Holtby's loan being made permanent apparently. No shock, but a real shame showed real enthusiasm when he played.
Great attitude but just lacked the ability to make a real difference. Showed a few glimpses of what he could do but Eriksen's arrival was always going to make it difficult for him. Wish him all the best.
Its odd about Holtby because he's surely a Pochettino player because of his excellent attitude. I can only think that he was wanting more playing time than we could afford him as Eriksen's backup. I assume we're going to make more than the £1.5 mill we spent on him though so its probably a good business decision at least.
I can't think where they got that lead from... http://www.not606.com/threads/totte...w-2014-15-edition.286743/page-10#post-7482951
Yeah, 100% I'd say. A player of Holtby's ability is probably worth £10m, though the fact he's had limited game time with us and has been out on loan twice will aid as a bargaining tool for the other club, so I reckon a likely fee would be about £6m with possibly a couple of add-ons.
Who the hell is Bacca? I think Ings would make a decent signing and we need another striker as Ade appears to be done at Spurs... again! I'd rather we went for Berahino though, like Kane he can play behind the striker or out wide if needed and the more we can mix it up with those two I think the more we'll see the best of them. I also think Berahino would get more out of Soldado as we don't carry enough of a threat in the box but Berahino has the pace and smart movement to give the opposition something to think about. Benteke would still be my number 1 choice but there doesn't appear to be any noise on that front.
Strictly that only makes signing him a good decision. We won't find out whether selling him was until we see what he is worth in a few years.
As much as I like Holtby and his attitude, I don't think he's going to crack the top tier of players to be honest. Eriksen has way more potential to do that. Holtby is 24 and I just feel that, no matter how good his attitude is, we'd need to have seen more in terms of sheer quality from him by now to see a big increase in transfer fee from this point on. More time on loan or sitting on the bench is only going to lower his value now IMO. On Benteke, I wouldn't go near him until he is fit and scoring regularly again. He'd command a big fee even now and its too much of a risk for us.
Carlos Bacca, Columbian striker who plays for Sevilla. One one hand his stats are very impressive (21 goals in 52 games last season, 11 goals in 20 this season - plus 28 in 44 at Brugge a couple of seasons back), although our recent record of signing La Liga strikers who regularly bang them in isn't that impressive...
It doesn't make sense for them too imo. The £9m is a tad high considering his contract is coming to and end, i reckon it would be £4-5m. Better to keep that money for now (they'll get it back via tribunal anyway) and hope he fires them to prem safety. They'd be nuts to let him go now
And he’s the one I thought we might have some chance of getting. It’s probably just as well, what with Messi, Bale and Dzeko on their way. Holtby could be a very useful squad player for us. I love his attitude and will always have a soft spot for him since I watched his best game at WHL (three assists against Troezen, I think). But he would want to start, and there’s no question in my mind that Eriksen is better at his best position. Holtby has an excellent footballing brain (and attitutude) but his other skills don’t compare to Erikson’s. Put Holtby as CAM in a well-organized team and he could rack up points though. The one thing he does really well, which is send people the wrong way, could be just the thing for some teams.
Suppose there's two ways of looking at it from Burnley's point of view. Ings has been really good lately and so selling him could be costly to the side's chances of retaining Prem status. However with his contract ending soon and if we or anyone else were to offer the quoted £9m, then realistically is that too good an offer to turn down on someone they will lose for free in the Summer? I know you mentioned they'll get a fee from the tribunal but is that usually any good? Especially as Ings has only been with Burnley for about 4 years after signing from Bournemouth, I think I read that a tribunal is based on the x amount of years a player has been trained at a club plus a forecasted future success figure which never usually amounts to too much from what I've seen in recent years. Also should they accept a transfer bid January, it can help them buy either a good replacement or maybe use it to buy 2 or 3 to strengthen the squad. It's a tough call, ultimately I'm sure Burnley would rather have Ings sign a new deal and that'll be the end to it - especially as then they could command a higher fee if they did decide to sell down the line - but it's a crap situation to be in when you know a key player's deal is running out soon and therefore a big decision needs to be made on whether to take the final chance of receiving a substantial sum or keeping the asset for an extra 6 months only to then lose for what will likely be peanuts for a Prem side.
Juventus supposedly preparing an offer for Paulinho in the region of £12m-15m. Should we split the difference, accept £13.5m for him, and get cracking on fixing what needs to be fixed?
I wouldn't want to get rid of more than a player or two, considering we're still alive in all competitions and seem to be improving unsteadily. #3, 4 and 5 on our goals/assists per minute list are Soldado, Lamela and Paulinho. Soldado is looking more like the one player who can in effect replace Eriksen. Those three plus Kane, Chadli, Eriksen and Townsend are all at a goal/assist per 2 games or less. So the only real disappointment in terms of production of our attacking players are Adebayor and Lennon (I know Soldado, Lamela and Paulinho all haven't lived up to their price tags, but the fact remains that they've produced important goals and helped us win quite a number of important games this year.) We have just enough deeper lying players at the moment with Bentaleb gone and Mason injured, so I wouldn't want to sell Capoue. Of our defenders, Kaboul, unfortunately, doesn't look good enough. I would look to send him, Lennon and Ade on, though I doubt anyone wants the latter's salary.
It doesn't matter a fig what Burnley do in the transfer market because they'll be going down soon anyway. They are an up and down team and always have been.
