It's a squad game so competition for places is always healthy. No footballer worth their salt wants to sit and watch from the bench. Defoe isn't getting any younger either, he'll be 34 (I think) this season so he might well need rested a little bit more than last season. Also gives us something different. He's a handful and decent on the ball as well from what I remember (granted that's limited).
Different players for different situations. Never said I expected him to be a 'bit-part' player. Would you prefer we signed N'Doye for say £2/3m? Prices are inflated this window with the big money coming in anyway. Probably translates to more like £7/8m for Sakho. Remember we paid upwards of £11m for Steven Fletcher, 4 years ago. And as I said before, is he better than Graham, Altidore etc?
£11 million for someone who might not be first 11 is going to be commonplace now. I do wonder though could we not get Ayew for similar, more all round game, more options wide, better goalscorer?
How do you know what the budget is? My guess is that it's been our wage budget that's been the issue in recent years. Bloated contracts for the likes of those mentioned before. We've gotten plenty off the wage budget who were on decent money Brown/Fletcher and we'll be getting rid of plenty more likes of Bridcutt/Buckley. If we've got aspirations of moving away from the relegation zone our budget's probably have to move with that.
Of course i have no idea of what the budget is. Same as you. But im still guessing 11m will be a large chunk of it. I see nothing to change my view.
Senegal International......... When are the African Championships? Could he be involved and therefore out of the Prem Jan/Feb? x
I'd be much happier signing him for £11m than Ayew for more. Paper talk that Swansea want around £15m for him.
Yeah, also Khazri will be away. Both of their countries will be expected to go quite far in the tournament, as well.
i think you're bang on with the latter. I'd be very surprised if he goes with just one up top. sime games yes, but not the ones we want to win. but who will our new 'third (centre) half' be. defo not o'shea.
But did Allardyce not go 3-5-2 because he thought Defoe couldn't play as a lone striker to begin with? I would be very surprised if we play 2 up top. Last season was the first in a while where anyone lined up with anything other than a variation on 4-3-3/4-5-1. Going 4-4-2 and hitting people on the break was why Leicester, and to a lesser extent Bournemouth and Watford, took the league by surprise- everyone else was commited to the one up, possesion-based game. I think it will be a case of either/or with Defoe and Sakho, possibly designed to give us a different option on the bench if one isn't working.
We certainly need another striker option and this lad seems to tick a lot of the boxes...Time will tell eh..
The interesting sentence in the OP is that he and Sam did not always see eye to eye during his time at WHU. If the relationship was not good then why import it now?
West Ham have told to Sunderland to stuff a “joke” offer they have made for Diafra Sakho. Irons insiders told us earlier in the week that no offers have been received for the Senegal front man but today it was reported by Sky News that an £11m bid had been received. And just a few minutes ago a top Hammers soure told ClaretandHugh exclusively: “It’s a joke offer and Sunderland know it – quite ridiculous.” £11 million would not be acceptable anyway and it was far less than that. To be honest it was almost as unbelievable as it could possiby have got.” We were told that Sunderland had attached some totally ridiculous clauses to the offer which meant that to reach the £11m mentioned they would have needed to have stayed up three seasons in a row with Diafra starting a minimum of 30 games every season. The Irons immediately explained that the offer was unacceptable at every level! http://www.claretandhugh.info/irons-reject-joke-sunderland-sakho-bid/? Seems legit
Almost makes the £15m bid for Ayew look worth it Diafra Sakho - 24 games, 7 goals and 1 assist in 15/16 (2 of these against Lusitanos...) - 26 games, 12 goals, 2 assists in 14/15 (6 of these in his first 7 games) Andre Ayew - 35 games, 12 goals, 5 assists in 15/16 (All in the Prem) - 30 games, 11 goals and 6 assists in 14/15 (Ligue 1) If the rumours were true, I'd rather pay the extra couple of million for Ayew and get the assists as well Sakho also missed 17 games last season due to a recurring Hamstring injury... If the lad comes I'll cheer him on but certainly not my first choice
