Wolves hit back at Warnock claims
Wolves chief executive Jez Moxey is embroiled in a row with Crystal Palace boss Neil Warnock over an alleged £1.5million bid for Victor Moses and Nathaniel Clyne.
Wolves chief executive Jez Moxey is embroiled in a row with Crystal Palace boss Neil Warnock over an alleged £1.5million bid for Victor Moses and Nathaniel Clyne.
Moses joined Wigan for £2.5million last week, when Wolves had a bid believed to be £500,000 rising to £700,000 for Clyne accepted by Palace's administrator Brendan Guilfoyle.
Warnock claimed Wolves lodged a "laughable" joint bid for the pair, which Moxey insisted was untrue.
The Palace boss said: "Nathaniel Clyne was given permission to talk to Wolves after they had agreed a £700,000 fee. I told the administrator the figure was a third of what Nathaniel is worth, although I can't blame Jez Moxey for offering such laughable figure.
"At least it was more realistic than the £1.5million he offered for Victor and Nathaniel."
But Moxey hit back, saying: "Neil Warnock's claims that we made a bid for both Victor Moses and Nathaniel Clyne are untrue.
"We were being encouraged by Brendan Guilfoyle, the Crystal Palace administrator, to make a bid for Moses but he wasn't really a player Mick wanted to sign. No offer was submitted.
"Crystal Palace were desperate for any kind of help they could get, so much so that prior to the first FA Cup tie, they asked us if we could remit their share of the gate money immediately rather than the statutory 14 days, and we agreed to do that. So for Neil Warnock to make inaccurate claims is disappointing.
"Especially when firstly, we turned round their request for early payment on the gate money in a couple of days, second, they were the ones driving the issue for sales of their players, third, we never made a joint bid, and fourth, the bid for Clyne wasn't £700,000, but what was accepted was a significantly lower figure and Neil knew that.
"What happened was that in the administrator's attempt to drive interest in sales, Palace was so desperate for money that they were saying 'please make a bid' for any of our players.
"We did make an offer for Nathaniel Clyne but it was more of a speculative bid. We like young players and thought he was one for the future. But we're inundated with right-backs at the moment, so it wasn't high on the agenda.
"In his attempt to drive up the price, the administrator was wrong to make statements regarding informal talks which is as disappointing as it is appropriate."