Plenty of other decent prospects. We move on…
I would guess his agent was the driving force behind this in order to get his client the best deal possible…

I would assume he never intended to join us in the first place….

That isn't correct. We wanted him before and he wanted to come but we wouldn't pay Ipswich's asking price. He subsequently suffered a serious injury and we withdrew our interest.

Swansea bought him the following season and we weren't mentioned at all as being interested and after just one season we wanted him again and were (allegedly) willing to pay twice our previous offer and he was happy to come until the club that he and his family have always supported put in a bid of 50% more than our offer and with the lure of European football also in the mix he was happy to move to West Ham instead

Let’s be honest this has only ever been media rumour. We are now told , never mind we move on to Gibbs White, he only costs £20mill. . The only thing we can be sure of is whether we liked him or not we were not going to pay what Swansea actually wanted. But then why would we if we really wanted to spend more.

Playing in Europe for your boyhood club is a pretty good offer in fairness to him

26th January 2010 - Enter Administration
2nd May 2010 - D-Day 1 - Survival at Hillsborough
1st June 2010 - D-Day 2 - Survival at Lloyds
7th June 2010 - CPFC2010 exchange contracts.

I can see why we were after him. The club do like to keep track of previously scouted players. Luka, Kouyate and McArthur need long term replacements.

Both times Palace haven’t been willing to pay enough to clinch the deal. Does that suggest their interest is half hearted?

I thought centre mid would be the main position to sort out this year. If we sign Doucoure then that’s a good signing. With Doucoure, Hughes and Eze we have a decent midfield…but poor depth. We might need a few more in and then let a few leave.

Agree, but we also have Macca, Luka and Jairo. The latter two are both on big wages so surely must be able to play a few games here or there. If not then why give them lucrative long term contract extensions?

I do agree we need another midfielder though - my question is whether it's a No 8/10 (Gibbs White?) or another defensive No 4?
With Conor returning to Chelsea may be attacking option is more important in the short term.

The lad is a Hammers fan (as is his family) so I think it’s fair enough that he chooses them on this occasion - think most of us would do the same if we were joining another club and Palace came in at the 11th hour.

*** Official ***

Signed for wet spam 5yr deal + 1yr option btw, im NOT itk just repeating bbc transfers.

This operation, will make the 'Charge Of The Light Brigade' seem like a simple military exercise.

Exactly. Just bizarre really.

The club continue to be "prudent" with its money, I guess best possible scenario is to get in, do the deal & then announce it, but whichever way you look at it getting into a bidding war with Wet Spam (who generally have looser purse strings than us) cant really be considered as part of the game plan -

If we offered 8 million, WH offered 12 million what would our next offer have to be ? (close on double our original offer)

For sure it sucks, but you just have to suck it up & move on.