I couldn’t help but think this when Kalvin Phillips was in his advanced role at the euros. And everyone was waxing lyrical about him. But is he really much better than JWP at this? And James is far more experienced (albeit not in that role). And adds the set pieces to the side
And there isn’t a space at Chelsea or City. And weirdly Liverpool have not once been linked despite wanting to replace Wijnaldum
Liverpool or United or could probably do with him. I just can't see any club at all paying what we'd want.
This is my thinking as well. I think for £10m you could pick up some very good players from Europe, so if we could get £50m+ and it is re invested in the team I think we COULD be a fair bit better than just keeping JWP. After all we are pretty **** with him in the team
I’m the other end of the scale, I wouldn’t sell Prowse for anything less than three figures. Not that I think he is worth that, but losing him would be so unbelievably detrimental to us. I also feel with the clubs record, £50m isn’t enough to ensure we would adequately replace Prowse and sign another quality player - which makes any move redundant.
You are focusing on our record with the Van Dijk money which was different management (I mean higher up) Last year we brought in Salisu, Diallo, KWP and a loan for Walcott. And that was something like 36m (wages not factored). So on that basis I wouldn’t be worried about what we would do with 50m or more I don’t think spending wisely is the issue It is more the notion of selling your captain to another mid table team. That alone really should put a premium on the price
Bit depressing that we used to lose our good players to Liverpool.man utd.arsenal. now we have villa bidding for our captain
It’s not depressing in the least. First, it’s good that other clubs see his value, but more importantly, we said, very emphatically, that he’s not for sale.
Love ward prowse to pieces and was gutted when Phillips was picked over him but after watching him at the euros and from MOTD I do think Phillips plays with more attacking intent then JWP and is a stronger tackler despite JWP turning into a boss at this. He reminds me more of romeu with his risky tackles that get a yellow but rarely get a red. That being said we cannot sell JWP. He is the key player in our team with incredible fitness, motivation and free kick abilities, if he was able to transition counter attacking moves more regularly into attacking plays he would be the ones man city are looking at.
Villa might have all the money but unless they spend it well they’re also strong relegation candidates without Grealish. Other than for a significant pay rise there is little appeal for any EPL player to go there this summer
“Strong relegation candidates” might be a bit strong. They have a phenomenal goalkeeper (exponentially better than both of ours) and a solid CB partnership who seem to have been bolstered by the goalie behind them. Not sure who comes in for them if they get an injury there I guess Watkins went on a long goal drought after a solid start and they’d really rely on Buendia recreating championship form to replace Grealish’s creativity. I say this because I expect any wide player they do get as a replacement to be a less creative type (just based on the links more than anything)
Grealish set for a medical next week. Feel for Villa fans, they’ll be sick at the thought. Been there with Lallana.
Well there is one of the big moves which could open up the market a bit. Interesting to see how Villa go about spending the money
For me, Grealish is a weird one for City to blow their money on. Smashing their record transfer on a position that is arguably their strongest in quality and depth. I thought that if they were going to go big on a transfer it was going to be Haaland or Kane. It would take that money again to sign a striker like that and surely they need a striker. Are they going to go from not spending more than 60m on a player to buying two 100m+ players in one window?
Would there be a meltdown if they handed the entire Grealish fee over to us for those two? Or even most of it? They won’t of course but they certainly aren’t going to get any fellow premier league players on the cheap with 100m extra sitting in their bank
Pep is notorious for not using strikers . He had two of the best a Barca and swapped one (Eto’o) for the other (Ibra) and didn’t get the best out of him I distinctly remember how hard he initially tried to phase Aguero out for Jesus. And I mean really really tried until it was obvious how stupid that was. So perhaps they have no intention of signing an out and out striker . Wasn’t aguero injured most of last season and they won the league at a canter ? Maybe Grealish will be a false 9? Who really knows with Pep