Our best signings in terms of quality have around the 10 million mark for Bale, Vdv and Peter Crouch. We signed Soldado and Lamela for double their true value so not only over priced but if you include Paulinho we spent near to 77 million on three players who aren't worth the fees paid and where in the high risk category,. If we had signed all three for 30 - 40 Million then I would have been OK with the risk but as soon as you start signing players for a fee much higher then their value then unless they are truly great talents then you increase the chances of them being flops.
I'm pretty sure we had competition for signing all three of them. In a bidding war the winner often pays a bit over the odds but double their true value (which means double what others were prepared to pay, without the benefit of hindsight) - no evidence for that. Having said that the longstanding policy of signing lots of talented younger players in the £5 - £15m range has turned out pretty well. Carrick, Berbatov, Bale and Modric were massive successes but that seemed to grind to a halt when there was no DoF and we had little option last season. Keeping the Bale money in the bank would not have improved the team!
Are we sure there was a bidding war or was it similar to Ebay where the seller has fake accounts to create a '' bidding war'' and up the price to the sole gullible buyer!
SSN saying united have agreed a fee of £30m for Luke shaw. Nothing to do with us, but interesting all the same.
So, if Luke Shaw = £30m, what is Lallana going to cost? (Liverpool or us if you believe the rumours) Surely Lallana would fetch £40m on that exchange rate... I would say United have probably overpaid by about £10m there.
Lambert has already left, now shaw looks to be off. I wonder how this will affect us re Lallana and lovren? Saints have just got a manager in who I very much doubt is going to be happy if every single one of his star players is sold! If we are serious about any of their players, we need to move now. Surely they are going to cap the amount going out?!
they have already said they want to keep Lallana,and won't budge off 30 million,which has put pool off,they value him at 22 million tops
Lallana medical confirmed at Liverpool. That move was always on the cards once England arrived home. Fee reported to be 25 million. The only link to us (was Pochettino) but it was mentioned a few weeks back that we had stated we weren't interested in Lallana. We already have around 77 million worth of talent to show if they are good enough before we start making more mistakes.
Lallana is a very good player but not worth £25m. Over inflated fees for English players. No wonder premier league clubs buy foreign most of the time, which of course is detrimental to the national team. Priority in terms of signings for us are in this order ( in my opinion) 1 - New lb (hopefully Moreno) 2 - New Cb (hopefully Lovern) 3 - New LW/F (Remy, Konoplyanka) 4 - New gk depending wether Archer is ready to step up
"No wonder premier league clubs buy foreign most of the time, which of course is detrimental to the national team." The vicious circle right there.
Konoplyanka could be great, but we're overloaded with wingers at the moment, and that needs to be addressed: Lennon, Townsend, Lamela, Chadli and Falque are all in the first team, and the last time we stockpiled wingers like that was in the Gerry Francis era. Another priority is to sort out the stockpiling of central midfielders that AVB was responsible for. Livermore's already gone, and I've been saying since the end of the season that Dembele's days are numbered and Bentaleb will be taking his place in the team - and thus far the World Cup's made that look like a sound decision.
I've been hoping we'll sell a number of players and get the Modric replacement we need. The question remains who would play with him in a 4-2-3-1. I'd preferred Dembele over Paulinho because Dembele protects the back four better and is more effective in winning the midfield battle. Now I'm wondering about Dembele playing with Bentaleb. I worry that Bentaleb won't get the ball forward fast enough, and know Dembele won't. But Bentaleb wasn't bad at all in a deep lying role last year, and he might just be significantly better at age 20 this year. Another possibility would be to sell both Dembele and Paulinho and keep Bentaleb along with the Modric replacement.
If you can remember one of Dembeles early performances, away to Man Utd when he looked immense, he peaked early and gradually became less effective until he briefly found his place, give the ball to Bale! Now, he looks great in short bursts but isn't much more then a skillful ball carrier with great strength. In the right system that could be ideal but so far in his career he's been signed as a striker, winger and central midfielder and still no one has decided on his role. He doesn't know his best position and if Pochettino keeps Dembele, he will be the next manager to try and find his best role in the team. If he is sold I won't be disappointed!
Dembele is an enigma isnt he? As you have just said BOSS he plays in bursts where he looks like a world beater then he goes missing. He has a great build, quick over the first yard, difficult at knocking off the ball and has great skill. He will beat his man easily then not know what to do next. This is a huge season for Dembele, he really needs to kick on now, hopefully Poch can get the best out of him because if he can we will have one of the best midfielders in Europe.
Part of the answer is that he's strong to the degree the opposition is. It's not mainly effort level, I think, primarily. It's that he'll repel attacks in midfield like few other players, then bring the ball safely though slowly forward. It 's just what you want against teams trying to attack you, but that same slow and cautious approach will blunt your own attacks. It's an enigma to deal with, but I'm thinking it makes him the perfect partner for a Modric replacement. The Modric replacement should get the ball forward quickly against weaker teams and when we need a goal, Dembele should bring it forward slowly and cautiously against stronger teams and when we're ahead. If he could also make periodic forays forward into the box, where he's very dangerous because he's so hard to dispossess, it would be ideal.
We're being linked with a £6m move for Swansea's Ben Davies today. That seems overly cheap for a very good, young, homegrown left-back. Swansea and Southampton are both having a fairly large number of their better players picked off, apparently.
