big time, he seems a more intelligent sort than the Ulsterman and obviously shopping abroad has much better value than throwing money at the Sidwell’s, Warnock’s and Harewood’s of this world.
Arthur Numan is still involved at the club post McLeish afaik, was probably involved in this deal too.
The previous Moroccan players at Villa Park were pretty shocking - Kachoul and Hadji.Lets hope it will be 3rd time lucky.
I wonder what they’re paying him. I doubt he was on very much money at all at Hoffenheim but certainly seems to have improved his earnings no end from that loan spell last season.
They have a cap in place of £70,000 I believe, and I read somehwere that VDV is on £55,000 a week so I doubt he is anywhere near that. If Spurs have nearly doubled what Liverpool offered, Liverpool must have only offered something in the region of £15,000 to 20,000 mark.
Rumours now that Lucio could be joining Juventus, he parted ways with Inter there a couple of days ago. Juventus have also been paired with Werder Bremen’s Sokratis, he had an excellent Euros for Greece.
Final fee wasn’t disclosed but at negotiation stages it was reported to be €12m so I presume it’s around that with the standard performance clauses etc.