Southgate a lot more naive over contracts than he makes out?
By Ross • Nov 4th, 2008 • Category: Boro NewsRoss Turnbull has been a revelation in goal this season after taking advantage of Brad Jones’ early season injury to take the number one spot and grasp it firmly in his hands.
Ross has always been a keeper of potential, but little did we know we’d be seeing such consistent and if im honest, nigh on world class keeping so early after the departure of Mark Schwarzer.
It’s been well documented over the last couple of weeks that Ross’ contract is due to expire in the summer, and in two months he’ll be able to sign a pre-contract with any club he sees fit to join.
Gareth has been talking to the press and has said in no uncertain terms that talk have yet to begin!!
“From Ross’s point of view he’s negotiating on the field and we had that with David Wheater last year.
“I want to keep them hungry. We haven’t lost a player through a contract situation that we’ve been desperate to keep at this football club.
“When the time’s right we’ll sit down but I want him focused on playing and playing well and sometimes other things can be a distraction so it’s picking the right time to have those discussions.
“But, without question, we want the pair of them to stay and they’ve both got the long-term chance of becoming the number one, but that might go on for years because they are both young enough to have that competition for places.
“I can sleep easily at night in the knowledge we’ve got two excellent keepers.”
You can sleep easily can you Gareth… really? You’ve got a potential England number one who’s performing and catching the eye week in, week out, who can open negotiations with any other club in two months and you can sleep easily at night?! What!?
I’d like to turn readers’ attentions to the Mark Viduka transfer saga for a second and how Boro were so confident of keeping him. What happened there? Well, Viduka was offered terms, which he rejected and entered talks with Newcastle, only for Boro to offer him a contract which blitzed the one he was on in the first place. It smacked of desperation, and he moved anyway making Southgate and Gibbo look like complete idiots.
Whoever the decision lies with to open negotiations is making a grave mistake. If the decision is Gibbo’s then you’d think that in his 22 years experience of running a football club, he’d know better than to let one of his brightest stars leave for absolutely nothing.
It was that “It’ll be alright on the night” attitude that’s seen Viduka leave, I’m sure there’s been more down the years as well and it absolutely infuriates me to see such a lax attitude towards the future of our players and the club.
Gareth, in the previous quotes has had the audacity to claim that “We haven’t lost a player through a contract situation that we’ve been desperate to keep at this football club.” Well… i think that just speaks volumes of his naivety. I think offering Viduka 5k more on his original 60k p/w wage, as opposed to the original 40k offered suggest Boro were desperate to keep him.
One word to sum up this entire article… Ridiculous!
related post
Ross is A Redcar born Boro fan. Enjoys discussing and writing about all aspects of the club. Favourite players are Hignett, Juninho and Alves.
Email this author | All posts by Ross
Wondering how you get a custom picture next to your comment? Simply sign up for an Avatar at Gravatar.com and everytime you comment using the email address you provided your picture will show.
Loading ...
come GS get the bull signed up give him £20,000 a week deal done
All it will take is a team like Villa who are on the up or one of the big four to gaze over and put an offer in and he might be off! Why can’t they see that?
If Capello is keeping a close eye on him then its going to be silly to say that nobody else will be.
Yeah i’m not sure Southgate thinks he is gaining by letting Turnbull’s contract run down before opening negotiations. As soon as he looked like he was going to be a good keeper for us we should’ve been talking new deal. Would be tragic to lose the lad.
I think there is a huge difference between what said publicly and what was said privately regarding Vidukas contract. I think privately we did not want to keep him but publicly said we did because the fans wanted him to stay.
It seems theres different stories going around about what happened.
Im not sure if the club were going for a double image of making the fans think the club were doing all they could to keep him but really wanting to get rid.
They still offered Viduka a better contract than the one he was on to try and get him to stay, after offering him a wage reduction. Luckily though, Newcastle offered him more.
i think we need to show faith in southgate, the lads not let us down yet. Everyone questioned him even going with turnbull n jones a few months ago now everyones fuming he’s not got a long term deal. I dont think gareth will let us down, he hasnt yet. He signed up stewy, he might not have kept viduka but looking at him now thats worked out for the best. Turnbulls had a great start but theres still a long way for him to go. im confident gareth will do the right thing. UTB!
Southgate says he doesn’t want to do the contracts just yet because he doesn’t want to distract Turnbull from his (brilliant) football which I can kind of understand but won’t he still be ‘distracting’ him if he waits another month or two? Turnbull will still be playing in another month. And if he’s not still playing, if Jones has replaced him (which isn’t likely unless Turnbull’s injured) or of Turnbull’s had a loss of form won’t Turnbull need to be even more focused in a way as he fights to get back in/to stay in the team? Or have I missed some really obvious point?
If Turnbull starts worrying about the lack of new contract won’t that be more distracting than negotiating one?
But at least Southgate’s made his intentions clear - and he was right about not buying a keeper, he could be right about this too
[...] week i wrote an article detailing Southgate’s naivity over his top player’s contracts, in that his failiure to realise that the longer he delays talks, the riskier it becomes and the [...]