As the window draws to a close, I find myself asking how it’s so difficult to get rid of those who are surplus to requirements? For some, this isn’t the first window where we’d ideally have liked to have sold them. I mean, are they THAT bad that no one wants them? All jokes aside, there’s premier league quality players amongst the “deadwood”, and some who are more than capable of playing for another club that’s better suited to a different system from Ange’s. the time in which it’s taken to get rid of these players (for whatever reason) has become such an Achilles heel for us. so much still to do in the next few days.
I think the main issue is that there are too many average players on money that clubs outside the PL can’t afford. Wages tend to be the issue rather than fees. And we’re not good at selling to other PL clubs. I don’t think we have sold a player to another PL club since Sissoko to Watford. We did KWP to Southampton the year before that. Prior to Walker’s move to City we did it more regularly per a brief scan of Wiki. This is significant because PL clubs can more easily match or get near the wages some of these players are on. Whether that’s Levy policy or a feature of all PL clubs becoming more savvy with transfers as the general level as risen I’m not sure. I said the other day that I think we took some big bets (Sanchez, Tanguy) that we haven’t been able to move on because leagues outside the PL have not seen the same growth in overall revenue that was perhaps expected towards the end of the 2010s, and of course Covid hit every club. We have a lot that I would like us to do after last night’s demonstration. The first XI is in decent shape aside from some deficiencies in the forward line. I think the backup FBs and GK are fine for season 1. CMs it’s harder to tell, because we don’t know if Ange sees Bentancur as a 6 or an 8. If the former we can sell Hojbjerg without too many concerns, if the latter then we need another player to back Bissouma up. I’m fine with the other midfield options but all of the second string playing at once looks like too much disjointment and too much of a quality gap against PL opposition. This is perhaps to be expected. The big gaps aside from working out the midfield combinations and not rotating as much as we did last night are at backup CB and wingers. I have concerns (though it’s early days) at Kulu’s ability to get separation from his marker when he doesn’t have space to run at and momentum. Same with Son to a lesser extent. 9 is really where we need a better option. I think the backup wingers are good fits for what Ange wants. I think ultimately we’ll try and get 2 of Dier, Tanganga and Sanchez out, along with Reggie and Hojbjerg, the latter of which will command a decent fee. Spence is obviously on his way and Lloris needs a solution too. From there we’ll need a CB who is preferably comfortable on both sides, a winger/forward (I’m assuming Ange will try Sonny more centrally which isn’t my preferred solution but what I think is in his mind) and maybe a CM. I think the strong PL results so far have built a lot of optimism and goodwill but it’s important to remember that transforming the massively bloated squad we had was never going to be a one window job and would always take time. Thinking about it long term, if we can trim the squad this year and take advantage of the lack of European (and now LC) football to get Europa League or higher, then we’re more likely going to be able to attract a higher quality of player (particularly striker) for the long term rather than taking another expensive gamble this summer that might not pay off, as others haven’t done in the past. Rome wasn’t built in a day and we might have to muddle through a bit this season.
18:30 Leeds confirm Spence on loan Leeds United have confirmed the signing of Djed Spence from Tottenham. The full-back moves to Elland Road on a season-long loan deal, becoming the club’s sixth summer arrival. The loan fee is said to be in the region of £1m. Spence made six appearances for Spurs last term, before joining Ligue 1 side Stade Rennais back in January, who he helped to a fourth placed finish. The 23-year-old could make his debut this weekend when Leeds host Sheffield Wednesday.
Good move for Spence. Hopefully he and Rodon help Leeds get up and we can have them take both off our hands next summer.
Apparently Levy has turned down an £8m offer from Rennes for Sanchez, this is why we struggle to shift players, he should be biting their hand off to get rid of a player who is clearly not good enough and who also needs to leave to free up squad spaces.
Dier apparently has no intention of leaving which leaves us in a bit of a jam. The Germany news in the last 24hrs seems far fetched. In an ideal world we’d probably sell Japh and Dier before Sanchez but we can’t manifest offers from nowhere and it’s hard to force players out when they seem to want to stay despite not being in squads.
Lord help us if Ange sees Sanchez as our back up CB, Dier does not fit the style of play and Tanganga is on a similar level to Sanchez. If another top class CB does not arrive in the next 3 days we should all be worried.
The biggest issue is that Covid financially crippled various leagues, most obviously La Liga and Serie A, so while in the past it was possible to move players on to teams in the band that would finish between 4th and 8th such as Villarreal, Fiorentina, Sevilla, Lazio et al and be done with it, but those are the clubs who are now experiencing the financial bubble those leagues operated under bursting more than anyone else as they don't have Champions League cash to support them while also not being used to operating on a shoestring like the teams in the band below them such as Celta Vigo or Bologna So basically that leaves us either trying to move deadwood on to clubs with Champions League cash which is probably not going to happen, other Premier League clubs which is only going to happen if we take a bath on what we paid for them, or we just loan them out in the hope that we raise their value either to the club we loaned them to or another club they may catch the interest of In our case this summer, the biggest issue is that we played two(ish) seasons with a defence-minded coach, and their tactics exposed the weaknesses of at least two players we're trying to shift this summer so generating interest for Dier or Sanchez in particular is a Herculean effort as most scouts' first impression would be the brainfarts they routinely made in that system
Depends what you mean by difficult. Difficult in the sense that its hard to find buyers who want your players are the fee levy deems acceptable to them leaving. The players you have bought in are 1. not good enough hence you are trying to sell and 2. have fairly high wages. This puts off the big clubs and only the smaller clubs are willing to have a gamble. I think there were offers put in for sanchez, ndombele at the very least and definite interest in spence and gil. At less than 10 million (even though they would be off your wage book) levy has said no as it is not worth it for him and he'd rather loan them up and hope they impress to bring their fee up. If you really wanted to get rid of players you would let them go for cheap but its understandable that you don't want to just take a loss (Aurier and Doherty were let go on a free eventually as they couldn't find buyers)
Dan KP done an article a couple of days back and said that Levy is still known for asking too much for players. The fact we know that yesterday we rejected a €9m bid for Sanchez certainly backs up he’s still expecting more money for deadwood. €9m is €8.5m too much for that donkey and the fact he could’ve been in France having a medical instead of putting in yet another calamitous performance for us just sums up everything that’s been bad about this club over the last 5 years.
Definitely we need a better third choice but we would still need a fourth choice and Sanchez is better than Tanganga or Dier in Ange's system.
obviously ange agrees with this (i think since he played him) I'm not sure about that myself personally. Anges system requires you to be comfortable on the ball. Sanchez is an absolute donkey on the ball. His benefits are he is strong, tenacious and is physically great. His weaknesses are his technical ability and his concentration (imo). Dier is actually good on the ball. Again his issue is his concentration and both of them have a major mistake in them a match. If you had to give me one out of the two i wouldn't know who to choose.
Romano says we’re in talks with Barca over a loan for Fati and Barca want 100% of his wages covered. Very surprised he’s not really part of Xavi’s plans, he burst onto the scene and became one of Europe’s hottest prospects. I wonder if there’s a way we could send Lo Celso on loan in the opposite direction and both clubs will have options/ obligations triggered into the deals to make them permanent with both players covering the transfer fee of the other?
As you say, Ange has chosen though. Yet people want Levy to back Ange's judgement by selling Sanchez.
I think peoples concerns are more than ange may have chosen him out of dier and tangaga but ange doesn't really want him either else he wouldn't be open to offers for him. They want levy to get a proper back up in
I think you’d pick Dier for Conte and Sanchez for Ange though neither are perfect by any means for either. The key is the difference in recovery pace. I think Ange has picked Sanchez as backup from the current crop but the reasoning for selling is that we could do better. Dier will likely stay and leave on a free next year but Ange clearly doesn’t fancy him as anything other than a last resort. I’d be surprised if Tanganga can’t find a move on a loan at the least by the end of the window. He has no future here and needs to play. It’s easy to say in an ideal world what we would like to happen but harder for that to happen in real life.
