Chuckie Cheese wrote:
"I reckon we will work it out with Winston Reid" is a fairly neutral statement for describing an ongoing negotiation. You have to have a hatred for West Hams management of Miami proportions to see that as a stupid statement.

"We are trying to get the Reid contract done and dusted and hopefully we can do a deal so long as the player is reasonable" is even more neutral.

I don't think that the statement was "stupid", but it wasn't as smart as it could have been ("we would like to keep the player and negotiations are ongoing" is even more neutral again.)

The reason I made the comment I did is that I undertake negotiations regularly in my work and I know 100% for certain that if the other side starts hinting that they are confident of doing a deal my immediate reaction is that I can push a bit harder than I thought before.  Obviously no-one can know if that is the situation in this case, but it might be.