Antonio – the big question on his future answered
If I’ve heard that question once I’ve heard it at least 50 times on social media over the last few weeks and already the conspiracy theories are starting.
The big one of course is that he’s a David Sullivan signing that the manager didn’t want and it’s untrue.
There was, however, a debate about the player between the chairman and the manager ahead of D-Day with the team chief explaining he needed 24 hours before deadline day to decide whether Michail was a £7 million player.
Once he had done so the chairman and Karren Brady got down to the business of thrashing out the terms but there was always a background story.
With the Irons board flat out to secure their Premier League status ahead of the OS move – relegation being totally unthinkable in their last Boleyn season – they had already brought Victor Moses in a hugely expensive loan deal.
At the time we revealed that the Chelsea player could cost as much as £185,000 per game which, were he to play in every league game would see his cost for one season soar to over £6 million plus National Insurance and agents’ fee. It works out as a very big deal indeed in WHUFC terms. https://www.claretandhugh.info/exclusive-moses-costs-could-hit-185k-a-game/.
Antonio had been on the radar for some time but interest from other clubs was intensifying and in the end we spent the£7 million in order to ensure he was on board foe next season when Moses will be allowed to move back to Chelsea hopefully with our gratitude.
That deal took the club’s spend to £35 million – £10 million more than had been in the original plan.
Thus we now – and more importantly Antonio – find ourselves in the middle of a waiting period and I would guess that once we are safe from any threat of relegation the midfielder will be blooded in a few games before he becomes the Moses successor next season.
All of this will have been explained to him when terms were being discussed along of course with the possibility that he will be launched into action should, for example, Moses receive an injury.
There’s no conspiracies here, just strategic long term planning …and it’s very good to see.