Nathan Baker - Sold

[themossman]

Keeping Nathan Baker is shrewd business, something unheard of at VP almost in living memory (Ellis was not shrewd, he was grasping).  He is an improving player, he is a young player, he cost us nothing, his new wages are probably pretty low.  Let him mature and learn, quite possibly on loan, and if he learns enough and quickly enough bring him back into our team or if not with still three years on his contract sell him to one of the self styled hard cases of the league like Millwall, Stoke or Sheffield United where his hardness would have great appeal.  Put another way we handle him in exactly the opposite way we handled Gary Cahill, and no, I am not saying he is another Gary Cahill, I am saying that there is a good few quid locked away in the young lad, don't toss it away please.

Young lad Brian? He's 24 I think.Almost half way through his career but just about worth keeping I suppose.

I agree with this. And Cahill is a good example as - although I am also not comparing the relative quality of the two players - it's worth remembering that he was roughly Baker's age when he went to Bolton (23 I believe). The fact that there wasn't universal outrage at this, given our other options at the time, reinforces the point that it's too early to make a call on a CB.

[pauliewalnuts]

I agree with this. And Cahill is a good example as - although I am also not comparing the relative quality of the two players - it's worth remembering that he was roughly Baker's age when he went to Bolton (23 I believe). The fact that there wasn't universal outrage at this, given our other options at the time, reinforces the point that it's too early to make a call on a CB.

Really?

I remember this place going into a state of near meltdown at the time. No, it won't have been universal, but then again nothing is. Even now, years later, Cahill's departure is a subject of some controversy.

[saunders_heroes]

I was gutted when Cahill left as were many on here. Can't say Baker leaving will bother me too much. He's nowhere near the class Cahill was when he departed.
I'll never forgive O'Neill for letting him go. Such a stupid thing to do.

[Boz]

I was gutted when Cahill left as were many on here. Can't say Baker leaving will bother me too much. He's nowhere near the class Cahill was when he departed.
I'll never forgive O'Neill for letting him go. Such a stupid thing to do.

My recollection was MON didn't have a lot of choice as Cahill wanted a first team place guarantee, which rightly or wrongly, MON wouldn't provide. He could have kept a unhappy player I guess, but decided not to.

[darren woolley]

I was gutted when Cahill left as were many on here. Can't say Baker leaving will bother me too much. He's nowhere near the class Cahill was when he departed.
I'll never forgive O'Neill for letting him go. Such a stupid thing to do.

This.

[Risso]

I was gutted when Cahill left as were many on here. Can't say Baker leaving will bother me too much. He's nowhere near the class Cahill was when he departed.
I'll never forgive O'Neill for letting him go. Such a stupid thing to do.

My recollection was MON didn't have a lot of choice as Cahill wanted a first team place guarantee, which rightly or wrongly, MON wouldn't provide. He could have kept a unhappy player I guess, but decided not to.

No he didn't, he wanted a fair crack of the whip under O'Neill, which he wasn't getting.  All of the talk about wanting a guaranteed spot is bollocks.

[OCD]

O'Neill preferred to put road blocks in front of him, like Knight and Davies.

[RussellC]

I was gutted when Cahill left as were many on here. Can't say Baker leaving will bother me too much. He's nowhere near the class Cahill was when he departed.
I'll never forgive O'Neill for letting him go. Such a stupid thing to do.

My recollection was MON didn't have a lot of choice as Cahill wanted a first team place guarantee, which rightly or wrongly, MON wouldn't provide. He could have kept a unhappy player I guess, but decided not to.

Doesn't the first bit contradict the second? MON did have a choice and chose to spend a combined £13m on Zat Knight and Curtis Davies instead of play Cahill.

[Risso]

I was gutted when Cahill left as were many on here. Can't say Baker leaving will bother me too much. He's nowhere near the class Cahill was when he departed.
I'll never forgive O'Neill for letting him go. Such a stupid thing to do.

My recollection was MON didn't have a lot of choice as Cahill wanted a first team place guarantee, which rightly or wrongly, MON wouldn't provide. He could have kept a unhappy player I guess, but decided not to.

Doesn't the first bit contradict the second? MON did have a choice and chose to spend a combined £13m on Zat Knight and Curtis Davies instead of play Cahill.

And pissed off Mellberg too. Imagine inheriting Cahill and Mellberg, and getting rid of both of them for Knight, Davies and Cuellar.  Then having to replace them a year later due to the abject shitness of all of them.

[pauliewalnuts]

MON has always liked big lads at the back and up front.

I disagreed with him moving on Cahill and then signing Zat Knight (to put it mildly) but he was, if anything, at least consistent with his previous preferences.

Cahill was also a "play it out of defence" type whereas MON preferred safety first, row Z types.

[aj2k77]

For £3m quid or whatever it was, Knight was good value for money. Should never have been in the way of Cahill though in a million years.

[john e]

I was gutted when Cahill left as were many on here. Can't say Baker leaving will bother me too much. He's nowhere near the class Cahill was when he departed.
I'll never forgive O'Neill for letting him go. Such a stupid thing to do.

My recollection was MON didn't have a lot of choice as Cahill wanted a first team place guarantee, which rightly or wrongly, MON wouldn't provide. He could have kept a unhappy player I guess, but decided not to.

Doesn't the first bit contradict the second? MON did have a choice and chose to spend a combined £13m on Zat Knight and Curtis Davies instead of play Cahill.

And pissed off Mellberg too. Imagine inheriting Cahill and Mellberg, and getting rid of both of them for Knight, Davies and Cuellar.  Then having to replace them a year later due to the abject shitness of all of them.

when you put it like that you realise what a complete buffoon the man was

[pauliewalnuts]

I was gutted when Cahill left as were many on here. Can't say Baker leaving will bother me too much. He's nowhere near the class Cahill was when he departed.
I'll never forgive O'Neill for letting him go. Such a stupid thing to do.

My recollection was MON didn't have a lot of choice as Cahill wanted a first team place guarantee, which rightly or wrongly, MON wouldn't provide. He could have kept a unhappy player I guess, but decided not to.

Doesn't the first bit contradict the second? MON did have a choice and chose to spend a combined £13m on Zat Knight and Curtis Davies instead of play Cahill.

And pissed off Mellberg too. Imagine inheriting Cahill and Mellberg, and getting rid of both of them for Knight, Davies and Cuellar.  Then having to replace them a year later due to the abject shitness of all of them.

Indeed. I know I've posted this before, but I still find it mind boggling.

2008-9: buys entire defence - Cuellar, Shorey, Young, Davies - total approx 28m

decides doesn't rate some of them, so ..

2009-10: buys entire new defence - Collins, Dunne, Warnock, Beye - total approx 20m

That's very nearly £50m on two entire defences in a little over 12 months.

Not to mention the fact that in 2007-8 he'd already spent £5m on another CB, Knight.

Absolutely insane scattergun, lazy transfer policy.

[RussellC]

And when you compare those two defences to the one that he inherited (Mellberg, Laursen, Cahill, Bouma) then, whilst acknowledging that 2 of the 3 were injury-prone- it really looks like money wasted.

[themossman]

And 8 shit players to boot.

I might be exaggerating Paulie, plus my memory is not what it was, but I guess what I'm saying is the fact that there was even an argument for knight/Davies over Cahill, and the fact of him going to Bolton initially, rather than someone better (allowing the 'he's found his level' counter argument to be made) makes the point about the development of CBs.