Thetownend.com

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11743/7330260/Cherries-bid-for-Ritchie

I'd be very, very surprised if we sold him to Bournemouth.

Same, i'd like to think they would tell them to fuck off

Fuck off Bradbury you scummy twat!

On loan? I think this place might melt down if that hapenned.

Loan then permanent. Can't see it happening

Close to his home in Portsmouth, other than that they would need to be offering at least £500k upwards as I would imagine there is a sell on fee with Portsmouth

Weren't they in financial trouble up until quite recently? Would be surprised if they had the sort of money we'd want for Ritchie, but stranger things have happened.

Swap deal for steve fletcher ;)

i thought that, then i remembered this...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/15652339.stm

Named after a lads mag. Classy!

No offence to Bournemouth but I can hardly see this as the next big stepping stone in his career.

No chance of it happening.

Set to be rejected according to adver site

You wonder why it hasn't already been rejected. Perhaps the board are laughing so hard they can't get up off the floor to respond?

It will come down to what Richie wants. If he could earn more whilst living closer to home it might tempt him.
Hopefully he wants to be part of something here as he is a quality footballer

After Greergate I wouldn't laugh at any bid.

But Bournemouth. Really. I think not.

Hopefully it won't come down to what Richie wants (if he wants to go) as he's under contract but i realise i'm being hopelessly naive.

This is what really irritates me about being in this division.  On paper, of course a move to Bournemouth would be a step up.  But in our hearts, the reverse feels true.

We need to get out of this division...and I hope (and expect) that MR will be a part of that.

He deserves better than Boremuff.

I'd like to think that this time next year we'll be comfortably higher up the league than them, just hope Ritchie thinks the same...

Bournemouth echo just tweeted this:

Our home crowds are averaging more than 40% higher than theirs (7,986 to their 5,597) in a lower division...which gives you some idea as to the longer term potential of the two clubs.

Hmmm it's a little concerning isn't it.

They have just signed Charlie Daniels for about 200k, Ritchie is alot alot better than him too, And Daniels can play left wing, so lets hope this doesnt come to fruition

More than a little. I don't believe that we'd accept it for a second, nor do I believe Bournemouth is an attractive enough move for Ritchie to kick off, but I'll be fucking happy when it reaches midnight without any further news anyway.

New tweet from Bournemouth Echo, basically what we've been told but a bit more reassuring nonetheless.

This should only happen if Ritchie hands in a request and Bournemouth match our valuation.

Its not even a good career move if it hapens, He knows that plenty of Championship scouts and Managers have been to the CG to scout him, why choose Bournemouth when he is wanted by Championship clubs

As above....their chairman was wandering around the pitch, pissed up, abusing the fans but a few weeks ago (he may have left by now, I dont follow these things that closely), they are 16th in league one ffs...


however, those dicks shouting abuse at him at the wombles may have the last laugh afterall...

The 'proximity to home' argument isn't particularly strong either.  Tempting to think that Bournemouth and Portsmouth are very close because they're both on the south coast...when in fact they're not really that close at all.  From Google Maps...

Swindon-Portsmouth
85 miles
95 minutes

Bournemouth-Portsmouth
52 miles
60 minutes

So not really significant.

I really should stop avoiding my next project.

He's been shit this season anyway. If we get 500k offered we should bite their hand off

Feeling kinda nervous now....

That's some serious straw clutching there Ardiles.

He wanted to leave at the end of last season but Wray convinced him to stay and promised that if we wern't in the promotion shake up come christmas that we would grant him a move if he so wished. But at the moment we're on a good run and seem to be going in the right direction. Also Bournemouth, ok it's close to where he lives but come on, fucking Bournemouth?

I know.  Good innit.

Take your eyebrows for granted while you can :p

Avoid arrogance.

We've been a 'club on the up' a few times in the last 10 years and have achieved very little.

To be fair, it's mostly been down.

Ummmm, no he hasn't.

It's not arrogance it's the truth.

Are Bournemouth a bigger club than us? They get 5,000 crowds a season after they finished in the PO. We're averaging 7,500 in League 2 after an abymal season last year.

So?

A player looks at wages and what level they'll be playing at.

 :cry:

Offering him more money, give him what ever he wants. I'll happily become his maid if it makes him stay

I know it's his prerogative. It doesn't mean it's necessarily better for his career does it?

To a lesser extent look at Benyon, moved up to us got relegated and now on loan at Wycombe watching from the stands every game

From Mr Rose:
They need to up their bid considerably. Concern is these bids could unsettle the player

he hasn't been shit, but he's been well below par and out-performed by the likes of Caddis, Ferry, Flint virtually all season.

Greedy cunt on the pitch

He's had his bad games and his good. He's a winger in league 2 though. Not really sure what people expect. He obviously hasn't been that bad if other teams are looking at him, even if it is Bormuff.

Matt Ritchie has a break clause in his contract which #afcb are close to triggering #stfc he wants the move so things looking good

FUCK!

Well,

It's gone from one of those "yeah right" rumours to a solid "uh-oh" rumour within an hour.

When does the window close?

5.00pm

He's still there.

No sign of our prolific striker yet either

Do we think that Gabilondo could fill the Ritchie void? I haven't seen him play yet.

Who's Adrian Howard? Is it his agent?

Reckon thats bullshit, pretty sure that fitton publically came out after we sold morrison and said his was the last contract to have one of these clauses in it.

Yes and No really, Either looks championship standard, or goes missing. How about Caddis getting moved to right mid?

I may get shot down, but i don't think he's made the massive difference he should have (he was "too good" for league 2 in the eyes of many), so i don't see us going into freefall if he leaves. Hopefully Gabilondo or Esajas can do a decent enough job in his absence.

Make no misktake, loosing Matt Ritchie would be a major fucker in our promotion push. His form has been pretty dreadful over the last few weeks. Wonder if this was always on the cards. Form is temporary of course.

Lets hope his release clause speculation is bollards.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/15870897.stm

I bleeding hope so !! But its taken a turn for the worse at the moment, need Wray to come out and tell us whats going on. The words Greer are coming to mind now

this is making my head hurt.

roll on 5pm

Maybe this is why we have been eyeing up Rooney from Gillingham ....

For the sake of those who ignored it...

Five words- The ghost of Gordon Greer..

I have confidence and in the words of Vince McMahon 'No chance in hell'...!

This is turning into another Greer scenario.

@STGary_Rose Gary Rose
Bournemouth FC have apparently confirmed to local media that the 'initial' Richie bid has been rejected, as anticipated by the Adver earlier

@STGary_Rose Gary Rose
Expect them to come back with another bid but I would be very, very, very surprised if Ritchie leaves today

He couldnt even get in our team 2 years ago. Hasnt proved it in L1 at all.

Good player on his day, like so many lower league players the problem is how many 'days' he has.

He has had enough days this season already for us to want him to stay.He has scored and created alot of goals and is a very important part of our team.

He is indeed

Still a greedy cunt though

Agree he is but that's what makes him good to watch.Take the wonder goal he scored,everyone saying fucksake as he is about to shoot then it flys in. I will take a goal every 4 games from any winger in this league

He is our greatest potential matchwinner with the ability to produce something out of nothing.  A lower division player who is inconsistent, hardly a shock.  If he was consistently producing to a high standard he would have a lot bigger clubs than B’mouth sniffing around him.

It's Bournemouth ffs! Why would you want to go there!?!

I'm concerned but I'm hoping that come 5pm Ritchie is still a Swindon player.  He adds quality to the team and even though he lacks a little consistency he is far more consistent than Esejas or Gabilondo.  Ritchie wasn't happy when he was substituted on Saturday.  I hope this doesn't influence his decision.

Can't help but think if Fitton was still chairman Ritchie would be going today

Surely he will get better offers in January? Would be very dissapointed if he leaves today, especially to Bournemouth.

He's quality, he works hard and he's one of the best players in League Two. If he has a second half of the season like the first quarter of the season, he'll be looking at a move to the Championship at the end of the year.

I don't understand why he'd go to Bournemouth, now.

From Gary Rose.

Seems encouraging.
1hr 41 to go however!

250k plus add ons apparently

HP?

Gary Rose's twitter feed, which is where pretty much every piece of info in this thread is from...

https://twitter.com/#!/STGary_Rose

Regardless of his ability, 250k is a lot of money for a league 2 player.

My thoughts exactly

Again according to Mr Rose,
We laughed them off the table at £250k

Am I right in thinking we paid £250k for him? and I would assume Portsmouth have a sell on fee, if thats the case then they can stick it up their arse as that would be very poor business on our part not even making a profit on him..no wonder we laughed it off the table

Problem is we bought him from a Championship club as a League 1 side gunning for promotion.

Although he may be the same player, the fact is you're going to struggle to get more money as a league 2 club selling to someone in L1.

As a comparison Le Fondre only went to Reading for about 350k I think.

Hopefully a moot point anyway as he won't be going anywhere.

I maybe wrong but wasn't Le Fondre in the last year of his contract?

He was and he had turned down an offer of a new contract too so that lowers the value somewhat.

Gutted if Ritchie left to go to Bournemouth, last time i checked out the tables for League 1 they were struggling so cant see the reason he would leave for them!

January could be a different story however  :hmmm:

Bournemouth are testing Town again with an improved bid for Ritchie, according to a source close to the Cherries

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

Rose on Twitter again.

Im not liking this. At all.

Ritchie is vital in our promotion bid, he's a player that can change a game, we must keep him.

Ritchie is still here.

Bournmuff's twitter says so.

Thank fuck, im not looking foward to January.

SAFE!
Until January.

If Bournemouth are going to come back with a bid in January at least we have a month to identify a target to replace him, or persuade him his future is here.

For what it is worth i wouldn't be gutted to see him go.....he could have rejected the deal and stopped all the fuss so let him go if he wants to.....would rather him go now if he wants to....also the board said at the Forum they need to trim the wage bill also....and he must be on decent money so eveyone could be happy.....had a hissy after being dragged off on Saturday.

I with Fred.....he is to greedy,tries to do to much,when it comes off it is brilliant but its not often enough and to be fair he is lucky to be in the team at present on recent form....and maybe sub this coming Saturday knowing Paolo.

STFC Official:

Ritchie shouldn't be immune from criticism or being dropped.

But he's creative and we need that creativity as long as we're pushing for promotion.

Although on FM11 I got £1m for Calum Davenport and £750k for Magera on the same day as a Div 4 club.  Needless to say Jeremy Wray gave me no choice in the matter.  Won the division at a canter and now 7th in Div 3 in early Nov.  Like anyone cares.

To join in...I don't wanna sell Ritchie, he's the best wide man we have.

Can't get my head around people not being fussed if he left or not. Who have we got who wold be as good if not better than him?

No one!  For what it's worth I think our second best wide man is Caddis.  I don't care how well he's playing in Div 4 at full back, I think he's not really good enough at RB in a higher division (imho).  RM however, I think he'll be just fine.

Ritchie might be having a rough patch of form but thats because most clubs are doubling up on him and because of this Caddis has had more room to create things
Yes he has been poor in recent weeks but on his day he is easily one of the best players in league 2.

If he had gone today Gabilondo or Esajas would of replaced him and while I rate both of them neither are in the same class

I once went unbeaten for ages with Blanka on Street Fighter 2, so I think he should be up next against one of the Klitschko brothers. I think Blanka would be better against Vitali, as Wladimir is better at withstanding the electric shocks from Blanka's special move.

Both together?

Both new strikers at the CG according to the oracle...

When/if he goes in January and I suspect he will, I hope people aren't expecting the price tag to be stupidly high. 

When we knew Charlie was off some of the figures people expected were ludicrous.

Without knowing what any release clause might be I'd expect him to go for around £400k

Whilst £400k isn't  bad Bournemouths bid was derisory apparentley they offered £250k. Piss take really

Some were having a hissy fit saying it is our record fee for signing someone, so...? Its not enough.

Clearly trying to get as many strikers on the books (incl loanees) whose names are Ben(x)on, where x can be any letter.  After Benson, we'll also be signing Benton the Dog in January.

Look forward to some Benton and Benyon in the near future then.

Corrected for you

alas, his name is Fenton

Yeah, but he's Benton in the internet now. And the internet don't lie.

I guess I'm likely to the only one on here who remembers Harry Fenton's clothes shop in the Parade...you could get some proper decent mod clobber in there....think I've got a Fenton's matching spotty tie and hank set somewhere.

I would have thought (after years of playing CM and FM) that Matt Ritchie gets fuck all say on the matter till the clubs agree a fee.

Dream on......this is real life not football fantasy.

DV is right though

Just informed the Mrs. Bad move. She's apoplectic at the thought of her Saturday afternoon eye candy being ripped from her bosom. I'm incandescent with rage that she's in pieces and I have to iron my own shirt for work.

Seriously, though. You're Matt Ritchie and Paolo comes to you and say's that Bournemouth have made an insulting bid for you. What would you do? Bournemouth, Swindon, Bournemouth, Swindon, no contest really.

Yeah, bournemouth is nice in the summer

Of course tans :D......but believe me if Ritchie didn't want to go there wouldn't have been a series of bids....if he had made it clear he didn't want to go.....muff wouldn't have wasted there time....they would of went for someone else.
My feeling is he would have liked to meet up with his old buddy from Pompey days.

But you pays your money and you take your pick tans.....its what its all about.

Say what>?

I dont think a Matt Ritchie 'I want to stay at Town' article on thisisstfc would stop Bournemouth bidding for a player they want.

Players talk to other people not just the papers you know that.

What world do you live in.....if you honestly believe a player never talks to another club well before a bid comes in then you believe that....nothing to do with thisis etc....more like his agent pulling the strings which means him in reality wouldn't you say?
Do you think Austin never talked to Eddie Howe before turning down Blackpool in the Premiership.....got to be a good chance he did before Burnleys offer was accepted i would say.

Not definate of course but my feeling is that Ritchie probably knew before Swindon that a bid was coming in.....probably from his agent who acts on his behalf i believe.

So what? As Luca Modric is proving, not a getting the move you want doesn't mean you suddenly become a bad player.

We assume that everyone's going to act like Tevez and it's not the case.

I've not said anything of the sort.

If STFC turn down bids then the only thing Matt Ritchie can do is hand in a transfer request.

If Matt Ritchie made it known he didnt want to go to Bournemouth that wouldnt stop them bidding. They would just bid more money till the club took the decision to sell him and he'd go against his wishes.

Not me iffy...i hope he stays but just dont want him to if he wants away...which i suspect he does...
Anyway he is still a Town player and fair play to the club not taking the easy option like in times gone by....by selling for a pittance.

Are you for real ? No player will join another team if he does not want to

This is your post no?...you reckoned no player talks to a club before a bid is accepted...now you are saying you said nothing of the sort :hmmm:...of course he has a say before a bid is accepted especially a bid coming in that late.


In short DV....yes he does....and so does his agent....not many clubs spend a quarter of a million on a player who may not want to play for them,especially not Bournemouth.

Lets argue no more we obviously wont agree.............he is staying so lets be happy with that.

Agree totally with the second point - it's nice to see us not rolling over. But it's never as black and white as 'if he wants to move he should go'. Modric is having a blinding season, despite desperately wanting a move in the summer (and probably still wanting a move now).

Let's not forget though that Modric is currently discussing a 5 year contract to makehim the highest paid player at spurs

but they won't spend a penny on a player unless he signs a contract

It's not that bad in the winter either

Glad Ritchie is staying put

not sure if it's been posted earlier as i'm lazy, but bmuff have signed charlie daniels from orient on loan, with a view to a permanent move and he plays left back or left wing...

Ritchie has played every game on the right  ;)

I'm glad I spent literally the whole day in meetings and was completely unaware of the unfolding Ritchie saga today.  I fully expected there to be interest in January, but didn't anticipate it now.  His form has dipped recently, but he always the potential to change a game and as we've seen, create a goal from nothing.   I'm glad the club rejected the bid, but unless we're sitting pretty at the top of the table come January, I think we'll have a job keeping hold of him then.  The concern has also got to be somebody coming in for Caddis as well.  Selling them both would be a disaster and I think the Board probably  know that.

you are correct, that doesn't mean he wouldn't solve a team's left wing problems. winkwink

If or when Ritchie leaves, we will then find out if both player and club are happy with the deal. Would imagine at this moment in time Paolo would do all he could to persuade both board and Matt to stay and help us with promotion. It could be the first test of relationships between Paolo and the board and that in itself could be interesting.

Ritchie would be a big loss if he went in Jan, he really is a match winner on his day - that goal against the Gills proved that. A game that was meandering towards a draw (or maybe a loss) and crash, bang, wallop...three points.

Maybe not played consistently well week in, week out - but we would certainly miss him if he went.

Richie is one of the top earners here,maybe even the top earner if Chesterfield are paying Clarkes wages. I doubt Ballmouth could offer a lot more than us. If Richie is unsettled he'll fuck off in january as other clubs will be alerted if his agent is any good. Hopefully he is happy here and plays a major part in our promotion this season.

So ballmouth offerd 400k. This is good.

that is decent money to turn down. well done the board.

Wonder what their valuation is (our board)?  £400k ain't bad for a L2 player after all...

Paolo blurted out something about how £2m would be tempting in an interview... not sure it was a figure that had been carefully discussed and agreed with the board though!

They offered £250k with add ons which would have made it up to £400k which in my eyes is derisory

400k cash and I'd flog him.

As one of our better players, with our hopes and future pinned on promotion he's worth way more than that

I think that was there first offer and then they came back with another which was also rejected

That's strange, the token B'mth season ticket holder at work was telling me the clubs had agreed a fee but Ritchie's wage demands were too high. I'm confused now

Wouldn't surprise me if they were talking to his agent without a fee being agreed...and equally wouldn't surprise me that Bournemouth's wage budget would be smaller than ours.

Wouldn't surprise me, anything to do with their chairman wouldn't surprise me

I'm inclined to agree. It's not to be sniffed at and for a winger at this level it's decent money. I also see where Si is coming from, why would we sell for that when he's worth more than that as an important* part of our team?

*when he's playing well and not wearing the football boots once worn by, Andy "I can score from anywhere" Gurney.

If Ritchie is worth 2m, Austin was worth 5m

Figures plucked out of cuckoo land