But brings us back to... do we get a better player than Gnonto for £9m - or as you're suggesting is it a sacrifice worth making to just contribute to the kitty towards that better player. Maybe we should call it, better player for our current needs.
I’d be reluctant to sell Gnonto as he seems one of the few players we have who can run and take on defenders, Okafor being another. Dan James though he’s quick, I can’t recall him dribbling past many.
I like Gnonto. Think he has premier league control and his link up play is good. Think okafor is more likely to do something ‘individual’ and Gnonto more a team player, but I wouldn’t sell him either unless we had someone clearly better coming in to replace him.
To be honest the fact we were in for Wilson suggests we already had the kitty for him and I can’t imagine he’d have been anymore than 10m. To bring in more players we have to sell some as we have a squad of 25, getting rid of Meslier would allow for Wilson. Then we have Wilson, James, Okafor & Harrison as our wing players. Wilson also provides competition for Aaronson if we wanted to play a 10. The only other player we’d get money for but wouldn’t actually lose anything is Gnoto (because he hasn’t played) and I don’t think he’s what we need. He could turn into a world beater but I’ve not seen enough to start him over James or Okafor and as we’d get nothing for Harrison Gnoto is the only one that makes sense. If we got 9m in for him and that Japanese lad from Celtic is 15-20m spread over a couple of years that sorts PSR and we have a player that can play left wing or 9 and is already playing CL. Feels like a bit of a no brainer really. But as you’ve said this needs to be in place prior to selling, if we’re getting rid and then scrambling around to find someone then we may as well keep Gnoto. I’d have the Gnoto deal basically sorted, bring in the new player & then sanction the Gnoto deal.
