10 goals, 7 assists this season. Earlier in the season I remember some people (Libby was one I think) said we should consider big offers if they came in for him. I'm sorry but I completely disagree. There's no way we should entertain any offers for him this summer at the very least. His value to the team when we're not firing up front is immense. It's also great fun to see the opposing fans ****ting themselves when we get a free kick anywhere near the box.
It's one of those where his value to us is so much more than it would be to any potential buyers. So the prices they'd offer we should reject, and the prices we'd demand they should reject. (The same was true of Ings, it just happened Villa didn't reject it!)
And unlike Ings, Prowise has a long contract here. It would take a 100mill plus offer to make us even consider it. And no one will offer that.
This is if JWP doesn't want or push for a move. If say Liverpool came in and he went to the board and told them he really wanted to move I think we would either try and get one more year then let him go, or potentially even just let him go. No way we would hold him against his wishes if he was to start kicking up a fuss, not that I think he would, but we all loved Lallana at one point and that went sour.
Yeah remains to be seen if he would do something like this, to my knowledge there hasn’t been any real interest in him previously. Of course that could be because he/his agent has made it clear he wouldn’t move so the club moved on to another target quickly or it could be that none of the big boys wanted him If one does want him and we block the move then we kind of go against our entire philosophy as a club so I would assume we would be relatively reasonable with our demands.
You'll be relieved to know that Garth Crooks is selling him to Liverpool again in his team of the week...
His team of the week is a deliberate bait article anyway, he makes it deliberately irritating for attention and it works. That’s what I am choosing to believe anyway…
Also he releases it about an hour after the final whistle of the Sunday game so obviously won’t have been able to watch anything more than short highlights of all the games. So no wonder he just picks goal scorers
There were a few runours that Villa were set to offer £40m for him a year or so ago. Shortly after he signed the big 5 year deal so make of that what you will. Imo I would love him to stay and be a club legend but have been let down all too often by players. I worry he is just too perfect a replacement for the ageing Jordan Henderson. Our saving grace could be that with other English CMs supposedly on the market such as Bellingham, Rice and Kalvin Phillips the big clubs may go for one of them instead.
I would say that those 3 you have listed are all better than JWP and potentially more viable for the bigger teams as well. I remember the Villa link, I don’t think he would be looking to really force a move like that. One of the top 6 he might be more forceful, who knows. I don’t think any of the top teams will really want him, Newcastle is the team who we should be worried about/looking to fleece
Could not agree more. He is invaluable to us and is on his way to club legend status. I believe without his goal involvements this season we would be in 18th position.
For the fee we would want I would expect Liverpool to just increase it and get Bellingham given his age and potential
Rice and Billingham yes. But i dont think Kalvin Phillips is as good as JWP. Rice Bellingham JWP Phillips. Although considering Bellingham is still only 18, I think he will be the best of the lot eventually.
