- Feb 16, 2004
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If Everton wait until summer, they will have lost around £20 million by not accepting Tottenham's latest offer, plus his wages for another season (another £2 million say?). They can mitigate that by accepting whatever is offered in January by a club Barkley wants to play for, whoever that might be. At the moment it seems to be Tottenham. He is not likely to be worth anywhere near as much in January, unless Koeman has a change of heart and plays him regularly as soon as he's fit, and he hits the ground running. Other clubs will be wary of making any offers unless he or his agent makes it quite clear in the meantime that he is open to move to them.Even if he has his heart set on joining us they can still mess us about in Jan by generating interest from others, accepting bigger bids etc. or just making him wait it out til the summer. If they had any sympathy for what he wanted (Not that they should) then we would have been able to find a way to come to a deal in the last week or so.
Of course financial prudence might not be important to Everton, though I somehow doubt it.
Meanwhile Chelsea have learnt for the umpteenth time this transfer window that throwing money at transfer targets doesn't always work any more when there is an alternative.