Aarons to Bayern

[pete 318]

Go to Man U Max, they invariably pay more for players they want.  £40m from United.

[king canary 7,562]

13 minutes ago, hogesar said:

I personally wouldn't expect us to pay £100m in transfer fee's, nor would I expect us sign players on £75,000 p/w.

Wages, sure maybe not. But transfer fees? We'd have sold our three best players and need to replace them while also adding to other areas of the squad. That isn't coming cheap.

[Canary Wundaboy 1,358]

13 minutes ago, hogesar said:

I personally wouldn't expect us to pay £100m in transfer fee's, nor would I expect us sign players on £75,000 p/w.

Just not on the cards is it, but a few £10m players, that's got to be the expectation. If we sold £100m worth of talent and spent £10m overall I wouldn't be happy and I don't think I'd be alone, that would just indicate that the model isn't going to bring success.

[king canary 7,562]

1 minute ago, Canary Wundaboy said:

Just not on the cards is it, but a few £10m players, that's got to be the expectation. If we sold £100m worth of talent and spent £10m overall I wouldn't be happy and I don't think I'd be alone, that would just indicate that the model isn't going to bring success.

Personally I'd expect more than that.

In this hypotehtical situation I'd suggest we'd need a new right back, new central defender to go with Gibson, new defensive mid (unless we can bring back Skipp on loan) two new attacking midfielders and a new striker who can replace Pukki over time.

The last couple of players are likely going to be setting us back £15-20m per player.

[hogesar 9,611]

11 minutes ago, Canary Wundaboy said:

Just not on the cards is it, but a few £10m players, that's got to be the expectation. If we sold £100m worth of talent and spent £10m overall I wouldn't be happy and I don't think I'd be alone, that would just indicate that the model isn't going to bring success.

I agree. I mean I know it's hypothetical and let's say we got promoted and sold £100m worth of talent. I wouldn't have a 'figure' we have to spend because we all know an Emi can cost a couple of million and a Naismith can cost 4x that. So as always the proof would be in the pudding and how the signings work out.

I would like to think Webber would be given the opportunity to maybe spend £50-60 million in transfer fee's, which would still hugely surpass anything our club has ever remotely seen on a spending level in it's entire history.

8 minutes ago, king canary said:

Personally I'd expect more than that.

In this hypotehtical situation I'd suggest we'd need a new right back, new central defender to go with Gibson, new defensive mid (unless we can bring back Skipp on loan) two new attacking midfielders and a new striker who can replace Pukki over time.

The last couple of players are likely going to be setting us back £15-20m per player.

Of course it's hypothetical but we'd be probably purchasing Gibson, one of our two left backs already at the club at least..

I would, as above, expect us to be able to spent £60 million odd if we wanted to, but even then i'm not sure how many £15-20m players Webber would want to take a punt on.

Agree with who you think we'd need in that situation in terms of positions. If we were going to sign another CB to go with Gibson then i'd expect one of Hanley or Zimmerman to move on, they should command a fee.

[lake district canary 4,531]

48 minutes ago, king canary said:

Going to be a very interesting summer if we do go up.

If we end up selling Emi, Todd and Max you'd imagine the collective fees would be around £100m. Add in the money from Premier League promotion and I think fans could quite rightly expect us to spending the kind of money we lampooned Villa and Fulham for.

The club - imo - will not be spending the kind of money Villa/Fulham did.  We may get some good money for players, but even 100m does not go very far when you consider wage rises that will be needed - and the fact the PL money (if we are promoted) would not be there straight away.

The club would of course be in a healthy position, but not suddenly able to spend large amounts so the continuation of buying sensibly and without massive transfer fees and wages would still be there.  We are a club trying to grow at a sustainable level and that is not going to change and it is a good message to send out, because other clubs will know we are not going to throw money at them for players just because we are in the PL. 

Of course we will spend at a bit more to get players if we sell some and more than the last time we went up, but not at the kinds of levels of Fulham/Villa......we've been down that route before and it very nearly sent us under, having such huge wages and contracts and I don't see that happening again. The club is set fair for the next few years, whatever division we are in - that could be ruined if we are not careful. Club growth and development is a long term thing so short term spending sprees are never going to be the answer.

[king canary 7,562]

3 minutes ago, hogesar said:

I agree. I mean I know it's hypothetical and let's say we got promoted and sold £100m worth of talent. I wouldn't have a 'figure' we have to spend because we all know an Emi can cost a couple of million and a Naismith can cost 4x that. So as always the proof would be in the pudding and how the signings work out.

I would like to think Webber would be given the opportunity to maybe spend £50-60 million in transfer fee's, which would still hugely surpass anything our club has ever remotely seen on a spending level in it's entire history.

Of course it's hypothetical but we'd be probably purchasing Gibson, one of our two left backs already at the club at least..

I would, as above, expect us to be able to spent £60 million odd if we wanted to, but even then i'm not sure how many £15-20m players Webber would want to take a punt on.

Agree with who you think we'd need in that situation in terms of positions. If we were going to sign another CB to go with Gibson then i'd expect one of Hanley or Zimmerman to move on, they should command a fee.

I don't think Webber would have an qualms about it- he wants to be a big gun at some point he's going to be doing deals much bigger than that on a regular basis if so. 

Personally I think we'd struggle to get players of the quality needed in the positions required for the numbers you suggest. When you look at strikers like Benrahma and Maupay costing £20m+ without kicking a ball in the top flight then I could see nearly half of the amount you quoted being needed just for that position.

[Capt. Pants 4,194]

7 hours ago, dylanisabaddog said:

Wiki and other sites say he is 1.78m which is 5ft 10. Just shows how big footballers are these days. Most of them seem to be much bigger than Max

That's because they are. He's not 5:10

[Nuff Said 5,082]

8 minutes ago, Capt. Pants said:

That's because they are. He's not 5:10

I know it's a while since we went decimal, but *there are 12 inches in a foot*. 1.78 metres *is* 5 foot 10.

 

(This is all based on Wikipedia. I'm tempted to make his height 6'5" just to make a point)

Edited February 16, 2021 by Nuff Said

[Capt. Pants 4,194]

4 minutes ago, Nuff Said said:

I know it's a while since we went decimal, but *there are 12 inches in a foot*. 1.78 metres *is* 5 foot 10.

Fair cop.

[dylanisabaddog 4,848]

2 hours ago, Capt. Pants said:

That's because they are. He's not 5:10

Not sure what website you're looking at but 1cm = 0.3937 inches. 178 cm therefore equals 70 inches which is 5ft 10.

A link and a photo of a steel rule

 

[Pukki Blinders 96]

6 hours ago, Nuff Said said:

Who on here is saying we should sell our "best players regardless of what division, league position or situation we find ourselves in"?

Or that we should be "an unambitious club who are happy to sell our best players year after year even if it is at the expense of progressing and getting better as a club"? (I could think on a few, mainly ex-, posters on here who would like to claim that, but are sadly lacking in any evidence for the last few years).

Or "just selling them whenever we get a half-decent offer or when the player fancies leaving"?

No-one. You're making up points to argue against that no-one is proposing.

The fact remains that if we get an offer that matches our valuation of one of our players from one of the biggest football clubs in the world, we have to take it. Not just as evidence that we can show to prospective recruits why they should join the club, but also to avoid not only p*ssing off the player in question, but also those who can see a similar route potentially being there for themselves. That does not translate to throwing the towel in, lacking ambition, rolling over or any other accusations you'd like to invent, but behaving realistically, exactly as the vast majority of other clubs would *and* it would be a huge endorsement of the way Webber has run the club since he joined.

Don't you think young players would much rather join a club that have established themselves as a solid, sustainable club at Premier League level that, yes, relies on player sales to bring in money and can act as a stepping stone to go onto bigger and better things, but ultimately does it on their terms and only when it suits them? Rather than a club that can't establish itself in the Premier League because we feel we have to sell our players to big clubs regardless of what position we find ourselves in on the pitch or financially? Despite the fact we'll have a good amount of money coming in, losing Max Aarons following promotion would make us weaker going into a Premier League season, which surely defeats the whole purpose of this philosophy? It would be a constant cycle of: Sign talented young player > Get promoted > Sell player before the season starts > Get relegated because we sold said player making our squad weaker > Repeat.

Isn't the whole point of this philosophy that it will ultimately benefit us? Staying up at Premier League level would be difficult to do even if we kept our whole squad together, let alone if before the season even starts we sell a key player, hence why you practically never see clubs doing it. Saying that it will benefit us long-term because it will show young players looking to join us that we can give them a good platform to develop and then eventually move on to somewhere higher up the ladder becomes redundant if we sell those players every time we get promoted and we go back to square one as a result, because we'd essentially be furthering young players careers at our own expense. The reward for this policy should be having the opportunity to establish ourselves as a solid Premier League side, like a Crystal Palace, Southampton or even Brighton, something we're never going to do if we 'have' to sell players whenever a big club comes calling.  

Talking of Southampton, they're the perfect example. For years they were seen as ultimate selling club, but every time a player did leave they made sure it was on their terms, and whenever they didn't want to sell someone, e.g Van Dijk, Holbjerg, Schneiderlin, they put their foot down and didn't sell them until it was right for them, even if that was 2 or 3 transfer windows later. 

If we sold Aarons, Buendia and Cantwell this summer to big European clubs, after gaining promotion, you'd be happy with that? Do you think it sends a positive message to players and teams around Europe that as soon as we get into the Premier League we're prepared to sell our best players? As I've explained above I really don't think it does. Whenever we have sold our prized assets; Maddison, Godrey, Lewis, it's been at a time where selling makes sense, like when we needed the money or following a relegation where we're looking to rebuild. Selling one of our best players just after we've got promoted doesn't make sense.

For what it's worth, I love Webber and our whole philosophy under him, and if we did sell Aarons to a huge club like Bayern in the summer I could understand it. I'm simply saying that selling a key player after getting promoted is probably the worst possible time to sell someone, and as a result we should be hardening our stance. If our valuation of him at the moment is £30/35m, then it should rise to £50m once we go up, because we should be trying to deter clubs from poaching our best players, not just accepting that we have to. We didn't sell anyone last time we got promoted so why would we this time? If it doesn't suit us to sell, we shouldn't sell, full stop.  

[PurpleCanary 5,553]

If we go up...🤓

Wages (allied to length of contract etc)  are the real limiting factor. That aside, recruitment could be more complicated now, because - sorry to mention it but - of Brexit. That list in The Athletic of our players we could not have signed under the new rules was instructive, and not in a good way.

Apparently South America may be the region that replaces Europe. Fine, but with players from the continent you know at least they are used to European football (so with Buendia, for example), even if the English game will initially be a bit of a culture shock. Taking a player direct from Uruguay or Agentina, no matter how talented, is likely to involve a significant acclimatisation period.

If true that makes harder one aspect of what our transfer strategy is likely to be, which is to find Pukki- and Buendia-like bargains who will not cost a vast amount in transfer fees and wages but still be able to fit quickly into the squad. The danger is we are forced to pay higher fees and wages than we can afford for so-so players closer to home.

The other question is how much (if promoted) we use the loan market. There is still somewhat of a misconception about last season. If we had bought Fahrmann, Amadou and Roberts it would have cost us several tens of millions and the outside footballing world (plus some posters here...) would have thought we had been adequately ambitious. The problem was that, for differing reasons, they were all failures.

[Mason 47 1,371]

Going off of Wikipedia, Todd, Jamal and Max are all 5ft 10ins.

Personally I've always thought he was closer in height to Buendia, so much so that commentators often get the two mixed up down our right.

[dylanisabaddog 4,848]

14 minutes ago, Mason 47 said:

Going off of Wikipedia, Todd, Jamal and Max are all 5ft 10ins.

Personally I've always thought he was closer in height to Buendia, so much so that commentators often get the two mixed up down our right.

My thought when I first saw him was he was around 5ft 8 and a friend I asked today guessed the same. 

Wiki says 5ft 10 and we all accept it. But perhaps we should be cautious. I read Tony Cascarino's book which is excellent. He wanted a contract with Marseilles when he was almost 40 and his agent knocked 3 years off his age. Cascarino dyed his hair and got his contract. 

Anyone can alter a Wiki page. Has anyone ever stood next to Max? Perhaps we should keep quiet if there is £35m at stake

[Mark .Y. 351]

There is no way Max is 5' 10", I'd stake Bill's reputation on it

[Nuff Said 5,082]

1 minute ago, Mark .Y. said:

There is no way Max is 5' 10", I'd stake Bill's reputation on it

I know. I think someone has had (or is) a tinker.

[dylanisabaddog 4,848]

37 minutes ago, Mark .Y. said:

There is no way Max is 5' 10", I'd stake Bill's reputation on it

Perhaps his agent? No one is going to pay big money for a 5ft 8 player these days I'm afraid 

[dylanisabaddog 4,848]

1 hour ago, Mason 47 said:

Going off of Wikipedia, Todd, Jamal and Max are all 5ft 10ins.

Personally I've always thought he was closer in height to Buendia, so much so that commentators often get the two mixed up down our right.

Someone is telling porkies. If Cantwell is 5ft 10 then Max looks at least a couple of inches shorter. 

[jaberry2 550]

When has Wikipedia ever been relied on for facts!?