The sticking point of the negotiations was the transfer fee. Orginally, Twente demanded €12m for Elia, while HSV were only offering €8m. Twente lowered their demands to €10m, but HSV initially wouldn’t budge on the €8m offer. Ultimately, HSV did pony up €9.1m and the deal was done. Elia was also pursued by a number of Premiership sides including Chelsea, Man City, Spurs, Bolton, and Wigan, as well as Ajax. Elia would never move to Ajax though, as he was dismissed from the Ajax youth academy when he was 13. He was re-discovered by ADO Den Haag two years later and after showing rapid improvement, he was pursued again by Ajax. Pfffffffft!  Get bent! His family jokingly threatened him with bodily harm this time around if he even considered BMJ and Ajax. Elia says he’s met with fellow Dutchmen Nigel de Jong, Khalid Boulahrouz, Rafael van Der Vaart and phoned Joris Mathijsen, and to a man, they all told him to come to HSV.

There’s a report today in Bild (I know, I know. . .) that Die Rothosen are back oogling Sweden international and Groningen striker Marcus Berg. Berg’s price is a bit higher than it was earlier this spring; he positively starred at the recent UEFA U21’s, bagging 7 goals in just 4 games. Groningen have set his transfer fee at a cool €10m. Which is all well and good. Except that we also have eyes for an interior defender, who happens to be Swiss international Philippe Senderos of Arsenal. Senderos spent last season on loan with AC Milan, but the Rossonerri chose not to exercise their option to purchase Senderos at the end of the loan. Here’s the rub:  HSV doesn’t want to pay for both, and they prefer to add another striker.  OK–seems to make sense to me, because up front we have (in no particular order): Petric, Guerrero, Tunay Torun, Elia, Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, and by making this move, it would seem that the front office are preparing to move Guerrero this summer or in the winter instead of letting him walk for nothing in 2010, á la Ivica Olic. BUT, I just have a strong, uneasy feeling about the depth at the back, which has been a theme of mine for some time. Labbadia is moving Alex Silva back to central defense next to Mathijsen. That makes Jerome Boateng the perfect sub as he can play both right back and, as he showed with great aplumb at the U21’s, central defense as well. That looks really great, but again, I would prefer to see another warm body for the back line.

Based on Bruno’s stated preference for a 4-1-2-1-2 formation, here’s what the squad (as it is currently comprised) may look like whent they take the pitch on 8 August versus Freiburg:

Rost

 Boateng (Demel)     Alex Silva     Mathijsen     Aogo

 Jarolim

 Trochowski (Zé Roberto)                         Jansen (Pitroipa)

 Zé Roberto (Trochowski)

Elia/Guerrero     Petric

What do you think?

•HSV play Wacker Innsbruck tonight in a friendly. This is the last friendly that we play before the first round of the DFB-Pokal and Europa League qualifying.

•Former HSV defenders Thimothee Atouba and Bastian Reinhardt are on the radars of Ajax and Hertha, respectively.

Die Wölfe have made a €9 million offer for Petric, he of 20 goals in 41 matches this season.  This is all necessitated by Milan’s flirtations with Edin Džeko.  Naturally, Petric, his agent, and HSV management all replied “Fuhgeddaboudit.” So far.

But what happens when Wolfsburg comes back with an offer of €14 or  €16 million, or more? They have that kind of cash to splash around now that they are in the Champions League next fall.  Didi Beiersdorf was a bit more coy when that question was posed to him. His response? Let’s see the offer on paper before we decide what we are going to do.  Wolfsburg, for their part, have a second option lined up:  Luca Toni.

Petric was a key acquisition for HSV last summer, and with the departure of Olic, I would find it very difficult to believe that HSV would let one of two remaining strikers on the roster be sold. But I thought that about Vincent Kompany and Nigel de Jong, too.