Bruce
Well-known member
"So Mr Tavernier, what first attracted you to the premier league wage from Bournemouth?" As Mrs Merton would ask. Seriously, there was a good potentially ITK comment somewhere that we had offered him a pay rise and non-promotion release but Tav and/or his advisors reasonably enough decided that if he didn't take the offer from Bournemouth that maybe he would miss his chance. Injuries happen, life happens, there's no guarantee that we would be promoted and no guarantee that a club would be in for him next season. He's only 23 and he's played over 150 games for us; now is probably as good a time to go as any. It's a judgement call and you can't blame him for choosing the offer now rather than waiting another 12 months with all the risks that entails.I still don't understand why he left apart from the money.
From our point of view, there would be reputational damage if we tried to put a deterrent price on him and it's an open secret that we told our best players last year "give us one more year and we won't stand in your way if we don't get promoted." Unlike Levy, Gibson tries to use business to build positive relationships. Us, Bournemouth and Tav undoubtedly feel that we got a reasonable outcome; that will make it easier to do business with Bournemouth in the future and other players will look at that and clock that Gibson does keep his word.
I would rather Tav had stayed but given the circumstances I think we've done ok. Now it's how we reinvest.