Seems like Leipzig won't be the team that triggers ABKs release clause. Also, Weren't Lyon interested in DCC too.
I think we might be surprised by the market for Caleta-Car. Whilst he hasn't been great for us we got him for a decent price given his reputation and with a lot of movement at centre back especially in Ligue 1, Spain and Germany I can see us getting a good amount for him - probably even what we paid. I'm more interested in trying to keep some of the other centre halves given the choice. But they'll all have suitors...
Would expect departures to start in the coming days. Played 21 players yesterday not including, Tella, Stuey, Larios, Tall Paul, Edozie, Aribo, Sulemana, ABK, Ballard, Perraud, Diallo, Bednarek, Manning, Charles and a 3rd choice GK. That’s 36 players. Match day squads of 20 players allowed. Will surely hinder Martins pre season plans with so many players? The sooner we get rid, the better as he can then concentrate on the playing squad for next season.
Definitely need to start shifting players soon to get some kind of balance. Only Orsic out the door so far and just over 3 weeks til we play Sheffield Wednesday. We could currently field 2 teams capable of competing at the top end of the Championship..
Orsic, Walcott, Elynoussi and Cabellero. The later 3 just because their contracts were up, but still out the door. Crazy how many players we have!
We are demanding top money for a lot of players which means only Premier League or top European and Saudi teams can afford it but they are holding fire to try and get us to accept less the closer to the start of the season we get. It is the transfer market game of chicken.
Sounds like Liverpool are about to come into a lot of money and lose Henderson and Fabinho to Saudi...
Aaron Ramsey going to Cardiff. And they are one of the favourites to go down. Bloody hard league this. Can't help feel we need a good start.
He is. But so are Cardiff. Ramsey just can't stay fit, but when he is he's still got it. At 32 he's the best signing Cardiff could hope to make.
Probably not something that we will ever find out but it would be interesting to know what Man City have said about Lavia. I'm sure we will have spoken to them and know where we stand with them regards our relationship and selling to one of their biggest rivals. You'd think they would be less inclined to keep selling us their top young talent, even with buy backs and sell on clauses if we sell after one season to their biggest rivals though. Not as simple I'm sure but if I were Man City I'd far rather have Lavia as an option than Kalvin Phillips.
yeah this was my concern heading into the summer, but he fact they’ve sold us Charles seems to indicate they aren’t too bothered, or they know something we don’t (eg Lavia isn’t going to Liverpool or City don’t actually want Lavia back or they don’t think Charles will ever be good enough for them)
I think it's easy to overthink it. The Man City academy model is really pretty awesome, making a very healthy profit to re-inveat/spend on first team players/help with financial fair play year on year whilst also providing players like Foden, Lewis, Palmer etc for the first team. Sometimes they let premier league quality players go and they may even make the odd evaluation mistake in letting a really top player go (Lavia looks that) but on balance it's a model that sees them scoop up the best talent, improve them and then either sell them on (with clauses btw) or promote them. We on the other hand want to buy the best youngsters for the first team, want to play a similar style to what these are brought up on and have a scouting network which is weighted in that direction. We are also a club a level or two below City but with excellent facilities and development reputation. It's easy to see why young players chose to come here. So I think it's a good fit. And I'm happy for it to continue. I just hope we can find another Lavia or two.
If Lavia is sold for £50m, which is allegedly what we want, then they'll have got £15m from our transfer fee (I think it was 15m anyway), plus another £10m from their 20% sell on clause. So about £25m for someone who'd never really played in the Premier League before they sold him. I think if that keeps happening, they'll be reasonably happy.
As I understand it they’ve added in transfer fee matching for Shea Charles Unlike Lavia they could match anyones offer and get him before the 2 year buy back kicked in
