5 years ago we witnessed a stunning game when we beat Chelsea and Parker was in his pomp. Seeing him on TV at the mo he is no better off than if he had stayed at Charlton sadly we are much worse off. Still makes me angry to this day that he left the way he did when we were possibly on the cusp of something really good.
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but then they don't show bank balances
its been downhill ever since and in the last three years its been a collapse of huge proportions...
lets hope that when we slip through the trap door.... finally it turns for us and we start winning some games....
As for Curbs, the Parker deal, flamini, and England all contributed to his decision.
People (like my brother, Large) were saying that if he wants to go you've got to let him but I never agreed with that.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/p/peterborough_united/8015421.stm
Posh were in the mix for promotion from day one, but failed to really hit their stride until the second half of the season, eventually finishing second to Milton Keynes.
Over the summer of 2008, the club faced a different sort of challenge when larger clubs started to show an interest in their young talent.
Wolverhampton Wanderers succeeded in encouraging Mclean to hand in a transfer request. But Macanthony made his intentions clear by slapping a £5m price tag on the former Grays man.
"Aaron Mclean will score a lot of goals next season and taking a couple of million pounds from a Championship club would be the worst bit of business I have ever done," said Macanthony. "Thirty-goals-per-season strikers do not grow on trees.
"I will not be bullied by other clubs and the games they play through agents or the media into selling my best players when it does not suit the football club."
Whereas many clubs would have folded and let the player have his way, Macanthony put his foot down and Mclean stayed.
As a result of this single-mindedness, Ferguson has been able to concentrate on moulding his Posh jigsaw without the worry of suddenly losing any of the important pieces.
All this 'unhappy player' argument is exactly what Darren Ferguson didn't fall for.
End Result: he wins, player wins
In our case: club loses, player loses
The difference between Parker and Maclean is that Chelsea were prepared to pay over the odds for a player who was proven at prem level. Wolves knew that paying £5m for a player going up a league and who in the event of promotion would then have to prove that he could score goals against prem defenders was too high.
Wolves blinked, but Chlesea with tons of money took the chance.
The clear implication from Curbs was that Parker was first tapped-up by Chelsea, who followed through with what Curbs called "a derisory offer".
Charlton rejected this offer, whereupon Parker threw his toys out of the pram.
Parker claimed Curbs had promised him a move if a top 4 club came in for him; which Curbs claims was untrue and at best a misunderstanding.
Parker then famously said "I'd rather rot in the reserves than play for Charlton again", which rather left the club with no option but to hold out for the best price they could get.
All this is confirmed verbally by Curbs in the end-of-season DVD.
I don't believe for a minute that Curbs or the board wanted to lose Parker at this time, being as we were still very much upwardly mobile.
We have now done it 3 times, Parker, Danny murphey & Reidy all left on or very close to transfer deadline day, meaning we had the mponey but no time in which to replace the player. In parker's case it started the downfall of our club and with the sale of Reidy sealed our fate to life in the lower leagues.
Muphey & Reid both left with minutes to spare on transfer deadline day. We didn't have to sell and we could have siad to both Spurs & sunderland "the player isn't for sale" end of. Lock the player in the bootroom for the night if that what it takes - come 1st Feb there is nothing the player can do. I don't believe any professional player will want to sit in the reserves for the ret of the season and esp not for the reast of their contract. Listen to any ex-pro on the Tv when they are talking about team selections etc and they all say " I didn't care where ...... played me, I just wanted to play"
Could you honesty see Scott Parker, having at that time been playing the best football of his (short) career & being on the fring of the England squad, not wanting to be in the team and playing every week . Not even playing in the reserves, not getting the TV coverage ? i very much doubt it. after a couple of weeks he would have bitten Curb;s hand off to be involved again. I don't believe this "cant play a player who doesn't want to play" crap.
A successful clubis at club who can keep their player together - not a team who sells their best players at a drop of a hat. Our demise started when we sold Parker and was confimed when we sold Andy Reid.
It was the beginning of the slow decline....
Hoping this year that we plateau and the slow, gradual rise begins again...
I am sorry, this is not right. If you read Curbs book, he refers to the abortive attempt by Chelsea to buy Parker the previous summer. A fee of £5m was agreed. If I remember rightly Parker went out and bought a flashy motor on the strength of a signing on fee which didn't materialise. This was a tangled web. I very much doubt we would have sold Parker in the end had Curbs dug his heels in. I remember Martin Simmons stating that he wasn't for sale for less than £25M. I think the Board were prepared to tough it out but Curbs decided he could go. Maybe he felt the poison which Parker was causing was affecting the players? Maybe he saw the money coming in as enabling him to improve the squad, who knows? It's very easy to blame the Board here. Unless the club was desperate for the money, I think they left the decision utimately to the manager. I think this was the case with Murphy as well. I believe that Curbs took a view that he could "rot" in the reserves but in the end he sanctioned the transfer.
Correct.
They told Chelsea that it was £10 mill or nothing?
Can i just ask on that point if we had Pardew from day 1 when curbs left would we have stayed up?
Nope - so unfair to say 1 manager did wrong as it was 3 (Reed was unfortunate collateral)
You could still point to the moment that Chelsea unsettled Parker as the catalyst for our decline.
Before Parker was finally bought out by the corrupt Chel$ki millions.
Before the wheels fell off for Charlton, before Curbs had his head turned by the England job vacancy.
Before Curbs simply ran out of steam.
Sorry Bing, but how is what you are saying disproving my view that neither Curbs nor the board wanted him to go at that time?
Given Parkers stance and attitude they may have seen it as necessary in the end, but Curbs taped interview on the end of season DVD makes it abundantly clear that the whole business ripped his guts out.
6 weeks in the top 4; just beat Chelsea and Spurs ; Parker in the form of his life; realistic chance of Europe, then....bosh
Fair points, though I was only talking about Parker. Bit different especially when it came to Reid.
Why do so many fans say they want players that care, that will try their best and put in the effort, but then say we should keep players that don't want to play for us? If we kept him and played him, and he didn't perform because he had been sulking, the club would have been criticized and he'd leave eventually anyway.
If it was that simple, why don't clubs just drop players for a couple of weeks until they're desperate to play again?
Well it depends on how you interpret what was being said. I have heard Curbs talking about that episode in turns of the way that Chelsea made their approach. I have aslo heard him talk about the inevitablity of Parker leaving and not wanting to stand in his way.
If we come back to the original reason for the thread, the point was put forward that we should have done to Parker what Peterborough/Darren Fergusson did with their prize assets. The implication being that Charltons Board are/were gutless and allowed Parker to leave instead of toughing it out. Despite the differences between our circumstances and Peterboroughs, I was putting forward an alternative view, not shared by most, that Curbs, despite his reluctance, maybe even his heart, was ultimately the one whose decision allowed both Parker and Murphy to go. People criticise the Board for the fact that no other players were lined up in time yet I suspect that much of that reason was down to a stubborn Curbs, (backed by the Board) who held out only to change his mind at the end.
Now lets turn to the sale of Andy Reid. I have it on pretty good authority that the final decision was Pardews. That doesn't mean that the Board put him on the spot by their control of the finances but the decision, as it should be, in my view was the manager's. Pardew wanted another striker (Gray), the Board would only sanction it provided money was raised from the sale of a player. Pardew tried selling Thomas but that fell through. Reid was offered loads of dosh by Sunderland, he was the only player at that stage who was bankable and Pards sanctioned it.
Not heard about that, what exactly did they do? Have any of their players sulked when they've been told they aren't going? Have any of them requested a transfer? Or is just case of saying their best players will not be sold at any price/big money, ie £5m as a League One/Two club (wasn't that what they wanted for McLean?). Big difference between someone like Parker who wasn't interested in staying, and Reid who Pardew appeared to have been happy to let go.