JoeMercer'sWay said:Chippy_boy said:JoeMercer'sWay said:I don't think that analogy really works, we do have USP's and Ferran and Txiki are fully integrated into how the club is being run and the direction of the club and what we can offer. The market for footballers, for people as tradeable commodities is a lot different to selling inanimate objects. You have to analyse the person's feelings and thought patterns and judge whether it's going to work. It seemed encouraging until Madrid came in, and they have seemingly secured the deal with a great deal of effort by playing on the natural advantage(which does matter when dealing with humans) of their global appeal and their location relative to the player. We can counter that with guaranteed first team football and big status here but only if Madrid don't make the huge effort to persuade him they will match that, and ultimately if he succeeds at Madrid he will become a bigger star especially at home than he ever will do here, that's the way it goes. Therefore our meaningful sales advantage has gone, and the only reason we've been "outsold" is because of the history of the two clubs. You can then point to your second reason, but there was no indication before Madrid came in that this wasn't a viable deal, and when you've gone to the trouble of establishing contact and trying to do the deal you don't give up because a bigger competitor comes in late on.
It's not just a simple sales pitch when it comes to real people and involves issues such as relocation and new climates. When the product's are very similar it's a natural reaction to err on the side of caution.
All sales pitches involve real people ;-) Selling is a people thing.
But I accept there is an element of hindsight being 20:20 vision in what I said and in life you can't tell how things are going to pan out.
It's a lesson though, because however we got the end holds true. Either we were outsold - i.e. he could have come here if we had sold it better than Madrid did. Or no matter what we did, he would always have gone to Madrid when they decided they were interested. It's either one or the other.
Personally, I think it's the former. We should have wrapped the deal up weeks ago before his joining Madrid was even on the cards. And once they were involved, we should have tried harder. Lesson learned imho.
I think it's different when you're asking people to move as opposed to sell a product to them, I think it makes the deal more complicated.
I do things some lessons will be learnt, which is what I then mentioned about our dealings with Malaga and perhaps not appreciating that life would become difficult with the way we dealt with them without the Barca clout behind us. It's easier for Malaga to haggle with us than it is with Barca due to the reputations of the clubs and also the feeling that Malaga would be able to get a better deal out of us whereas Barca could put more pressure on them. Also perhaps getting paper signed as opposed to agreements that may have worked at Barca, this is all stuff that will be taken on board and learnt from imo.
I do think there's some hindsight in your post though. I think the slowness on Isco came from the slowness with Pellegrini joining and that allowed, and no matter what people say I think this has truth, Isco to go off to the U21s and shine which got everybody's attention, and I really think it became the easiest fix for Madrid to sign someone much cheaper than Bale that would pacify the fanbase and that they could justify and sell to everybody. Letting them have a chance was a mistake but it's one we'll learn from, I have faith in that.
But it was a bloody stupid mistake to make. If you're interested in signing a top quality young player who's about to perform in a high profile tournament, there's always the possibility that he will shine and his performances will push his price up/attract interest from rival clubs. Bloody naive to let that happen imo.