I don't care what you say Carra, Murray is a goal scorer. He's not fashionable or tricky or pacey, but he scores goals. Very much in the same mould as Holt. 7 in 17 last season, after being out for over a year with an injury, is a good return.
He's not as all action as Holt, for sure. But he plies the same role. Running channels, holding balls up and generally being the one that finishes off a move (Though having Zaha and Bolasie to supply you is pretty handy).
Sorry Colk but I really would not be keen on Glenn Murray for anything more than a couple of million. Certainly not in exchange for Grabban. I'm not really a Grabban fan, but he's much more interesting than Murray - we don't have the wingers or other crossing ability for him
I agree that it's more than likely tosh, but don't forget that RvP was 29 when Man U bought him. As Neil himself said the other day, a player is at their peak 28-32, and especially looking at his style you wouldn't say he's reliant on pace, but has very quick feet. He's got another few years in him and he is at the top of his game. Getting someone with his CV for £5.5m would be a great bit of business from a footballing perspective, but I accept wouldn't really give us much of a sell-on opportunity. Sometimes you have to accept that though - you need players to hit the ground running, you can't make a profit on every single one because some of them end up like RvW. And £5.5m isn't that much in this day and age. But it's really a moot point because as you say it would be unlikely I'm just saying if it did happen I wouldn't be disappointed straight away
Fair comment Rob, I just thought that I'd never see the day when City would spend £ 5.5M for no return ........................oh hang on, there is a certain Dutchman
I suppose it depends on your definition of a "return". If we were to sign this chap and he bangs in the goals which keep us up then this would in itself be sufficient of a return on our investment. If we spend £5.5m on a younger striker and he fails to score the goals to keep us up then we would get very little return from him either - your above point about RvW being a good case in point. Any transfer signing at our level has an element of being a bit of a punt about it regardless of the age of the player in question. I agree that all things being equal you'd rather take a 24 year old who has the potential to improve and be sold on at a profit but in today's market £5.5m is fairly small beer for a striker and we are not going to get a player of similar ability but younger with room to improve further for that sort of cash. Unless we pick up more excellent free agents this summer we are going to have to spend pretty big to get players who are significantly better than what we have bearing in mind we have a lot of squad members with plenty of Premier League experience and international caps to their names. Our resources are finite and so we may need to compromise by buying older players with less resale value in some areas. That said the bloke is only 29 so you'd hope he'd have a few more miles in his boots yet.
I remain unconvinced. He's only going to get worse at his age and we dont really need this type of player.
Not sure about Mbokani. On the one hand his goalscoring record pretty much throughout his career is very good. He's played in several leagues and produced the goods, and said himself that he thinks his style of play is best suited to the German or English leagues. I think he'd be able to slot into Jerome's role, and if not then Cameron is still a good option. Against that, £5.5m is a fair wedge for a player you'd think would have little sell on value. I totally get the point about him being worth it if he keeps us up, but there are other strikers in the world! He was supposedly the highest paid player in Belgium before he went to Kiev, and I can't imagine his salary wasn't increased in that move. He apparently also wants out because he doesn't agree with the managers rotation policy. Whether that could translate to a bad influence in the dressing room, who knows? Not a signing I'd be vehemently against, but equally it doesn't come without some risks. When we're fighting against many similar clubs for signings though, perhaps we'll have to take some risks.
Sorry Carrabuh, how old was Holt when we signed him? And he most certainly got better. Martin Peters came here all those years ago because Spurs thought he was finished. One of, if not the, best signings our club has ever made. And he actually played more games for us than for Spurs.
