Ashley Young: To Sell Or Let Walk

[omariqy]

I wonder who our back up plan to play in the hole is?

[cheltenham_villa]

If Ash won't sign a contract then I'd rather we sold him in the Summer and started re-building.

I see Bruce is being linked with Adam Johnson and Onahua. I wonder if Citeh would be keen on Ash for Johnson plus a bit of cash or Johnson and Milner and we'll give them a bit of cash?

I think Johnson would be a great buy and would more than replace our Ash from what I have seen??

I like Johnson but I wouldn't want this for 3 reasons:

1) I don't want Ash to go to Man City

2) Dealing with Man City, in general, is a pisstake.

3) We have Super Marc !

why is dealing with Man City so bad, yeah they might be a bit of a pain in the arse but how much money has it made us. 12m for Barry with a year left, paid over the odds for Milner as well. Id bet that dealing with City on those two transfers alone was worth an extra 10m to us.

[keefa3011]

I wonder who our back up plan to play in the hole is?

Reo-Coker!

[Rob182]

What a turnaround in fortune. That we are debating whether to sell or let go on a free transfer one of our better players. First Barry, then Milner and now Young.

It seems like only a few seasons ago that the Board were talking up the Champions League as being part of our 5 year plan.

Oh well, c'est la vie, back to the reality of supporting AVFC.

BINGO

Our best player by a country mile and we should be building around our best players not seeing them leave the club.

But we are still ambitious apparently..... :?

But what can we do if the player wants to leave?

Keep telling him "we have ambition, we have ambition!!!!"... ?

If a player has his heart set on a Champs League Team, we can do nothing but decide whether to keep him and let him go for free, or sell him early and start re-building the squad without having a wantaway player in our ranks.

[Richard]

Again, I ask Richard, a proper question, what do you want? do you wish for the owners to sell because it's quite clear they can't spend £40-50+ million which is what is needed for the next couple years and the club can't pay wages over £60-70k a week without breaking the wage structure.

I'm not saying it's stupid, it's your opinion but I'm unsure what you actually want? I'm guessing to sell up? I just don't see anyone with as much as Randy coming in and investing double what he has on the club.

You know I seem to answer this question on a regular basis, I am sure I have actually answered it to you a number of times. I am amazed people still need to ask it.

If the aim of the board is for us to be in the top four and champions league they need to spend bigger cash on the playing squad. Do you agree with this?

I am guessing yes.

So they need bigger cash into the club in order to achieve this goal.

That means either selling to someone with loads of cash, or selling some of the shareholding meaning he is no longer the sole owner but getting additional investment.

Either all of that, or scale down your ambitions and dont keep pumping the competing with top clubs in europe line

FWIW I have actually accepted that the best we can hope for is what we have had over the past threee years, that things will not improve beyond that. However even to stand still in this league requires significant team strengthening, I'm not even sure we are upto that at this moment

[Richard]

Keep telling him "we have ambition, we have ambition!!!!"... ?

I would advise showing them not telling them (Paraphrasing BFR)

[jacketspuds]

I would find it bizarre if Lerner let Young's contract run down as it makes no financial sense. Instead of selling Young for £20m we pay him £4.5m over the next 18 months and let him walk for nothing at the end of his contract. That's a loss of £24m or so vs. what we can get now for him. Granted I'd much rather see him stay and sign a new deal as he is our best player but if we could use that money to strengthen elsewhere then I would do it, especially he will not sign a new deal.

[Rob182]

why is dealing with Man City so bad, yeah they might be a bit of a pain in the arse but how much money has it made us. 12m for Barry with a year left, paid over the odds for Milner as well. Id bet that dealing with City on those two transfers alone was worth an extra 10m to us.

Financially it's good. But..

1) Man City have enough players to cope for a few weeks without the player they're trying to buy. So they like to haggle for weeks and weeks to disrupt the other team. When the other team doesn't get the money until the last few days of the window, it limits your choices for who you can bring in as a replacement.

2) Man City players are on stupidly high wages which we either cannot match/ have an upset player who has to take a pay cut or we have another Stephen Ireland situation where the player is ready to come to us, but he has to organise a payoff from Man City - which again will take longer to get the deal done.

[AVFC-Prideofbrum]

Keep telling him "we have ambition, we have ambition!!!!"... ?

I would advise showing them not telling them (Paraphrasing BFR)

We did that with Barry and Milner and it didn't work. Why would it work with Young?

[holtender1987]

£25 to £30 million or let him play out his contract so we can get good couple years out of him!

obviously would prefer him to stay long term if i had a choice. when he plays well, we play well!

[barry'sboots]

why is dealing with Man City so bad, yeah they might be a bit of a pain in the arse but how much money has it made us. 12m for Barry with a year left, paid over the odds for Milner as well. Id bet that dealing with City on those two transfers alone was worth an extra 10m to us.

Financially it's good. But..

1) Man City have enough players to cope for a few weeks without the player they're trying to buy. So they like to haggle for weeks and weeks to disrupt the other team. When the other team doesn't get the money until the last few days of the window, it limits your choices for who you can bring in as a replacement.

Not really a problem if it is a swap though is it?

2) Man City players are on stupidly high wages which we either cannot match/ have an upset player who has to take a pay cut or we have another Stephen Ireland situation where the player is ready to come to us, but he has to organise a payoff from Man City - which again will take longer to get the deal done.

Ireland didn't want to leave. Johnson has said that he would consider moving on if he was not getting starts, which he has not been.

[GarethRDR]

15 people don't understand the concept of sustainable business! :shock:

If we can't keep him, we've got to sell him. Why in the name of Zeus' butthole would we let him walk on a free? We don't owe anything to Ashley Young (or any other footballer for that matter), losing both the player and a considerable amount of cash is just silly.

[Rob182]

why is dealing with Man City so bad, yeah they might be a bit of a pain in the arse but how much money has it made us. 12m for Barry with a year left, paid over the odds for Milner as well. Id bet that dealing with City on those two transfers alone was worth an extra 10m to us.

Financially it's good. But..

1) Man City have enough players to cope for a few weeks without the player they're trying to buy. So they like to haggle for weeks and weeks to disrupt the other team. When the other team doesn't get the money until the last few days of the window, it limits your choices for who you can bring in as a replacement.

Not really a problem if it is a swap though is it?

2) Man City players are on stupidly high wages which we either cannot match/ have an upset player who has to take a pay cut or we have another Stephen Ireland situation where the player is ready to come to us, but he has to organise a payoff from Man City - which again will take longer to get the deal done.

Ireland didn't want to leave. Johnson has said that he would consider moving on if he was not getting starts, which he has not been.

Even if Johnson wants to leave, he will probably sacrifice a few weeks of games to get a better payoff. If Johnson has to take a huge drop in wages because Man City want to get rid of him, he is entitled to it and I don't blame Ireland for haggling over the millions he was owed.

Regarding your first question. It is a problem if you're not replacing a player like-for-like (Milner for Ireland swap?)

As Ash has been playing in the hole lately, I don't know whether Johnson would be decent there or not.

Johnson is a winger, which we already have in Downing and Albrighton (though lacking experience, he may be).

EDIT: If you meant a swap without any money involved, then yes I see your point. (But still, I'd rather not deal with the cretins from Manchester).

[smetrov]

Keep Him to his contract.

I have always feared him going more than Milner and Barry - he is our one matchwinner

[Cracker1234]

15 people don't understand the concept of sustainable business! :shock:

If we can't keep him, we've got to sell him. Why in the name of Zeus' butthole would we let him walk on a free? We don't owe anything to Ashley Young (or any other footballer for that matter), losing both the player and a considerable amount of cash is just silly.

Best post in this thread yet.

[MCU]

I'll miss Martin Laursen more than Ashley Young.

Come back...

[thejoker]

Sell for me - it makes no sense to let him leave for free. We won't get top 4 with him currently, and we won't get top 4 without him, so we may aswell cash in and re-invest the money.

[Denis_B]

I'd sell him whatever, think he is too much of a legend in his little world

[Hanky]

I wonder who our back up plan to play in the hole is?

Hopefully Houllier will have watched Mike Bassett England Manager by then.

[villatillidie1980]

If we're going to get nothing for him, then we should 'make hay...', but I would like him to stay!