 

 

Thought it was just Oneill who signed players on extortionate contracts.

 

Total waste of money this at a time the club was supposed to be hell bent on not wasting anymore

Was going to say something similar.

The contract offered to Given is proof MoN did not leave us in the financial mess that some like to claim.

or actually that it wasn't all his fault as people like to claim

 

I don't know of anybody who's claimed that it was all his fault.

 

Makes me laugh when people (not referring to you Richard) try and use things like this to defend O'Neill. Just because the club were stupid enough to give Given such a ridiculous contract doesn't mean O'Neill didn't leave us with a massive mess.

[Ponky]

To me the difference between giving him a massive payout and him seeing out his contract is negligible.

 

There is little evidence that Shay has caused any issues in the dressing room - if he had he would have disappeared quietly into the ether like Ireland.

 

Having a keeper of Shay's calibre on the bench keeps Guzan on his toes - no complacency for you!

 

Another season on the bench will probably see him lining up for mutual consent and seeking his fortune elsewhere. Clubs in the Chinese or Qatari leagues will pay him cash by the wheelbarrow load.

[Mantis]

To be honest if I were Guzan I wouldn't be that scared of Given.

[BOF]

MON did leave us in a mess. He's not the only one and he didn't have a monopoly on bad signings, nor can Randy's issuing of bumper contracts be ignored in the whole thing, but the fact that Given was a McLeish signing does not admonish MON of all the stuff he did. It is possible for both facts to co-exist. I've always thought that Lerner has (sometimes naively) acted in the best interests of the club and I think the Given signing and contract are another example of this. We had just lost Friedel and were panicked and scurrying around for the suitable replacement. We found Given and threw whatever it took at him to get him in. We shouldn't have, but we did and it solved our problem. We're now dealing with the financial fallout of it. Hopefully that's another lesson Randy has learned. We certainly seem to have been a better run club since MON abused his trust. I expect this summer will see a level of spending that does not smack of austerity. We won't be buying Falcao but I think we're about ready to open the chequebook again.

[TrentVilla]

 

You say he was a big part of keeping us up but having seen how Guzan has performed this season it is I think hard to argue that Given did any better than he could have done.

 

Given is perfectly entitled to the pay off and I think he will get it but it was a terrible signing from the day we did the deal and that should have been obvious to everyone including those 'running' the club.

Beauty of hindsight though, innit Trentinho.  Who could've predicted Guzan's meteoric rise way back then?

 

 

No not really, perhaps in terms of Guzan but it isn't hindsight to say signing Given AND giving him that deal was a bad bad bad idea.