One of the worst "Trades" ever!

by user Alex Holowczak

In English Football/Soccer, Ashley Cole finally moved to Chelsea just minutes before the transfer deadline.

Arsenal wanted £30 million from Cole, but instead, they settled for another option from Chelsea - £5 million plus another defender in return, William Gallas.

A few points about this:

• Gallas is not worth anything like £25 million.
• Gallas is in the final year of his contract, and has said he wants to leave Chelsea at the end of the season. He would then be worth only about £10 million.
• Cole is twice the player Gallas is.
• Arsenal cannot spend any of the limited money they gained on players until the transfer window, in January.

That makes it one of the stupidist "trades" of all time in any sport. Sure Cole wanted to go to Chelsea, but Arsenal could easily have waited until January.

The other major deadline day news were the signings of star Argentines from the World Cup, Tevez and Masherano - to West Ham, of all teams. They are great coups for the Hammers.

Date

Fri 09/01/06, 5:00 am EST

ThecrookedcapAll-Star

1190 days ago

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Chelsea got away with highway robbery. But how bout that West Ham deal? That was brillant since it came out of nowhere! Every one had Tevez going to Man U.

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Alex HolowczakHall of Famer

1190 days ago

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To "pinch" Tevez from Man U's grasp was brilliant. The double deal was superb though. They may be challenging for a UEFA Cup place now, maybe even more. Their midfield is looking pretty brilliant with Reo-Coker already in there.

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Bleeding GreenVarsity

1190 days ago

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Cole is not "twice the player Gallas is". Gallas is very good palyer who can play all four back positions I would agree that this deal was a bit in favor of Chelsea, but what was Aresenal supposed to do? Other than try to force Cole to stay, which could have been disastrous, they had to get rid of him. He basically forced their hand along with the tappoing up from CHelsea. Arsenal got what they could in a bad situation, and they got a very good player in Gallas.

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Alex HolowczakHall of Famer

1190 days ago

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Ok, maybe not twice the player, but Gallas is still worse than Cole - more than £5 million worse. Considering Gallas was in the final year of his contract, he would have no transfer fee from Chelsea, making his value half. So he's worth no more than £12.5 million, so they got outdone. Also, Cole would have happily played for Arsenal until Christmas, and if Arsenal kept him out of their Champions' League team, he wouldn't be cup-tied, so he would have retained his value. I think the transfer was a bit last-minute and hasty.

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Bleeding GreenVarsity

1190 days ago

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You can't discount the fact that Cole was unsettled and demanding to leave. It wasn';t an ideal move for Arsenal, but their options were very limited.

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Anonymous Fanatic #1

1190 days ago

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during the 80's there was an NFL team traded up a late round pick to draft a guy that they didn't know had died the week before... that was a pretty bad trade no matter what they gave up.

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Alex HolowczakHall of Famer

1190 days ago

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That's shocking!

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Manny StilesMajor Leaguer

1190 days ago

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^ that was my non-logging in ass... several baseball teams have drafted dead guys through the years, too.

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Anonymous Fanatic #2

1089 days ago

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This post is ridiculous. "Gallas is not worth 25 million"? No he isn't. But then neither is Ashley Cole. To go one step further, I'd say Arsenal got the better of the deal. And the best part of it all is that neither player is as good as Heinze or Evra ;)

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