tajjuk

Loans don't see how they get counted seeing as they are usually at good clubs and are highly rated at those clubs. So Gibbs-white, Gallagher, Loftus-Cheek those are people who have played PL level before in the case of RLC or GW for much better clubs (also GIbbs-White didn't get relegated with Sheff Utd, he is on loan from Wolves this season). Mitrovic is a meh one because he's consistently not done great at PL level. You say he has scored more PL goals than Che, but for a start to my recollection he took pens (it's like saying Toney has done much better than Che this year, but he hasn't, same amount of open play goals from the same amount of games) and really aren't we looking to improve on Che? Ramsdale yeh, but then everyone thought it was a hilarious signing by Arsenal and most people weren't seeing it. Pickford I'll give you. Both young players though, who had been highly rated, played at England youth levels etc. so I'll come back to that in a minute. Sander Berge is yet to prove anything at PL level, he's still young so could come good, but seems massively overpriced. The ones that maybe you could say might be worth a go are the young players, at least there is potential there, especially if they have shown signs of talent, have England youth caps etc. but people were talking about like Tarkowski or Mee etc. people in their late 20s, if not 30s. Jonny Evans yes. Ayew? hardly done much for Palace 14 PL goals 121 games proving that hes probably not PL quality right there. Shaqiri was a waste of space for a lot of his time at Stoke, bench warmed at Liverpool and is now in the retirement home that is the MLS at just 30 years old...... Sessegnon is a Spurs bench warmer, he was also like 18 when Fulham got relegated. Troare is not wanted by Wolves. He also got relegated twice before he became semi-decent and even now at 26 hasn't really proven himself to be PL quality IMO, didn't he spend a whole season not scoring and not getting an assist? He only managed 2 assists and no goals in 17 games for Barcelona FFS, I mean our fans despair over Redmond but he's way more productive than that. Townsend? He's really not that good, he scores the odd banger now and then but that is about it. Robertson, Maguire, Pickford, Ings, and Trippier yes, but all were pretty young when they got relegated and to much knowledge most had played some international football, Ings iirc even got capped for England. Feel a lot of those are a stretch to say they are 'Good' players and I feel many prove they were not in fact good enough. Not exactly a huge list especially as you are going back in some cases like 10 years to find examples. I think generally, aside the odd example, any established (i.e. non-youngster) in a team that gets relegated is not worth buying. Gambling on a young player coming good who's been part of a relegated team, especially if they have been rated elsewhere like getting England youth caps then yeh I can see it. But buying like Ben Mee equivalent, not seeing it. People saying don't generalise, but the facts say otherwise, most players playing for relegated clubs clearly show they are not good enough and are not worth buying. If they have maybe been stand out in the team that got relegated, which both Ings and Wijnaldum were in those teams, but in recent years how many Burnley, Bournemouth, Sheff Utd, Norwich, Fulham etc. players have looked stand out in those teams? Basically none. We are talking about us as mid table PL club going shopping in the relegated teams and getting players that would improve us. Generally that won't be the case and rarely has been the case.

Are they? Based on what, you are talking about a main component of a Burnley side that got relegated and was a regular fixture in the relegation battle most years. Dennis a guy who has so far had about 6 months of decent PL form. Mitrovic who has consistently proven himself to be too good for the championship and not good enough for the PL, hence why he is still at Fulham. Jao Pedro who, ok he's 20 and seems highly rated, but so far has not done much, getting relegated from the prem twice and hardly being on fire in the Championship. Plus pretty telling IMO that he has no Brazil youth caps seeing as half of Brazil seems to get an U20 cap. Berge who was Sheff Utds record transfer, got relegated with them and is still there. Same with Lerma, still there. Gibbs-White to my knowledge hasn't been relegated he's a Wolves player on loan. But seems a common them to me, most of these players still seem to be at their relegated clubs, don't seem to be a lot of people queueing up to get them, the only ones that have moved so far Tarkowski and Pope, the former on free. Wouldn't a better argument be to list players signed from a relegated club who have gone on to be a success, because to my knowledge its a small list.

Also its entirely possible they (SR) are looking at basically setting up a loan farming system without relying fully on the loans. Chelsea (and this is common with lots of Serie A clubs as well who have in some cases like 50-60 players on loan in the past) have bought players that they likely knew would never get in their first team, but knew there was value there and they could re-sell them. If you then add in the 'moneyball' system to transfers, finding value or talent where others don't see it, then the system makes potentially a lot of sense. Sign a player that they think is a raw talent, or late bloomer or is just good value who could become good with the right amount of games/good training. Said player won't be good enough for the PL, so goes to one of the other clubs, plays games, trains, improves. If the player explodes and shows really good talent then comes back to Saints (if on loan) or moves to Saints from the feeder club. If the player the player just improves a bit but not enough to PL ready maybe he moves to higher level club in the group or gets loaned somewhere else, potentially then being sold for a profit. So this Lis keeper, maybe they think he's a bit of a late bloomer and just needs to right environment to flourish. He's probably only be signed by us because the other club groups aren't owned yet. He gets loaned to Turkey, gets better, maybe gets another loan to say the French first division and 3 years down the line you have a player who could be a first team keeper for a middle club in a top 5 league and they sell him for £5 million or something or he really kicks on and challenges for a Saints team first place. Or at worst he flops, you don't lose much. You turn a low transfer and probably low wages into a decent return, which in turn allows for more signings which benefits the whole group. As I said Chelsea signed players that never got it into their first team squad and likely never were, but they loan farmed them about and made a profit on them. IIRC Harrison went to New York City for a couple of seasons, then progressed through the group to Man City, the main club of the group, then had a couple of championship loans, one of which was to Leeds who bought him eventually for a decent fee. He never played for City. The big clubs have been doing this for years, even without the groups, to help supplement their income. Sign young players for cheaper fees, loan them out, sell them on, with UEFA (I think) cracking down on the loans, having lots of feeder clubs is an easier way to do it and gets around the loan rules.

It's an interesting question to be fair, aside the big boys, what PL clubs have spent £25, 30, 40 million plus on a single player that have turned out to be successful? Because in recent memory I can think of a lot of flops (or at least disappointing relative to their fees) - Haller, Joelinton, Buendia, Ings (to villa), Fabio Silva, Felipe Anderson, Gyfli Siggurdson, Sander Berge, Rodrigo, Benteke (to Palace). The most successful one I can think of is Tielemans, and maybe if he keeps his form up Guimares for Newcastle. Even for the big clubs lots of flops like Ndombele, Pepe, Bakayoko, Kepa, Lukaku, Morata, Werner, etc. etc. just they can afford the flops more easily (and seem to be able to flip the flops on to other clubs as well). But looking at it, when middling clubs tend to go big on the transfer fees it doesn't work out that well.

Ben Mee is not very good, he's clearly the inferior partner to Tarkowski. Also he's a defender from a team that finished below us and got relegated, not to mention he's 32, so he's likely only to decline from here. He's also spent most of his professional career playing for a team that more often than not parks the bus in a low block and defends the box in numbers, completely different to how we play, so even if he was any good, and not 32, he wouldn't be suited to our style anyway. And Yes, GOOD proven players are too expensive for us. Phillips has just gone to Man City for £45 million plus, with only two years left on his contract, from a team that only just escaped relegation. We are talking £70 million plus for someone like JWP, West Ham are talking over £100 million for Rice, Palace have wanted £60-70 million for Zaha. West Ham paid £35 million for Zouma who had spent most of his career being bang average on loan with Stoke and Everton. Established PL players in their mid 20s are not cheap, not cheap on transfer values or wages. If we went for another player from another PL team that would genuinely improve us, you are talking a £30-40 million transfer fee and probably north of £100k a week. Over a 5 year deal you are talking £60-70 million total outlay. We just can't afford that, nor is it good value in any sense, especially as with any transfer the person could just as easily flop and regress. Also Ben Mee being clear cut better than Bednerak? People are having a laugh IMO, Burnley defenders barely leave the 6 yard box, most defenders can look ok if their entire team is barely 10 yards away from them and all they have to do is head the ball away a lot. I mean let's look at the facts, for a start he just got relegated and secondly clubs have been able to sign him since January and for free, but so far none have. How do you know money hasn't been added, they have only owned the club since Jan and the accounts won't be out until next year. We've gone out and signed players straight away without sales, something we haven't done for years. How is Awoniyi 'experienced', the guy is a Liverpool reject who has floated around on loan for most of his career, he's only played more than 30 games in a league season ONCE at 25 and that was last year. He's also from the Bundesliga, so has no experience in English football aside being in Liverpool's youth teams. Henderson is a perennial back up keeper. De Gea was in the worst form of his life for about two seasons and he couldn't dislodge him, he's had one full season in the PL, which was THREE years ago now and had a handful of Utd appearances here and there. Oh and he's on absurd wages IIRC, like £140k a week or something dumb. Hardly like they are proven PL players, both are clear transfer gambles, expensive ones. As for the last comment it's complete nonsense. KWP has improved us on the pitch, so has Livramento, so has Salisu, so has Armstrong. Not every transfer is going to be a hit, we had a spell with more misses than hits, but lately the scouting department seems to be doing fine IMO. Everything I have seen or read about Bazunu and Armel Bella-Kotchap suggest both will play a role in the first team, likely improve it and be very shrewd signings. At least Bazunu has actually been playing, Henderson has made like 3 appearances in the last 18 months, he's got every chance IMO of turning out to be about as good as McCarthy as he is becoming an actual top GK.

No, IMO for us he is irreplaceable. We would lose his - - Leadership, both by example on the pitch but his professionalism off the pitch, always improving, seems to gel the team together well, he's basically a model pro for the younger players to look up to. - His set pieces which are World Class, no one in world football right now is as much as a threat as him (and he seems to be getting better year on year), really no one in the PL for the last 10+ years is as good as him either. - His availability, fitness, work rate. He runs all day, very rarely gets injured and can play back to back to back games with little issue. On this point alone you feel like we'd probably need TWO players to cover his games and work rate because they would get knackered, injured etc. more often. - His appeal to other players joining the club, it's been mentioned by the club a few times that players are (in part) joining the club to play with him and asking whether he will still be here. - His versatility, he's competently played right back and right wing back for us before, including keeping Zaha in his pocket. I am sure given more licence to get forward he'd also contribute in the no.10 spots if needed. - Last and not least, his all round midfield ability, he's more than a set piece specialist, he's defensively sound, intercepts the ball well, plays on the front foot and has a good all round passing ability. He also is becoming more and more of a threat with long shots from open play. Some will criticise his 'sideways passing' but I both think that is unfair but you also don't know what his instructions are, he has a good brain on him and it's been mentioned that Ralph loves him because he can understand and carry out complex instructions on the pitch and instruct others to do it. Even for £100 million I am struggling to see how we replace all that, we'd have to get multiple players who excel in multiple areas to fill that hole IMO. I think luckily with Man City buying Phillips, the number of clubs that A. Could afford to buy him and B. He'd want to go, is very small at the moment. I can't see him leaving for a Newcastle, I don't think money drives him that much, he'd want to be at a club challenging for trophies now whilst he's at his peak.

They have also sold a youth player to Leeds for just £5 million, so I'd imagine there is an element of part exchange there going on.

On Bednerak, Seie A is a very different style to the PL, plus Mourinho is a 'safety first' sort of manager so maybe they have identified qualities in Bednerak that suit their style better than he suits ours.

I think he's the sort of player that Pep or Klopp etc. would love because Ralph consistently mentions his game intelligence, being able to interpret the managers instructions on the pitch and carry them out, and those are detail managers, they work very hard on specific plays, where to be at the right time, what to do in transitions. Plus he works his bollocks off. I doubt we or many fans round the country would be excited about signing Milner but Klopp loves him and trusts him implicitly, despite asking him to do multiple different jobs. I think JWP would be similar. I think that is easily a fair price for him, name me other midfielders in the world that have world class set pieces, great all round technique, can run all day, seemingly never gets injured and is able to play almost every game, works harder than anyone and is extremely tactically astute and smart on the pitch. The only reason IMO he's not at a top already is because he is 5' 8" and is relatively slow.

Somewhere between a six and seven for me, considering we have probably a bottom 5 budget overall (wages might be higher but a lot of that was wasted on trash he couldn't use and any transfer budget he's had is pretty been sell to buy) and we were pretty much almost relegated and then very likely to get relegated under Hughes, he's done a decent job. He's improved players (JWP wouldn't be the player he is I don't think without Ralph), he's got us playing some good football, some great runs and some top results. On the flip we've had some terrible runs and some stand out awful results. But we have also very rarely been boring, we were boring (and generally awful) for the 3 years before him. Plus I still don't think he has a squad he really wants and is designed for his football, hes been making do and mending a lot of his time here. This season is probably make or break, looks like he will get backed in the market with more engaged owners.

https://www.cbssports.com/soccer/news/lyon-sale-olympique-lyonnais-set-for-takeover-by-american-businessman-john-textor/ The guy who owns about 40% of Crystal Palace, also owns a 2nd division Belgian club and Botofogo in Brazil, has just bought Lyon as well. Looks very much like another guy going for a multi-club model similar to what Sport Rebublic are trying to do. I think he was also involved in takeover talks with Chelsea but didn't get it.

IIRC Gunn never played for Man City, he'd just had a really good season in the Championship, so we were effectively buy a good young Championship keeper that happened to be owned by Man City. If we'd bought him directly off Norwich I don't think it would have made much difference, buying lower league players and seeing if they step is always going to be a gamble. It's pretty similar with Bazanu, though you could argue he's also somewhat proven himself at international level as well with some good performances there. The likes of Bertrand, Hojberg, Romeu etc. had all played for the clubs we were buying from as squad players. Richards is similar, he's played some games for Bayern, including some in the Champions league. He's also been playing in the Bundesliga for Hoffenhiem, and for the US national team. You'd probably say that is similar to Hoedt (he was squad player for Lazio and had played for Holland), though Bayern are a more elite club than Lazio and the Bundesliga is closer to the PL in style than Serie A is I reckon. But again buying young players, with top flight experience, at high level clubs, with both international and European experience seems a decent blueprint to me to get a potential good player at a lower price, it's just Hoedt didn't work out. (and as someone said above I think his issue was similar to Leminas, the talent was there, but the mental side of the game wasn't, he thought he was better than he was and thought he could basically stroll about in the PL rather than working hard to adapt his game and learn)

I would expect someone like Tarkowski is going to want a lot of wages, he's at 'last big move' sort of age, plus he's on a free transfer which means agents always drive the wages up. I wouldn't be surprised if he is asking north of £100k a week which puts him in higher than JWP territory. The other question I would have of both of those centre-backs is how they are going to do in a different system, they have played the whole time in basically a low block, defend the box, block everything type team. We generally press high up, which means we need more pace and our centre-backs can get exposed a bit more, so not only there is the age question, wages question but I don't think either player fits our style. Its about getting players used to our system and style of play as well, so I'd reckon someone around the Bayern squad is going to be more used to playing a higher line and playing in a pressing team.

Wages. People always forget that clubs that come up have lots of players on Championship wages, this gives them room to spend (because transfer fees and wages are basically counted as the same package) but established PL clubs their players will want PL wages so every renewal becomes more and more expensive. That is why it often appears like the Leeds or Brentfords or Villas spend more than us over recent seasons because they will have or had a lot of their squad on a lot lower wages. PL wages is also how you get a lot of players to actually join because mid table PL clubs often pay as much as top clubs in other leagues. Add we had several transfer misses in a row (Lemina, Hoedt, Carillo etc.) which sadled the club with lots of wages that were no use, AND we had no owner putting in more money like say an Everton or Wolves, then the PL money only goes so far. Plus financial clout doesn't mean success, just look at Everton or Utd for example.

Leeds look a bit like Villa last year IMO, everyone knowing their best player (in this case two) are going and they are basically spending the money in advance to soften the blow. You'd think considering they had loads of injuries last year they will just be a bit better next year, as they wont miss Phillips that much as he missed so many games, but Raphina did score a big chunk of their goals so will be a big miss.

Sounds like pure agent/paper talk to me, we need a striker, he wasn't getting as much game as expected at Villa, he 'comes home'. Don't think it would happen, doesn't really fit our model and is he realistically going to take a pay cut to come back? I doubt it. As I said on the other thread, aside the amazing season, he's clearly more a 1 in 3 at best sort of player, 10 goals a season striker anyway. You'd hope out scouting might find someone younger with that sort of ability.

It is honestly hilarious watching their fans criticise Man City for their spending, whilst their own team is literally breaking transfer records right, left and centre. That's £130 million plus on Luis Diaz and Nunez now in less than 6 months.

12 months ago? not so much. If you take away his 19/20 season which was fantastic, his record in his other 3 most recent PL seasons is 31 goals 83, considering there were a few pens in there as well, take them away and he's not scoring at a much more regular rate than Che Adams is. Che Adams who I am pretty sure scored more open play goals than Ings last year in the same amount of games. He was good but lets not get revisionist, he had one very good season and has had 3 ok ones around it, he's now 30, still not great on the injury front and on a high wage, not seeing why we would want him back desperately.

Gonna repeat, especially for the bigger sides, nation league in the summer after a long season is a giant waste of time. Glorified friendlies that players can't be bothered for and can't really blame them.

Bellingham is class, he's already a level above anything else England have in midfield IMO, probably go for over £100 million I reckon. Also they are glorified friendlies in June after a long season, I wouldn't read too much into them.

IIRC he only managed one full 90 minutes for Spurs. He certainly seems to be one of those players who if he has niggles then he doesn't 'feel right' to play, unless its for Wales of course. I mean any club that signs him will get at best about 3 months of him bothering before the world cup, with probably the last 3-4 games before the world cup of him taking it easy to not get injured, then once Wales get knocked out of the World Cup you are going to have an expensive weight on the bench that can't be bothered anymore. Minimum he'll get probably a two year contract and the guy was on £500k a week, we'd have to make him our highest earner, so north of £100k a week, a decent signing on fee likely to be many millions so probably looking at a £20 million outlay for potentially a dozen PL games of him being bothered.

Phil Jones and Bale would both be poor signings, players way way past their best, in full decline, horrific injury records and will still be expecting wages based on reputation.

It wasn't and neither was yours, its complete nonsense to suggest we can't get a leader or someone committed etc. outside of England. A lot of the captains and vice captains in the PL will not be English, you telling me players like Fernandinho, De Bruyne, Pontus Jannson, Van Dijk, Azpilicueta etc. are not good leaders?

Sounds like agent talk to me, we always get linked with the bigger clubs cast offs but very rarely seem to buy them. Also centre-mid wasn't listed amongst the clubs priorities, its GK, centre-back, no.10 and striker.

Wonder if we will see a bit of decline from them now, lots of players entering the last year of their contract, looks likely Mane is leaving, could lose Salah and few others. Also wonder how many in the media will notice that TAA was culpable defensively for Real's winner proving yet again that the guy is poor defensively and that is why Southgate doesn't pick him.