THE WOLF'S DEN - Tana dei Lupi II

[RomaShield27]

Of course he is kidding, Jamie. Tom rarely says anything that makes much sense around here anymore.

These latest developments on Mexes, if true, are gut-wrenching. At this stage its hard to blame the man if he does decide to leave. He has been through an awful lot with this club, right from his dodgy transfer at the beginning, but above all the shite he's been a loyal servant and a passionate and proud adopted romanista if there ever was one. Whenever I watch the likes of the Premiershit and see a lot of the big name players kissing the crests on the maglia's and carrying on like they love the club they play for, it somehow makes you hate the game which modern day football has become even more. Still, on the flipside, its good to remember that there are players who do genuinely care and love the club they play for – local lads like De Rossi and Totti stand out – but then on rare occasions there are others who fall into that category, and I think we can say Mexes is one of them. We've seen him cry for the team when we lose, celebrate like a maniac when we win, lose his rag on the pitch when we is robbed, and even party like a local singing la magica anthems in nightclubs. He has displayed about as much loyalty as one can expect from a footballer in these times, and he's said again and again and again that he wants to stay, and yet nothing has come of it.

Where is the new contract offer which we have offered him to stay? Can anyone confirm for certain that Roma did in fact make a solid offer to his agent for him to sign on the dotted line? Why aren't our club officials on their hands and knees pleading with him, begging for him and his agent to come in and iron out a deal? Why aren't they phoning him every day? Twice a day? To my knowledge, we have not made any solid offer. We just kept saying we will enter into negotiations soon but nothing has ever come of it, and now here we are, in March, with his contract expiring in less than four months, so why wouldn't he listen to other offers. If he does leave, it'll be sad, but I'll wish him well and hope he succeeds, and curse our inept management for their one final act of complete and utter incompetency.

[Giacomo]

And so say all of us!

[stefano]

Perhaps if the new ownership situation is finalized the Mexes situation will be resolved to our liking.

[RomaShield27]

Jamie, to the best of your knowledge, do you know have Roma actually ever made any sort of official offer to Mexes or his agent to renew? I don't think they have, right?

[Giacomo]

Rosella said towards the end of 2010 that she was personally handling these negotiations, then the following day Mexes told reporters that he has yet to be presented with an offer to renew his contract and, since then, there has been no formal mention of it in any interview, other than Prade saying in January that Mexes wanted to listen to the new owners' plans before deciding what to do and Prade said that he thought that was a wise thing to do.

So it is almost certainly true that he has never received a new contract offer.

[maro]

I blame Totti.

Yes, Giacomo, I was joking and yes I know that the money brought in from the loss of Mexes won't even stretch to a new handbag for the parrot. If Mexes goes to Bilan (or anywhere), threadmund, I hope you give him your full Aquilani treatment.

[Lupa]

[ASR1927]

[Giacomo]

The only rational explanation can be that - as part of the favour Milan did us by allowing us to sign Borriello and receive a year's grace to pay for him - there was some agreement that Roma would not renew Mexes's contract so that he could leave for free in 2011 saving Milan a transfer fee (if he chose to go there) as some kind of favour returned.

Other than that, there is no reason I can think of for Roma to allow him to leave for free.

[ASR1927]

Edzo,
I saw your rant at Fadayn over at the offside. He has been going on for ages about Mexes refusing to sign a contract. There have been confusing headlines on football-italia and goal like "Mexes refuses new deal at Roma" and so forth. However i believe Jaime is right about the situation from what I have read on all of the Roma sites.

Without turning this discussion into a game of football manager whilst remembering that the next mercato won't be done on a beer budget who should Roma get should he leave?* Subotic is being mentioned at the moment. I haven't seen him play much but he is supposed to be very good and he is young.

Discuss.

*Tom is the first sentence of the second paragraph a run on sentence? It looks awkward to me? Either that or I am too tired.

[ASR1927]

[maro]

What's a run-on sentence? It's certainly a grammatically complete sentence. I'd probably have written "and whilst," since that would probably clarify the movement of the thought, but that's not a question quite of 'correctness'. Your "who" is being used as an interrogative rather than a relative pronoun, which is why it's not a "run-on sentence" in the way I imagine a "run-on sentence" might be understood.

[Giacomo]

Subotic would cost a lot of money and the problem for Roma next summer is that there will not be much money available, new ownership notwithstanding.

Roma is on course to post an annual loss of 38m at the end of this season, then there is the probable 20-30m gap in the budget caused by no CL next season, followed by the probable need to replace Mexes without a transfer fee in exchange, other positions to be upgraded, and Roma has already spent some of its future TV revenue in exchange for loans to pay exisiting expenses. Also, Roma's revenue fell substantially between 2009 and 2010 just to complete the misery.

[ASR1927]

[maro]

What a curious term. It's not quite a run-on sentence, then, though the movement of its thought isn't perfectly clearly articulated. Presumably you meant something like
"Without turning this discussion into a game of football manager, but remembering at the same time that the next mercato won't be done on a beer budget, who should Roma get should he leave?"

[ASR1927]

[ASR1927]

[Giacomo]

Michele Canini of Cagliari. Good player, done well in Serie A, not too expensive. A reasonably safe bet too.

[RomaShield27]

[ASR1927]