Wednesday manager Brian Laws has slammed defender Madjid Bougherra and his representatives after the Algerian looked set to sign for Premiership strugglers Charlton for £2.5m.
Laws made his feelings known over the saga during an interview on Radio Sheffield on Friday evening - and revealed the highly-rated defender, who had already turned down a move to Everton earlier in the week, had threatened to never play for the club again until he got a move.
Laws said: "We didn't want to sell him. This move has been forced by him, his agents and Charlton more than anything. The whole saga has been a mess. Charlton have never had the decency to give me a call. Everton were ultra-professional, and David Moyes spoke to me first because he wanted to speak to the player.
"But when you hear the words coming from the player that he doesn't want to be at Sheffield Wednesday, then he shouldn't be here. We don't want any player who doesn't want to play for us.
"His agents told the club, and Madjid told the chairman, that he would not play for us again if he did not get his move. He wanted to go, he begged to go. It put us in a difficult position. We could have made him see out his contract. But we had a value, and we made Charlton pay that value if they wanted him that badly."
The former Crewe Alexandra player made the move to Hillsborough in the summer for a fee believed to be around £250k from French club FC Gueugnon before going on to make 28 appearances for the Owls, scoring two goals along the way.
And despite Laws believing Bougherra made the wrong decision in joining Charlton rather than Everton, he wished the Algerian good luck and turned his focus to working with the rest of the squad at S6 as the Owls look towards a play-off spot.
He added: "Good luck to Madjid; I wished him all the best but I think he's made the wrong choice. Charlton rather than Everton is a no-brainer - a player should be prepared to play anywhere. Now we can move on and work with the players who want to be at Sheffield Wednesday."
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i won't be happy on this until i see a pic of him on the official site.
I am curious as to why us not everton, apparently they couldnt agree terms.
Also curious why we are buying a defender (we have dozens of them) when we need a central midfielder or two and a striker, perhaps there just aren't any available, or this guy - untested at this level - can play there too.
One good sign is that the gloves are off, and we are looking at lower league talent.
Still think we need a striker and two central midfielders and perhaps a left footed wide man too. Ah well.
Bougherra signs in Charlton It is official,
Madjid Bougherra will carry the colors of Charlton Athletic. It engaged today with the London club for one duration of 4 years and half. The amount of the transfer is £2,5 million. Charlton occupies the 19th place of the English championship and account 3 points of delay on Wigan, first team not relegatable. International the 24 year old Algerian will try to help Charlton (worse defense of the championship) to be maintained in First League.
lets just hope he is focussed on playing for us, rather than joining Jerome on the nite club circuit
I used google translate it oviously won't be perfect
LOL
do love some of those translation sites. 'First team not relegatable' - Think the translation may of gone amiss a little there...
Bougherra.com
we've got Bougy,
Bougy Woogy !!
No length of contract though....
VFR
Not that I have heard anything (made up figure), just that there were a couple of stories linking him with moves to Pompey/West Ham.
I suppose Pompey wanted him for left back - an even more pressing need now they have Traore playing there ;-)
be intersting out he sorts that out, and if hh and el kak will put up a fight for their places.
ELK
Bougherra
HH
Thatcher