Seems a reasonable fee. He’s not exactly young and whilst he’s shown to be prolific in lesser leagues like Belgium and Turkey I’d assume teams in better and wealthier leagues would look at his time with us and conclude he’s not worth spending what we did on him. Not really fussed by Goztepe getting some players. Definitely better in the long run if they get better and if any of the 3 turn out any good then maybe a path to Saints in the future Was thinking about maybe sending some of our youngsters to Goztepe or Valenciennes if we can’t find them better loans. No idea if they would be good enough to play regularly in their leagues either though
While I don't particularly like the morality issues surrounding a multi-club model and I lean towards saying the should not be allowed to exist, I don't really buy into the 'if it doesn't benefit us [SFC], why do it' mentality. Firstly, it's not our money or Southampton FC's money really, it's Sport Republic (Dragan Solak) funds - so if they cannot get a buyer at asking price for the asset, or a deal which they feel benefits the primary club (Saints) then why not negotiate a deal whereby a second team in the ownership group can benefit, rather than one club in the ownership group just taking a huge hit on the fee with a sub-optimal deal? And, as Schad says, perhaps Trabzonspor need to clear salary commitments on other players to be able to take Onuachu's salary (or a higher % of the salary off of Saints' books for accounting purposes). In turn, that means Saints can get the player off the payroll permanently rather than with repeating loans. In which case, the benefits are: - Goztepe absorb some salaries so that Saints don't have to, to facilitate a deal to happen between Saints + Trabzonspor - Goztepe gain some Super Lig experienced players to make them better/deeper after promotion - Saints get rid of Onuachu's salary or more salary than they would've done - Saints also receive a fee in the process and don't have to repeatedly loan Paul out until the contract ends (as we have had to previously with crap signings)
If the fee is truly 15m (which I doubt, but let's use it as the theory here) it puts Onuachu just outside the top 10 most expensive signings of all-time in Turkish league history. I can't see that figure being true, but we are by no means losing out if we get that kind of fee. We clearly massively overpaid out of desperation after missing several other targets and signed a player who is very obviously not PL standard - and certainly not suited to Russell Martin's tactical approach. I don't think there is a club in the world who would give us our 20m back for Onuachu, so if the negotiating position flexes to 'we'll take whatever the maximum fee you can put down is, but only if Goztepe get some new players out of it too' then I think that's fine. And I don't like multi-club models. I would agree if we were accepting a low fee (or certainly notably lower than competing offers) but it seems pretty straightforward here that there is not a cash-rich market for Onuachu and his main interest will only be from a few Turkish clubs who cannot pay PL money for players.
Yeah, one of the things we understand the least, likely because of relegation, is how we actually intend to implement the multi-club thing. But that being said, I'd be very shocked if the goal is to prioritize Gotzepe, for the simple reason that it makes no ****ing sense whatsoever. They are a far smaller club with a much lower ceiling (financially and competitively) and the idea that we're going to shift resources from Saints to Gotzepe defies all logic.
I see no issue with the multi-club model in terms of purely ownership. Not too keen on Red Bull shoehorning a brand on clubs with histories, but aside from that it’s only likely to benefit every club within that group if run well
Leeds fans like him a lot. Most likely isn’t good enough for Spurs but would be a good option for the teams listed.
Sent to one of my mates who is a Spurs STH and his response was 'I actually liked him when he played for us. He'd be solid for a bottom half side, just not a top 6/8 defender.'
Edson Alverez picked up a bad injury last night playing for Mexico. That will probably make the Flynn Downes transfer alot more difficult to do.