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We hadn't heard anything concrete out of Palermo regarding Chelsea target Javier Pastore in a little while. Now... well, we've heard something, but given Maurizio Zamparini's history, it's difficult to really know what to make of it. Compare and contrast these two statements from Palermo president (after the jump). One was made today, and the other is from last month.
Today
Yesterday, I spoke to a big European club and they said they would pay between €45 and €50 million for Pastore. At this point, I think we can sort out the situation in 10 days.
-Maurizio Zamparini. Source: FourFourTwo.
June
The possibility that he (Pastore) stays next year is 10 per cent. I can confirm that an offer of €50M arrived from a foreign club.
-Maurizio Zamparini. Source: Fulham & Hammersmith Chronicle [June 30th].
I already had a bit of a rant about the June quote a few weeks ago - it was pretty easy to look at what Zamparini was saying and conclude that he's making things up to boost Pastore's eventual asking price. I don't think that that's any different here, although Zamparini has gone into a little more detail* with his phantom club this time.
*If it seems as though I read into wording too seriously, that's because I'm well aware of how careful people in positions like club president or manager can be with what they say and how they say it.
First of all, the price our imaginary club is willing to pay has gone down from €50M to between €45-50M. I'd expect Chelsea to value Pastore in the €40-45M range (although that is, admittedly, an educated guess). Second there's now a deadline ten days from now.
I've taken the liberty of translating today's quote from Zamparinese into the message as it was meant for Chelsea:
Dear Chelsea friends,
Your current bid for our most favoured subject Javier 'Ringladore' Pastore is still too low. We would be willing to accept €45M and are willing to negotiate to facilitate a hasty and happy conclusion of this tedious process. We believe that a ten day window should suffice for this purpose.
Also, we are the god damn king of the moon.
Be blessed in my wisdom,
-Lord High Worshipfulness, Lunar King Maurizio XI.
PS: Kind regards to Lizzie.
So, yeah. This is process, but it's weird, Palermo-ised progress. I bet things heat up in about a week, but right now there's absolutely no point taking anything coming out of Sicily at face value. This is just the way things work when you're trying to negotiate with a devious crazy man.