Marvelous Nakamba

[The_Rev]

The fee isn't something the club will haggle over. I suspect that a number had been mentioned when he went out there on loan in the first place, they were in the Playoff places when he signed and obviously going for promotion.   If you're Luton you'd be daft not to try and sign him, he's part of the group who came up and he's a relatively experienced Premier League player given his three years and 60 ish games in the division with us.  To me this seems like a deal where everybody wins. 

[srsmithusa]

Marvelous was one of the best we have had in the last 20 years at reading the movement of the opposition and moving to the right place to cut ot their options.  I bet his number of intercepted passes was huge...  the problem always was, he had trouble finding the open man once he got the ball.   I always thought he had fantastic potential.  But a lower tier is probably the best place to learn that.  (Kamara is the second best at reading the opposition and then is much better with possession)  All IMO of course.

[juanpablosaliceband]

Take whatever we can get for him, get him off the wage bill and free up a space in the squad. There is no benefit in holding on to him. He would have been totally outclassed in that Brighton game. He even struggled to dominate against Coventry. He just doesn’t have the class. Ultimately a poor signing but we should be able to recover some of the loss. 

[villa4europe]

2 minutes ago, juanpablosaliceband said:

Take whatever we can get for him, get him off the wage bill and free up a space in the squad. There is no benefit in holding on to him. He would have been totally outclassed in that Brighton game. He even struggled to dominate against Coventry. He just doesn’t have the class. Ultimately a poor signing but we should be able to recover some of the loss. 

Agree apart from the last bit....I think he's worked out a poor signing just because of how little he's played, Dean should have used him more 

For where we were, which is marginally better than where Luton are, we needed someone like him, now we don't 

[juanpablosaliceband]

5 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

Agree apart from the last bit....I think he's worked out a poor signing just because of how little he's played, Dean should have used him more 

For where we were, which is marginally better than where Luton are, we needed someone like him, now we don't 

Maybe. I don’t mean to knock the guy needlessly. He seems like a great guy. 

But if I was a newly promoted club with the option to spend 11 million on Nakamba now or another random player from the Belgian or French leagues, as Nakamba was to us when we signed him, I’d fancy my chances to find a better player than Nakamba. Although I can see there are other benefits to Luton in signing him as he’s established there, etc. 

[MrBlack]

3 hours ago, juanpablosaliceband said:

Maybe. I don’t mean to knock the guy needlessly. He seems like a great guy. 

But if I was a newly promoted club with the option to spend 11 million on Nakamba now or another random player from the Belgian or French leagues, as Nakamba was to us when we signed him, I’d fancy my chances to find a better player than Nakamba. Although I can see there are other benefits to Luton in signing him as he’s established there, etc. 

11m won't find you anything ready for the Premier League. Nakamba would be more likely to keep them up than a 11m punt on an unproven unknown quantity that would be new to English football, let alone the PL. Any thing more likely to keep them up is going to cost significantly more.

[Keener window-cleaner]

4 hours ago, srsmithusa said:

Marvelous was one of the best we have had in the last 20 years at reading the movement of the opposition and moving to the right place to cut ot their options.  I bet his number of intercepted passes was huge...  the problem always was, he had trouble finding the open man once he got the ball.   I always thought he had fantastic potential.  But a lower tier is probably the best place to learn that.  (Kamara is the second best at reading the opposition and then is much better with possession)  All IMO of course.

Fully agree, problem is he is not a quick and good enough passer of the ball to be suited to a possession based system like we now have, or any other mid table PL team.

Defensively and breaking up play he is top class!

 

[May-Z]

£6m with add-ons to about £8m seems a fair deal for both clubs and Naka. 

[Pinebro]

Nakamba isn't good enough on the ball to play for a club that want to challenge for CL places.

Sell him to Luton. He'll be loved and appreciated there.

[CVByrne]

£6m to 8m seems about right. Hopefully we can get this done quickly if we want the money in this years accounts

[ender4]

1 hour ago, CVByrne said:

£6m to 8m seems about right. Hopefully we can get this done quickly if we want the money in this years accounts

We have the Grealish sale still in FFP for this year, so maybe we want Nakamba's sale in next year's accounts.

[CVByrne]

1 minute ago, ender4 said:

We have the Grealish sale still in FFP for this year, so maybe we want Nakamba's sale in next year's accounts.

Yeah probably true. I'm sure they know what they're doing. 

[abdulaziz1]

If we can get 6-8m for him then we’d have done really good. It would help us as well.

[Kuwabatake Sanjuro]

On 29/05/2023 at 17:42, srsmithusa said:

Marvelous was one of the best we have had in the last 20 years at reading the movement of the opposition and moving to the right place to cut ot their options.  I bet his number of intercepted passes was huge...  the problem always was, he had trouble finding the open man once he got the ball.   I always thought he had fantastic potential.  But a lower tier is probably the best place to learn that.  (Kamara is the second best at reading the opposition and then is much better with possession)  All IMO of course.

Before we signed him he was definitely on the radar of Liverpool's data analytics teams (at a time when they were ahead of the curve in that area), he is an exceptional talent in some areas but his creative limitations are what stops him from fulfilling his full potential.

[rodders0223]

Realistically it'll be £3.5m. Nakamba gets a lovely new 3 year deal and added security and we get £35,000 off the books.

One year left. Absolutely surplus to requirements. Luton won't be doing a Forest and going bananas. No need to drag this one out.

Lovely Jubbly. What a brilliant move this has been for everyone.

[sidcow]

On 29/05/2023 at 18:33, juanpablosaliceband said:

Maybe. I don’t mean to knock the guy needlessly. He seems like a great guy. 

But if I was a newly promoted club with the option to spend 11 million on Nakamba now or another random player from the Belgian or French leagues, as Nakamba was to us when we signed him, I’d fancy my chances to find a better player than Nakamba. Although I can see there are other benefits to Luton in signing him as he’s established there, etc. 

I'd fancy their chances of signing someone from Belgium or France who is a total flop at that price and couldn't hack it in the Premier League.

Nakamba played well at times for us.   For a bottom quarter Premier league team he's the nearest you get to to a sure bet.

[Rightdm00]

Highly doubt Luton will have much to spend. They have to make £10 million upgrades just to reach PL standard and they have plans for a new £100+ million stadium as well. Unless we give Luton a deal think they will look elsewhere. 

[ender4]

1 hour ago, Rightdm00 said:

Highly doubt Luton will have much to spend. They have to make £10 million upgrades just to reach PL standard and they have plans for a new £100+ million stadium as well. Unless we give Luton a deal think they will look elsewhere. 

But they can’t just not buy anyone either. They need a few PL level players and Nakamba is proven.

[Tom13]

1 hour ago, Rightdm00 said:

Highly doubt Luton will have much to spend. They have to make £10 million upgrades just to reach PL standard and they have plans for a new £100+ million stadium as well. Unless we give Luton a deal think they will look elsewhere. 

How much are they expecting to get a PL capable centre mid for exactly? I'd have thought we'd be willing to let him go for cheap.

[John]

I hope they will make us some sort of offer for him and not mess us and the player about, having used him to get what they wanted, like Forest did last year.