Bayern Munich want Sadio Mané

Might go on strike like he did at his last club.

 

You do like to contradict yourself within the same post don't you Tintin. It's quite an art

 

I like Mane, but I doubt we could get 30m for him. If we could, I wouldn't be too upset to see him go.

 

As discussed on Saintsweb:
"Because Manchester Ángel Di María and Atlético Madrid Antoine Griezmann are so expensive, the Bayern bosses videos of Sadio Mané from Southampton were put together. Mané is worth according transfermarkt.de 14 million, however, is considered as not simple character."
Bayern obviously don't know about "The Saints Premium" if they think they can snap Sadio up for a rather pathetic 14M Euros, double it in pounds and I think we should start talking

 

Eh? Sam Vokes to Bayern or am I reading that wrong..?

 

Please don't tell me that you didn't see that as satirical?

 

Thought we wanted to cut out the diving!

 

I don't see to much concern here Bayern would have bought him from Salzburg if they had plans involving him - not wait for a £20m premium to develop on his head and buy him within one season. The money wouldn't put them off, but they'd need to see another season at least. The record hat trick would have put him in international news, though; as would have the AFCON had he been fit. But let's not pretend all these players aren't on most team's radars anyway.

Anyway, these boffins don;t have him down as one of the most likely transfers: http://www.cityam.com/217546/qprs-c...-europe-be-transferred-summer-says-new-study?

Infact, Pelle is in the top ten, and he's for me one of our least likely players to go. Let's not forget, newspapers don't know the first thing when it comes to any of this - hence why we see rumours appearing that have been doing the rounds for about three seasons, and why we can find stories like this online left, right, and, yes, even centre: http://metro.co.uk/2013/11/01/chels...eyenoord-goal-machine-graziano-pelle-4170387/

 

I would. Even for £30m. I think he's got potential to be an exceptional player for us, and when they come along, regardless of price, I'd rather keep them.

 

Agreed. There aren't a lot of Sadio Manes out there, fewer still that are likely to end up here. He was our best attacking player for much of the season, and at 23 there's reason to believe that there's improvement still to come. If we want to make a run at cracking the top tier of the table, we need his dynamism.

I don't think we'll have him for long, but we should be aiming to keep him for as long as possible. The money can wait.

 

If it were a different player, I might agree.

But I still think Mane is a bit of a hot potato. He showed up late to one of the most important matches of the season. I'm not investing 30m in that. Besides if someone were to offer 30m for him, I suspect he would go "on strike" or otherwise pout his way out.

30m is an awesome price. We bought Mane for what, like 10? So go out and see if you can find three more Manes. If you are wrong on two and right on one you still break even, hopefully with someone who isn't as much of a headcase.

It doesn't matter anyway, though. Since I wonder if Munich is really interested, and doubt they would pay that much.

 

Mane is our most valuable commodity right now

 

Do you think the Spurs fans would have rather the £85m or Bale last season. Or Liverpool fans and Suarez? I'd far rather have Mane than the £30m sloshing about.

 

Keep Mane for another year, gets us 15 goals next season, leave for 40 million.

 

Or keep him on for our assault on the CL the following season, which we qualified for with the help of those 15 goals. Why this desperate rush to move out best players on!?

 

Even if it were this simple, you absolutely do not break even in that scenario. If the other two are busts, you're now paying the wages/bonuses/etc of three Sadio Manes for the production of one. Over time, that's how you end up in wage bill hell.

And if we want to be good...really, really good, we simply have to stop flogging our best players. No recruitment staff in the world is going to be able to consistently replace one's best midfielder, best defender and best attacker, plus potentially another key defender, as we'd likely be looking at. Missteps are inevitable when making that many changes annually, and it reinforces the message with players that we exist primarily to showcase talent before spinning them off to our betters for a bit of extra cash.

 

Well, we got Morgan for 1m, so clearly if we sell all of our best players for 80m, we can buy 80 Morgans!!!

 

Not giving much credence to these rumours but I wouldn't take £30m for Mane (Though I wouldn't be upset if he went for that), almost purely because the thought of Ron putting him, JRod and Tadic as a three behind the striker and getting them balanced right gets me a bit excited in my nether regions. If we can get those three ticking whilst keeping our good shape it could be brilliant to watch, and them with a midfield two of Morgan/Clasie/Other and JWP/Davis (If he gets his form back) might just be enough firepower and creativity to lessen the pain inflicted on us by teams parking the bus. Obviously Vic starts 30+ games but that might be the way forward for those games where we know going into it 90% of our focus is just going to be breaking down the opposition.

Mane is still a bit unpredictable on and off the pitch but he is one those vital players who can create a spark or make something out of nothing and we should fight as hard as we can to keep that as I don't think replacing that is an easy thing to do even with £30m in your coffers.

 

Of course missteps are inevitable. That doesn't mean you just stop investing.

I'm amused you think we have some say in whether we sell our best players. We're not flogging our best players, they are being taken away from us. Pretty sure we wanted to keep Lovren, Lallana, Shaw, and Chambers. And Schneiderlin. And Clyne. How's that going?

Mane has sent out every signal that if a bigger club wants him, he'll be leaving. If that happens, I think it is unlikely we would get 30m for him because 1) he's not THAT good, and 2) everyone will know we have to sell.

 

Interesting to note that it's not just the PL that are taking an interest in Southampton. I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that we are turning into a finishing school. We buy cheap and train up the next generation of superstars. If Mane goes I guess JRod or Gallagher will step up to the mark.