[Albion] £30m offer for Levi Colwill rejected

[Marshy]

We sold White for 50 ?.... why would Colwill cost any less ?

The only way he ends up with us is if its part of a Moises deal

 

[Eeyore]

Colwill was NOTHING before he singed for us. De Zerbi made him the player he is now. Levi is Brighton. These smaller clubs need to know their place. They should be grateful for what we are offering them.

#FreeLeviColwill

 

[Acker79]

I reckon .....

Levi knows his contract is running down.
He tells BHA while on loan he wants to come.
Albion bid low ... £30m
Chelsea fans kick off at club over the possibility of him leaving to club who have been making them look stupid for the last year.
Chelsea offers Levi a contract, vastly improved from the one if already had on the table.
Levi looks around to see if Liverpool or Arsenal improve on that
They don't
Levi signs new contract with Chelsea
Puts out twitter message saying that once you're Chels, you're always Chels
Albion sign random LCB that nobody has ever heard of, from league which nobody pays attention to
He turns out to be good and all is well that ends well
Levi continues to play well in a dysfunctional club and has a good career

About right.

Despite finishing positions this season, Chelsea will be seen by most people as a more likely team for long term european football and domestic success. They will also be able to offer players more than we are willing to at the moment.

I'm sure Levi would be happy to come to us on a permanent deal if that's the way things work out. But I'm also sure he'd prefer to stay there on a much higher wage. The same would be true of most footballers (and you can switch out chelsea for the other big six, and other european giants).

We would need to properly establish ourselves as a European regular, and start paying higher wages for that to change. But to not end on too much of a negative, we're in a really good position to do that - with europa league football next season we're going to appeal to a higher quality of players, have something to offer players who might be tempted by slightly better wages at lower placed teams. Improving the squad and our chances for next seasons.

 

[Machiavelli]

To be honest, Chelsea would be stupid to sell at this stage. We have to have a go because their FFP position may give teams a chance of getting academy graduates from them because they are pure profit on their books. If you count Ampadu and Sarr, who've also been out on loan this season, he's one of eight centre backs at Chelsea. Someone's got to go. At the moment it seems Challobah may be the graduate one they want to sell. Presumably they were comfortable selling Guehi to Palace for £18m a couple of seasons ago because he and Colwill were considered to be better. Challobah, like many of their squad has not had a good year, but will surely be of interest to someone in the EPL and probably for something in the ballpark of what we've offered for Levi. If they can sell Challobah and keep the left footed Colwill, they'll fill a bit of the FFP hole and have a stronger squad.

They have a dual problem: they have a surfeit of players (including CBs); and they need to raise money to address FFP. Everyone else knows it. That doesn't put them in the position to dictate what happens. Doubt Chalobah will attract a fee of £10m, whereas we already know that Levi will attract a fee north of £30m. Because of this, they're more likely to sell Levi than Chalobah.

 

[SUIYHP]

£30m seems a bit cynical of a bid to be honest. Chelsea will (and should) rate him higher. Not entirely sure what the point is to go that low, save for a gesture to Levi that we like him and we’d want him to keep playing for us, or giving him a bit of leverage at Chelsea as a bit of a ‘thank you’ for his effort.

I imagine the Chelsea fans will be utterly LIVID though

 

[Icy Gull]

They seem to be about to spend another 140 million on a striker and a midfielder, quite how they'll stay within FFP is a mystery, surely they need to offload players and Colwill fits the bill. Boehly trying to play hard ball with TB? This could run for a bit I think

 

[ConfusedGloryHunter]

I think it's really unfair of Chelsea.

They wouldn't even recognise Levi Colwill if he stood in the middle of the Kings road in a chelsea shirt with a ball tucked under his arm and a pensioner on his head.

We are being asked to pick up the bill for a football club so badly run it nearly went to the (FFP) wall.

The fact is that if Chelsea had sold him last summer as they should have done, then they would have got no more than 500k for him. But since then he has gone on to play for a top 6 first team and made progress with his England career.

In the ten or eleven years Levi spent at Chelsea he got no further than PL2. I find it hard to believe that cost more than 30m or so!

There's only one club being exploited here and it's not Chelsea F.C.

I love it! This is the most Leedsy post so far. Well done. Seemed an almost genuine opinion in places!

 

[dazzer6666]

Opening gambit in a round of poker………interesting to see where this ends up. Of course Chelsea will say he’s not for sale, that pushes the price up. They HAVE to sell several players, because of the bloated squad and their impending FFP issues, and selling their own academy products eases that massively. There will be a price they’ll accept for Colwill, whether it’s one we are prepared to meet is another question - problem for us is the Cucu deal. We absolutely stiffed them on that and Levi is arguably a better prospect so the market has been a bit ruined

 

[JamesAndTheGiantHead]

Right, who's printing up the mugs? And the t-shirts?

Low quality lunch break effort.

 

[Blue3]

Colwill was NOTHING before he singed for us. De Zerbi made him the player he is now. Levi is Brighton. These smaller clubs need to know their place. They should be grateful for what we are offering them.

#FreeLeviColwill

God forbid we ever actually end up as self important as Leeds fans

 

[Javeaseagull]

Now that the grown ups are running things at Chelsea one way round this is for them to offer Colwill another better contract and then let him come to us on loan. That’s been done before, I’m sure. We could be amenable to that but maybe not. Of course this could all be part of getting Colwill an improved contract at Chelsea. Win win for him.

 

[Icy Gull]

God forbid we ever actually end up as self important as Leeds fans

Not going to happen but we will be taking the piss out of them at every opportunity and this is a good one

 

[Stato]

They have a dual problem: they have a surfeit of players (including CBs); and they need to raise money to address FFP. Everyone else knows it. That doesn't put them in the position to dictate what happens. Doubt Chalobah will attract a fee of £10m, whereas we already know that Levi will attract a fee north of £30m. Because of this, they're more likely to sell Levi than Chalobah.

Yes, I referenced this in my follow up post. However, the unknown seems to be the size of their FFP issue. We know for the sake of squad harmony that Pochettino will want a fairly hefty exodus, but we don't know how much the departing players will need to bring in.

I'd argue that Challobah would go for far more than you suggest. Palace paid £18m+ for Guehi who had 2 years left on his contract. Challobah still has five years left and hasn't become a bad player in one season. If he were available for less than half of what we paid for Webster 4 years ago, Tony would have already signed him.

 

[Billy in Bristol]

I doubt if any Chelsea fans reading this will get the humour.

 

[Arthur]

Why did we sign him the first place? Was it part of the Cucurella/Gillmore/Potter and co deal?

Seem to recall Barber saying we don't take loans in as we don't want to develop other clubs players. This is exactly what has happened here.

Fair play for Chelsea for digging their heels in. I reckon they will stick to their not for sale mantra which is a shame as he has been great.

 

[dazzer6666]

I doubt if any Chelsea fans reading this will get the humour.

Doubt very many of the few that can read would bother looking at the forum of a small club

 

[WhingForPresident]

Get the feeling Mount leaving makes this one even more unlikely unfortunately.

 

[ConfusedGloryHunter]

I think it is best to ask how this bid has become public knowledge (if it is true at all). Either from Brighton, Chelsea or the player's agent.

We would only go public if we were trying to unsettle the lad which might work in a big versus little club scenario but obviously this is not the case. Anyway presumably we already know Levi likes the idea so what is the point?

The agent might want to go public in order to drum up higher bids, but the transfer window has barely opened and there is no rush since the bid has apparently been rejected. So again I don't see the point in agent shit stirring at this point.

Which leaves Chelsea and maybe they have released this information in order to make a statement about how he is definitely not for sale this summer? That is what I reckon has happened.

It makes sense for Brighton to test the water with a low opening bid early in the transfer window and either get into a negotiation or get a firm no. Now we know we need to move on to target number two.

I'd be over the moon to sign Levi but I'm sure I will soon be happy with whomever we do sign instead.

 

[Wozza]

I doubt if any Chelsea fans reading this will get the humour.

Was just thinking the same!

 

[SeagullinExile]

Why did we sign him the first place? Was it part of the Cucurella/Gillmore/Potter and co deal?

Seem to recall Barber saying we don't take loans in as we don't want to develop other clubs players. This is exactly what has happened here.

Fair play for Chelsea for digging their heels in. I reckon they will stick to their not for sale mantra which is a shame as he has been great.

We needed cover for Cucurella. It had nothing to do with the Potter or Gilmour deals.