Ultimatt

Lets agree to disagree then. My opinions on what I saw last season. He's still reliable and well ahead of Yoshi in my eyes. We'd need a ready made Toby/VVD to replace him.

What? I'm saying hes past his peak. Not that he's rubbish. Read who i'm quoting. Some people.. Edit: Look at Ivanovic. Went from 1 of the leagues best defenders in 2014/15 to an absolute liability in 2015/16. The cliff can come fast for older defenders against pacy attackers.

He's not. He's over the hill. He turns 33 in 4 months. You can't compare him to the Italian defenders that look unbeatable in their 30's because that league is miles slower than the premier league. He's going to lose more pace and then struggle to handle the fast dribblers. VVD outclassed him last year and the gulf will only get bigger.

If we get £12m+ for him take it. We'll need to replace him next year anyway imo at which point he'll ride out his last year of contract from the bench. VVD has proven himself a leader not just in defence but for the whole team and can fill the boots. He'd also be 1 of our highest earners despite not being a top performer anymore; reliable but not a standout; so that'll free up some salary space.

Austin will be better against the teams parking the bus as we'll be crossing a lot. Long better against the higher line.

Players grew in confidence there. Tadic, Hojbjerg and Van Dijk are absolute class on the ball. Can see the 1st 2 linking up a lot this season. We were clearly the better team even before the red, once things click better with the formation it's promising signs imo.

MANE WHO??? GET INNNN!!!!

Some of our passing has been appalling. Our 2 CM's aren't getting forward either when the front 2 are pulling out wide leaving no-one in the middle. Need a proper box-to-box, Davis & JWP sitting too deep trying to be playmakers.

He had his head turned at the Euro final when he saw how comfortable Morgan looked on the bench. That could be him at Man Utd.

€20m release clause on Silva so if it's him then any difficulty would be from the players end

Koeman buying old players and won't play youth because he wants immediate success, knowing full well he won't be in the same job 2 years later. No point building for the future when he's just interested in his own CV results. Huge contrast to Poch who's on a long-term deal and genuinely looks to be building long-term with a younger squad.

Forster Cedric Fonte VVD Bertrand(if fit) Romeu Hojbjerg Davis Tadic Long Redmond They favor a 3-5-2 with Ighalo and Deeney playing off each other well. Having 3 CB's works well against our new formation. Will be an interesting 1st test.

I'm forgetful at 2am but had the quick edit

Decent for a new manager with a new style of play.

Mmmmm. I'm with you that it'd be nice to have the new attacking players in straight away. I don't think the club intentionally leaves things to the last minute with signings. I don't see anything wrong with selling early though if it's a good price. It leaves us knowing exactly what we need to strengthen and how much ££ we have to spend. Makes shopping for targets easier. It's a hell of a lot better than the Everton situation right now where they might lose Stones/Lukaku on or near deadline day and have days/hours to replace them. They probably can't sign anyone right now until they know for sure if they're staying/leaving. The club making money from transfers is huge. As much as we all hate it, football is about money these days. There's nothing that turns players heads more. If we bought the Mane of today 2 years ago he would've cost more than Pelle/Long/Tadic combined. Would a forward line of Seager/Gallagher/Mane outperform Long/Pelle/Tadic? We still don't know who we're replacing him with, and we'll never know if we would've been more successful this season with him or with the replacements his money buys, but the club is looking for sustained success and can't afford to potentially lose £15m by holding a player an extra year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_association_football_transfers Mane's the 47th most expensive transfer in football history. Same price as Nedved 15 years prior. There's a lot of transfers on that list from 2000/01/02 with similar prices to today's times. The only other buying clubs on that list that I didn't mention are the almost-bankrupt Monaco, the early 2000's Lazio and the recent Chinese mega-deals.

Transfer fees of mid-tier players are rising rapidly. Smaller clubs have way more to spend now. The cost of top class players aren't rising much. There's less than 10 clubs in the world that can afford to pay more than Liverpool did for Mane. Would we get a bidding war from Barca/Real/Athletico/Juve/PSG/Chelsea/ManCity/ManUtd/Arsenal for an attacking player that scores less than 1 in 3 games?

How much do you realistic think we could get for Mane this year? Next year? You said £40m in your earlier post so not a great deal more than we actually got. If you compare him to other fees then imo we got a good price. Same price as Mkhitaryan who's older but had a better last season. More than Batshuayi who's younger and also had a better year albeit in a weaker league. More than Pjanic who despite playing deeper also had a better year. A lot more than Gotze since he was in his final year of contract. Mane had 21 goals 9 assists in 67 premier league apps. That's decent but nothing special. Look at the goals last season from players in similar positions; Mahrez 17, Sanchez 13, Ayew 12, Arnautovic 11. Mane is undoubtedly a better player than Ayew & Arna but he hasn't delivered it consistently. We could arguably replace his goals with either of those 2. He'll probably look better this season playing alongside better creative players in Coutinho/Firmino/Lallana and we'll all wish he was still here but being pragmatic IMO it was a good deal for the club and the right call to sell for that price.

We sold him for about the same as Sanchez and Aguero were bought for. They were 25 & 23 when they signed so similar age. Much more proven players and unlikely Mane ever reaches their level. Holding onto him till deadline day means we have to keep paying his wages until then and he takes a lineup spot from someone else that we should be bedding in. What if Liverpool didn't meet the price and he went into his last year of contract, our record selling last year players is poor with Clyne/Wanyama going cheap. And while the TV deal is bumping up the fees for a lot of players in that £10-20m bracket it doesn't change the big end of town. An extra £30m/yr is huge for the Palaces/Stokes/WestHams, it's ~30% more income. It's only a drop in the ocean for the big clubs that already make ~£400m/yr. "Average" players are going for big fees as a lot of teams are scrapping to spend to their new found money. The big clubs still have the same buying power and will pay similar fees as before the TV deal.

Top 7 league FA Cup quarterfinal Knockout stage of Euro (last 32 or 16) That'd be a really good season. Lower league position with better cup run or vice versa would be acceptable.

Is he mentor material for Valery?

Definitely 1 or more of them going with us leaking contracts. Instead of Fonte, could it be Cedric? We've apparently been in the market for a new RB this past month.. Tadic has been interviewed on the youtube channel so won't be him. I was expecting a Fonte interview to congratulate him on the euro's but there's been no mention of him from the club so he might be out too.

I feel like this is the reality. He's on a massive contract and they're expecting results. A bad couple years and he falls completely out of the race for the big jobs. Apparently the Williams reports are rubbish. Less than 2 weeks till kickoff and all they've done is swapped Stekelenburg for Howard. This Stones/Lukaku situation is a nightmare for them, potentially not knowing if they have £100m coming in or not, leaving their business till after the season starts.

The chances are meant to come from the fullbacks and from the #10. Mcqueen is nowhere near good enough and Martina not getting forward enough. Tadic having a mare. We're impotent.

Probably the worst i've ever seen Tadic play. With him constantly losing it and Long trying to run behind the lines rather than come to the ball we constantly lose it up front.