How bad must our offer have been that he'd prefer a move to Hull!?

Bugger. Think he'd have been useful.

If rumours are to be believed, Keane was not very impressed with his attitude hence why we pulled the plug. As much as I am gutted we havent pulled this one off, he does seem like a bit of a bad egg and with our good team spirit at the moment we do not want anything ruining that so I think the best thing to do is walk away.

I agree. we are much a better prospect. why could be not splash the cash. Could his wage demands be so high that we had to offload stead ??

Dame it. I thought Hull were skint.
Now we need a striker i.e Scotland even more.
And now we need a replacement for Walters. Unless Edwards will play there. Then we will need back up.

maybe Hull offered better wages, they do have 2 years of premiership money to play with afterall......he's probably on less than Hulls current "premiership" players...but its still going to be more than we could offer i reckon!..ah well..im sure there will be more players available after the 25th that could be better quality, looking for first team football.

Hull are clearly using the dough from their parachute payments.

They will finish midtable even with McCormack.

Would like the Scotland signing to be sorted soon, not too fussed about McCormack not coming.

http://www.hull.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=209534 all the details are here. what i cannot understand is why Cardiff would prefer to have Cousins to McCormack??!! Seems he is on massive wages according to the article above and not happy to take too bigger a drop, seems crazy. Also if McCormack choose Hull simply because they are able to reach his wage demands then hey lets move on and find someone for whom its about wanting to play for a team, not just about who will pay the biggest wage.

Who cares! We move on.

Would rather have a team player than a money player. Good riddance!

very depressing, waking up this morning to yet another target we have missed out on, just hope we don't make panic buys before end of transfer window and end up with another Lee Martin.

If he's only on £7k a week at Cardiff, it's worrying the article says we can't give him a modest wage rise to say £9k. I guess Hull have offered much more!

As a few say, good riddance if he's only moving for money.....

Reading that article Bluelady, I would say Cardiff Couldn't afford Stead's Wage's, He is on 12,000 a week, which is why he didn't move to Blackpool cos they wouldn't match his wages. Steads A good player but who negoitated that! Not worth that sort of money.

Well the evening star, says otherwise - we are leading the chase to get Macormack. If we do get rid of walters and stead, which will probs be this week. I can see macormack coming.

he would be a great addition to our team..

Back in for chopra now then

Believe nothing until he signs on the dotted line for someone.

There is no more substance to this story than the stories last week about him signing for us.

His girlfriend must be fed up of driving him to all these places!!... I must admit, I was concerned to hear that he was 'furious' that he was asked to go to Portman Road to meet Keano!!

....seems reasonable to want to meet an prospective employee before giving them a £1.5million contract!!

I think we have to be honest here.

If I have the option of doing exactly the same job for two prospective employers and one is offering £3-£4k a week more than the other nine times out of ten you can guess where I will end up!

A move to Ipswich in itself is no longer the draw it once was for many players and to attract the quality we need it looks as if Evans is going to have to think again about the wages policy here.

I'm not saying we should be held to ransom by any means but the amounts being quoted seem quite small when compared to the turnover of the club and the potential sums on offer if we get promoted.

What I certainly don't want is to miss out on our preferred targets and make panic buys at the end of the month. We have been down that route before to our cost!

Hadleigh.... its that attitude to money that can lead a club to ruin. An extra £4,000 pw is c.£200k per year and a liability on the books of £800k over the period of a 4 year contract.

This is not to be taken lightly, especially at a club where 'normal people' were made redundant last year.

There is a huge pot of money if we get to the Premiership, but there are 12-14 clubs all thinking they can get promoted, and 3 promotion places, its a big gamble.

Secondly, a player should consider how likely he thinks a club is to succeed in their promotion chase, success here would mean a good bonus and a rise in wages whilst in the premiership.

I personally think the club is taking the right approach to transfers.

Steads contract was done in the days of Magilton and Bowen, so nothing to do with todays management.

If he chooses Hull over ITFC... then he's not the kind of player we're looking for!

As long as Healy doeesn't re-emerge, I'll keep the faith...

Well said marshallsmullett, you are spot on.
What is with all the reasoned and common sense comments on here today...?
Must be on the wrong site!

HadleighBlueBoy - Given the turnover of the club? There was less than 20,000 fans on Saturday, the scum had 25,000 for their first home game. It's about time the Town fans started attending the games and then maybe our turnover will allow the club to offer higher wages

FAO Dizzle:

I'm afraid that's the way of the world in football, matie. You'll always find signing a good player difficult if you are in competition with a bigger club.

Surely there are some lower league players you could attract?

parachute money, they simply offered higher wages

I think ITFC could match the wage offers of most championship clubs even Hull (considering they are in financial strife) but what you have here believe it or not is a Club ITFC that are looking more and more fussy about who we sign, Keane has made a big point since joining this club about the kind of players he wants and quiete frankly if he is not convinced with a player off the pitch as well as on it then ITFC will not sign the player concerned.
Question is, is Keane too fussy and harsh on players (stunting our transfer capacity) or is it good business for our club and we dont end up with more over paid lazy hasbeens (counago etc...)