HalfTimePost

#Bentancur : #AstonVilla reasons around 20 million, but the negotiation appears very complicated #Arthur : does not change the position of #Juve , which opens only to an 18-month loan #Kulusevski : keep an eye on your situation and on a possible end-of-market loan

Yes exactly. If Bentancur comes in on £150k but is crap (I'm sure he won't be but hypothetically) and Dougie has a Stormer and Bentancur is benched...Get to the summer when Luiz contract is up for negotiation, might've been ok on £80k and suddenly demand £150k? Even if he gets £110k it's £6m over 4yrs. Fine for one player but apply it to 4/5 and it adds up. Again. I'm fine with big money. Yes £150k sounds a lot but I'd happily have had Jack in £200k. Value was there and clear he'd be worth it and wouldn't have upset the squad until they believed they were reaching his level. The risk comes when you chuck 3 players in out of nowhere on that money. If suddenly the other players are on their level. The demands become unmanageable and pretty justifiable from the players perspective. And that's before Agents come for bigger fees and their slice of the pie

It's the lack of structure for me. Key players on £150k I can get around. It's the buying Ings as a key player on £120k as top earner and 6 months later he's neither a key player or top earner. Digne comes in on £140k and Bentancur on £150k. Doesnt appear to be a structure we're working towards to keep things sensible or defined. It feels a bit like we don't have the clear defined plan that we thought we did

Tried to find an old thread on Wages for this as didn't want to open another. But if the below is accurate it is a bit of a worry for me in what structure we have in our wage bill. We'll start spending more than Spurs on big players soon, who have had a longer run at bigger revenues than us...any duds we will be stuck with for years.

Starting to think he could be Luiz' replacement

I'm mostly worried that both happen

Apparently Lyon are listed on the stock exchange, which means some decisions like this need to be at first made public to the market and they can't be seen to hold information back from the market which could impact their share price, for a variety of reasons. Likely mean it'll still happen but Lyon have to legally protect themselves with a statement like this and then can announce it properly to the market. Shame. Would've liked Rich Newcastle to be as much of a shambles as Poor Newcastle.

I can't see this being true (as posted in the Jan Window thread)

Double seems silly if true. If he had hit the heights Juve expected him to he wouldn't be leaving for us. For us to then double his salary would be a tad silly. I assume this isn't true as we are generally smarter than this.

Someone needs to step in and gazzump Newcastle here now. This is their signing for them to build around. Hopefully he flops but I think us, Liverpool or United (as only ones that really need this type of player) need to try and step in

It could also be he wants more wages or assurances than we can give him. Let's say he's on £60k a week now and he wants £100k, we may just want to ensure he's at that level, or go back and say look £80k is the level and not overpay. Or he wants assurances he'll be played as an 8 and not spending 20 games a season as a 6 when he's better further forward. He seems content enough, he's actively come out last summer and said he's happy here, it doesnt necessarily mean he's leaving. It seems most likely but there could easily be other things in play.

Im pretty confident we did offer him a contract in September/October but it wasn't signed. I think when Gerrard says 'we' in his quotes he means in his reign. It might be a dispute over wages and whether we think Luiz justifies whatever he is asking for, so seeing if he can reach thoselevels in the coming months to justify it or use in the next round of negotiation It might be PR from Purslow about throwing doubt around how much we value and were actively trying to keep Dougie, so if he does go it doesn't look as though we lost another player we were desperately trying to persuade to stay. It's simply the cost of doing business in the league that we may lose the odd player but wasn't a key part of our plans anyway type thing.

Maybe but the importance of McGinn to the squad and the changing room is under represented. Losing both parts of the senior midfield in 6 months is not good. The needs to be consistency somewhere

- Young lad from Sunderland allegedly coming into U23s for £6.5m. though SAFC fans seem to think it's a wind up (allegedly there was a link they'd get Elmo in return, which for obvious reasons can't be true) - No more players leaving on loan (Percy). Not great for Barry, Kesler, Young, Bogarde etc. Although now they have chance to make the first team. Potentially means Trez isn't leaving to Turkey as his rumour was always on loan - Luiz being looked at by 'loads of clubs' and one to keep an eye on. Arsenal named. (Fabrizio) - Bentancur linked again, alleged bid gone in, now in discussions with agent but bid not accepted as yet (not from a reputed source and no word on Bid value) separate link says £18m

Yeah that's where I'm at. Medium term I think Luiz has potential to be better than McGinn. But that certainly is a long way off from where we are today and Ramsey should turn out to be the best of the 3. So if I had to choose one, I'd lose Luiz. But we run the risk of losing McGinn in the summer and then suddenly we've lost Grealish, Luiz and McGinn in a year. Watkins and Konsa would be next. We have to keep one of McGinn or Luiz through next season. So if we sell Luiz we absolutely cannot lose McGinn in the summer.

I know we debate the strengths of Luiz a lot but I think he's a good player, and still potentially a very good player. I think he and Partey behind Saka, Martinelli and Smith-Rowe (or Ødegaard) is a dangerous midfield. Partey can be the strong defensive midfielder we would want behind 2 of Luiz/McGinn/Ramsey in our system. Luiz in a 2 man midfield behind a 10? Not 100% sure at CL level but I think Partey would allow him to play to his strengths in the Prem so if he leaves us Arsenal is around his level. Neither are world beaters and there would be games that they get wrecked in still due to lapses in concentration or a loose pass, but that's a strong set up for 25-odd Prem games a year and would allow them not have to rely on Xhaka Plus we'll need to cash in if he is not keen to sign a contract. I can see this having legs. Not entirely sure how I feel about it. It makes us weaker and to someone we should be competing with but also I kind of expect to lose Luiz and it wouldn't be the end of the world if he moved on.

Depends if he is a replacement for Carney though doesn't it

I think Webster would be the kind of player I'd actually like us to sign as the medium term successor to Mings. He is good, I was actually starting that paragraph to say he'd be the one I wanted if we went for an English CB. And went to get his stats to show why he'd be better than Mings at what we're trying to build and they were similar. Admittedly he's done it in less games so it probably is better but his short passing is a touch better and he completes more per game so keeps the ball moving more than Mings does. Long balls are worse though. And Maupay/Trossard are similarish in stature to Ollie/Buendia in terms of how they'd deal with long balls, so Mings is a touch better there.

We aren't signing both

I love Mings. I love that we have such an eloquent and impressive member of our squad and that he's our captain who represents us well and has done well when called upon for his country. His leadership skills on the pitch are horribly underestimated too, clubs like Arsenal have literally been crying out for leaders for over a decade. Probably nearer 2 decades now. And we have a great one we disrespect so often. That said, I can understand he makes mistakes and turns 29 soon - not so old he should be binned - but old enough we should have a medium term plan incase he is one of those players that drops off quickly when he turns 30 (his lack of games during his Bournemouth spell probably means he has a good few years yet). But looking at Tarkowski - as decent as he is - as a Mings replacement baffles me. He is decent but the same age, has some similar deficiencies and isn't the ball playing CB we would need to upgrade on Mings in the long run for our style. To compete with Konsa? Sure he's better than nobody. To replace Mings? Jog on. Adam Webster gets all the plaudits lately as the ball playing CB from pundits. Plays more long balls (and more inaccurate) than Mings. 8.8 per game, 5 inaccurate. Has attempted 30 short passes more than Mings, with the exact same inaccurate passes (86). Admittedly in a few less games this year, but the stats show Mings is better than he gets lambasted on here for.

Loving the people who lose their minds when Mings plays a long ball saying we should be playing it out better...and then saying we want James Tarkowski Tarkowski plays 7.9 Long Balls a game, Mings 8.2. Mings is slightly less accurate (4.5 inaccurate a game, Tarkowski 4) but that doesn't account for the fact Tarkowski had Chris Wood to target directly and Mings has Ollie and Buendia trying to run on to long balls. However Tarkowski has attempted 417 short passes in the league this year,102 of them inaccurate, 75% accuracy. Mings has attempted 721 short passes, missing less in way more attempts, 86. 88% Accuracy.