Kovacic obviously the Gundogan replacement. It sounds like City turned to Kovacic when they couldn't agree terms with Gundogan.
Not sure I agree with that. Look at this scenario. We want to hold onto Lavia. Arsenal speak to him in a secret conversation and offer him a wage of £100k a week against his current salary of say £15k. Arsenal then come in and offer a silly low fee for him and we say no. Lavia (not saying he will do this) then downs tools and we either are forced to sell him for less than what we want or keep a disgruntled player.. That cant be right and shouldn't be right. It wouldn't be allowed if a club was trying to take a manager
Whether Lavia's people talk to Arsenal or not, they'll know full well that he can expect a massive wage increase in making that move. There's no mystery there. This sort of "tapping up", where personal terms are agreed first, happens constantly (and we unquestionably do it for almost all of our transfers, too) because it's pointless spending weeks haggling with a team over a possible transfer only to find out that the player doesn't want the move. Consequently, everyone does it in reverse.
Doesn’t always work for players though. If they’re disruptive and have a crap season the suitors will go away. Bottom line is, if we don’t get the valuation we want we don’t sell. I’d presume if things have got as far as terms they know what ballpark we’re in and are willing to meet it.
Buying Lavia - without any previous Premier League appearances - one summer, and then allowing him to sign for a top 4 club, in the UCL, the summer after, is tremendous publicity for our club. All young players now are going to look at us and genuinely think that coming to St. Mary's is a surefire way for them to boost their career prospects. If we tried to block any approaches to Lavia, and forced him to stay another season against his will, it would likely put off those same youngsters. So yeah, let him go, pay his taxi fare, buy his agent lunch. Whatever. It's sad he won't play for us again, but if we can buy and sell five Lavias every season, then that potentially earns us 200m every year.
Yeah. I think there is zero chance we hold on to him in any instance -- we do need to conform with the Championship's financial regulations, and that isn't going to happen without some very significant sales -- but this is the vision we're selling youngsters on. And if that vision works, you'll get more players of his ilk, and if you get more players of his ilk, the odds increase that the club will be able to hang on to them a little longer. We want to be the English finishing school for elite-level prospects, a role that has worked out very well for Dortmund, Ajax, Benfica, etc. Part of that means that some of these players won't be here long-term. But that's better than those players not being here at all, which is what'll happen if we renege on the promises made to them.
Man City loaned out Delap, McAtee, Harwood-Bellis, Callum Doyle, Tommy Doyle, Zak Steffen, Luke Mbete, plus a handful of others, all to Championship clubs. The difference is that we can afford to buy them rather than loan them. We also have Wilcox, who is hopefully still on good terms with the City board. If we hadn't bought Lavia, he'd have probably gone on loan to the Championship. Not a lot of Premier League clubs are willing to take a gamble on inexperienced youth players. Either they don't have the budget, or they can't offer a guarantee of first team football.
Exactly. And being relegated has helped as we would have maybe tried a lot more and then had a standoff if we were still in the Premier League. Would have then maybe turned off potential players as they think their pathway is blocked.
Yeah we will be an attractive club for talented players to join on loan, but none of those players you listed would’ve joined a Championship club permanently last year. Why would they when they can just go on loan? If they did and they were talented enough then City would want a buyback clause (like they got with all 4 of our signings from them last year) but if rumours are to be believed and we are selling Lavia to a rival of theirs before the buyback kicks in, the question has to be asked why would they do that again? Depending who you talk to our policy of buying youth was a big factor in us going down so it is an unknown whether the model of “Dortmund, Ajax and Benfica” is possible in a league much deeper in terms of skill levels of teams. Also those three teams are bigger clubs in their respective divisions than Saints would be in the PL so relegation much less of a threat. I like the principle and I’m not against us continuing to try it, as I can’t see any other way the club can grow without a Newcastle style takeover. But there is a very big possibility that it won’t be successful at the top level in England due to the strength of the other teams.
You don't know that. Next time they could change the terms of the buy-back clause to one year, or first refusal. It really isn't our fault that we are selling Lavia. We can't be blamed for that, and City could easily be buying him back this summer, if they wanted. Was SR's transfer policy at fault for us going down? Yes and no. There were so many factors at play that I think blaming it on the incoming youngsters is far too simplistic. We let the wrong players go, recruited sh*t managers, and the older players we signed were garbage. I agree with the rest; it's obviously a bigger risk for a club like us, than those others you mention. But there is definitely space for at least two or three clubs like that in England. It won't happen in one transfer window though. Might take 3 or 4 years.
