Recent content by hetion

To be fair, Joyce will be writing pretty much verbatim from what the club is telling him. How true THAT is is another matter

Hopefully just a way of telling Sociedad we have other targets that we'll move onto if need be. Don't understand how any game-playing via the media like that actually helps, but all clubs and agents try and do it so who knows

Poking my head in there's people arguing we don't need CMs? Am I reading that right?

Definite credible links that we're trying. Not enough credible links that he's interested though. Feel like it's one where we may ride our luck a bit. Happens to be a summer where he wants a move and we want a new RW and by chance there's not the same opportunities going elsewhere so a PL move...

Yeah absolutely he's a huuuge upgrade for us immediately. This is all just conjecture from me projecting out yeeaars in the future - which is hard! That's why even pros at football clubs get it wrong so often. It's just what I reckon. It's not where I'd spend that much money right now but...

I guess it's more that I think weighting our resources into moving the dial for the next season or two shouldn't be our main goal, or at least not at the cost of impacting our ability to rebuild long-term. In absolutely every sense of the word we are a club in transition and we should be...

Compared with other CMs in the prem that year Edit: again, I just wanna be clear because discussions on the internet push people into taking two opposite viewpoints - I don't think he's a bad player at ALL. I just don't think he moves the dial aalll that much for the price and age.

This is the same Douglas Luiz whose passes into the final third, progressive passes and progressive carries were all just slightly above average in this last season at Villa? And his shot and goal creation from open play was *below* average? This is what I mean like, he's a good player and...

A Ahh my mistake. Anyway he's a million miles better than Garner and I'd enjoy watching him play if he signed. It just gives me concerns about long term planning.

I guess the thing for me is, and this relates to your last point @GrandOldTeam, is that in the age of PSR, 40m for a 28 year old is not peanuts at all. If you spend that on that player on a 3 year deal, you are never seeing another penny of it again, and that then is instantly £40m that you need...

Just on the flipside, 4 of those goals were pens, and Juve paid 50m and realised their mistake so quickly they're trying to get their money back after one season.

Related question, because this is where my head goes with it, would you rather him for 40m or Hackney for 20m?

No, not unless we needed exactly his profile to do a very specific job and that would complete our squad. He wasn't THAT good. Juve paid that and they overpaid. Don't get me wrong - huge, immediate upgrade over Garner. It's just not smart squad building in the long term and we have to be...

Yeah this is basically how I feel about it. You spend 40m and high wages on a 28 year old if you have one very specific piece of the puzzle to fill in your squad to contend for trophies next season. We are in the exact opposite situation

I know this is hugely pessimistic of me but I'm concerned we'll massively overpay here. He's not the sort of player you want to spend £40m on. I'm talking nonsense obviously because we haven't even bought him let alone knowing how much for, but it's a concern