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Lambert: No Town Offer on Table For Garbutt
Friday, 9th Oct 2020 11:34

Town boss Paul Lambert has dismissed summer claims that the Blues made a contract offer to former loanee Luke Garbutt, who they are likely to face in action for his new club Blackpool at Bloomfield Road on Saturday.

Garbutt was available on a free transfer following his release by Everton and general manager of football operations Lee O’Neill had said the club were monitoring his situation would love him to return, but it was ultimately viewed as too expensive a deal to do.

Lambert said: “We couldn't do anything with him because of the situation. Everybody thought Garbs was going to go to the Championship because he played that well for us.

“So that's where we left it, we thought he was going to have a lot of takers up one division higher, so we just left it like that. Then he went to Blackpool so good luck to him there.”

Was there an offer on the table for him? “No, there wasn’t because everybody assumed he was going to go to the Championship. I think his agent wanted a helluva lot of money and there was no way we could have afforded that.”

While Garbutt, who has confirmed that he had been in talks with Sunderland prior to joining the Tangerines, has primarily been viewed as a left-back throughout his career, Lambert says he sees him as someone more suited to playing further forward, the Blues having utilised him as a wing-back in the latter period of last season and in midfield early on in the campaign.

“I never saw Garbutt as a total left-back, I saw higher up on that side,” he said. “I think the forward play from him was really good.

“I didn’t want to sign him as a left-back, we needed a left-back and Wardy [Stephen Ward] came into the equation and has been an absolute revelation for us. We thought he was going to the Championship that he wanted.”

He added: “We couldn’t do it, that’s the way the money was, we couldn’t afford that level of money. I don’t know what Blackpool pay, I know they’ve been invested in, but I don’t know.

“We had to move on because, as I’ve said before, we thought Garbs was going on somewhere else. Football is like that, you move on.”

Quizzed on whether he was surprised when the 27-year-old eventually joined Blackpool towards the end of last month, he said: “I don't know. I don't really get surprised with football too much. Good luck to him. Good guy, no problem with him, he did really well for us and as I said before good luck to him there.”

Garbutt made his first senior start for the Seasiders as they were beaten on penalties by Accrington Stanley in the EFL Trophy on Tuesday, playing the first 73 minutes, having previously come off the bench in last weekend’s 3-2 home defeat to Lincoln City.

“He had a game last week [for the reserves], he came on and had some minutes at the weekend and he’s had over 70 minutes here,” manager Neil Critchley told the Blackpool Gazette following the Stanley game.

“You’ve got to remember he’s had no pre-season and we can also take that into account with some of the other players as well.

“We’re still finding rhythm. We’re always doing that, and six or seven months without playing games is a long period of time for anyone. But Luke will certainly benefit from that experience.”


Photo: Matchday Images



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Suffolkboy added 15:28 - Oct 9
Really ?? Must take his word on several angles ,but it's quite an eye opener in some respects !!
But , as PL tells us ‘that's football ‘ !?
COYB
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Len_Brennan added 16:34 - Oct 9
Surely they should have kept tabs on his situation as time moved on & that Championship move never materialised. Blackpool's overall wage bill will be a good bit lower than ours, so maybe they had the capacity to offer >£5k a week post salary cap, but who knows what he was ultimately prepared to accept in the short term, having gone 2 months with no new deal in place, at the most uncertain period in living memory.
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oldegold added 16:38 - Oct 9
Evans should have sent a declaration of intent that we mean business and want to get out of this division by signing him up..he was a good player for us
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blues1 added 17:36 - Oct 9
Oldegold. We'd probably have had to sell our best players in order to sign him before it became clear no championship team was interested. Hed ha e wanted too much money at that point. Hes a decent player, but hes no Lionel Messi. And was, in fact, as poor as anyone else in the past couple of months last season. As Len Brennan says, blackpool would have been in a much better position to sign him, with the salary cap, as their wage bill last season was way lower than ours. So have more leeway. Plus, i think it's pretty obvious that Garbutt would have had to accept a lot less than hed have wanted previously, before it appeared he wasnt going to get any club at all. By which time wed already signed Ward.
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have_a_word_with_him added 22:12 - Oct 9
Who cares, this seems a lot of over analysis to me. Yes I'd have preferred to have had Garbutt in the squad he was a decent player, but at the time it was a sensible expectation that he'd be wanting far too much money for us. We did the right thing and sorted it by getting Ward, which I was impressed with.
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leftie1972 added 22:25 - Oct 9
Ridiculous! If we wanted him to be our player, we should have put an offer on the table which we could have afforded to pay him! He would've either taken it or left it. He has an agent who advises him but he doesn't have to take that advice does he! Let's hope he doesn't score against us or provide one of his fantastic crosses as an assist!
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oldegold added 10:15 - Oct 10
blues1..point taken but if Town were aware that he wasn't going to get the golden move to a Championship club and could be bought for a lot less money. than he probably originally was holding out for, I think we should have put in a decent bid for him and I imagine he would have preferred us to Blackpool, with all respect to them.Whilst not a Messi, he was a cut above some of the Town players around him and he came from a great schooling i.e Everton, even if he didn't play much..
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TractorRoyNo1 added 10:17 - Oct 10
1. Agent obviously played his cards badly.
2. If he wanted to have come to us he would have made contact.
Move on....
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