Chopra Heading For The Premiership
By Nu Mad
Updated Tuesday, 10th July 2007
A "mystery" Premiership club has tested Cardiff chairman Peter Ridsdale's resolve to hang onto ex-Newcastle striker Michael Chopra by slapping in a bid of £3m.
Ridsdale insists there is no need for the club to sell players in order to make movements in the transfer market, but at that time no club had made an offer for their star player.
Suddenly that has changed. Watford made a bid of £2m last week, but that has been overshadowed by this move. Cardiff still won't say who made the offer, but you can rule out Sunderland, they ruled it out immediately.
Boss Dave Jones has so far added three players to his squad this summer, signing defender Tony Capaldi, midfielder Gavin Rae and forward Steven MacLean.
But Ridsdale is adamant there are funds in place for more transfers, he said:
"There is money available for Dave (Jones) to spend, irrespective of people being sold.
"We've shown there's money there. We paid £500,000 for Chopra last year and in January there were fees for Peter Whittingham, Jason Byrne and David Forde.
"The difference now is that we will flatly refuse to pay over the odds for players anymore.
"We will pay what we think is a fair price. If that means we have to be patient then that's how it will be."
