Real's Lucas Vázquez in discussions with Bayern - Among most valuable free agents
Bayern Munich appear to be in final discussions to sign Real Madrid's Lucas Vázquez. According to a Tuesday night report by Diario AS.
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Stephenlloyd
Player Valuation: £40m
Next time you speak to Moshiri & usmanov, say hi from me. Because you seem to know exactly what we will be spending next summer.
Simon Buttle
Player Valuation: £60m
Please link them it would be good to read them, what is it the Athletic? hardly the greatest journalistic source in the world, Sidney Spreadsheets? i mean the bloke is an utter fantasist and a proven blagger.
If it was an easy sell I don't think we'd have found it as difficult as we have to attract good players. I don't think it's any particulatly proven player's dream to be on Carlo Ancelotti's bench hoping to come on for James Rodriguez at a club playing at best Europa League football.
The point is that building this squad is considerably easier said than done.
It's not, actually.
We just have to be prudent with cash - every club does right now. We lost a lot of money last year, and relied on a massive cash injection from the owner. We're paying for a new stadium. We still don't know for sure when we'll have matchday revenue back. We still don't know if we'll have Europe and what income that will bring in. There's also PL FFP to consider, and UEFA FFP if we get into Europe, of course.
So anybody thinking we have a massive pot it frankly ignoring reality.
That's not to say we have 'no money'. I wouldn't call 30/40m 'no money'. It just means we'll likely have to make that buy 2 players, rather than 1 - and that's on the recruitment team to find those players and negotiate those fees (helped by the fact that every team has been hit by COVID too so at least selling clubs can't demand completely mental - relatively speaking - amounts). We then have some help by big contracts ending, and hopefully getting a fair number of players off the books too, at least one of which (Kean) should bring in good money.
The Athletic were one of them.
The Athletic lads don't chat wham. They'll have been conservative in their estimates, perhaps, but didn't actually put a figure out. Their sources come from the club or elements around the club - a lot of agents. As far as Everton goes, they're probably the most reliable there is right now along with the usual ones.
If anybody's expecting us - right now - to have £100m to flop about, then you're being daft.
No fans in the crowd, bar three games, for a year. It'll be 17 months by the time they're back (at the earliest).
I'm not saying we're skint. I'm making the point that we're going to have to make £50m go further than spending it on one player.
No I don't, not at all.
I'm just sensible enough to know that it's not going to be like City circa 2009-10.
We spent £60m last year on fees - and that was probably too much, but worth it for what we got.
We added James on big wages/signing on fee. Allan won't be getting paid peanuts. Doucoure a decent whack.
We'll be able to offset that by the tosh that's going out of the door this summer on frees and, fingers crossed, adding Bernard and Tosun to that (over 200k a week right there saved).
Then we'll have Kean to sell.
Fact remains, we don't 'need' to spend £100m to get the players in we need to improve us. We've seen what £60m can do. The aim will be to do that again, and if we need to spend more then we'll have to hope those sales/cuts to the squad have been made, but the point of Brands' job is to kind of get the best we can for the cheapest amount.
There's also the small matter of a 52,000-seater stadium we're building.
We added James on big wages/signing on fee. Allan won't be getting paid peanuts. Doucoure a decent whack.
We'll be able to offset that by the tosh that's going out of the door this summer on frees and, fingers crossed, adding Bernard and Tosun to that (over 200k a week right there saved).
Then we'll have Kean to sell.
Fact remains, we don't 'need' to spend £100m to get the players in we need to improve us. We've seen what £60m can do. The aim will be to do that again, and if we need to spend more then we'll have to hope those sales/cuts to the squad have been made, but the point of Brands' job is to kind of get the best we can for the cheapest amount.
There's also the small matter of a 52,000-seater stadium we're building.
Stephenlloyd
Player Valuation: £40m
Blah blah blah
Same things that were said last summer
Let’s see. We have a billionaire accountant who got 30mil of his mate just to get first dips on the stadium. FFP might not even be a thing this year.
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kenada_blue
Welcome to Barcelonaton FC
Couple of points:
You'd sell Holgate (at 24 and covers 2 positions) for less than Bournemouth sold Nathan Ake to City for.
Then bring in a 30 year old CB (who I think is overrated) so we'd have 4 centre backs, 2 are regular starters, and one of whom is one of the highest earners in the squad (Mina £120k a week)?
Madness.
Stephenlloyd
Player Valuation: £40m
Glass half empty I would say
Last year we finished 12th and signed James Rodriguez, Allan from European regulars and Coppa Italia winners Napoli, Doucoure and Godfrey.
We were in for one other player that turned us down - Hojbjerg, because he wanted London and Spurs.
Gabriel would probably have picked Arsenal over us too, but ultimately we pulled out before that choice had to be made because Lille wanted too much. Remember this time last year we had that deal all but agreed.
I don't think we're going to find it hard to attract better players than Coleman, Iwobi or Gomes, which is what we need right now, but finishing as high up the league as possible will help.
Verbal Kint
Player Valuation: £35m
I think the summer market this year will be quiet, teams won't be risking big money on transfer fees with a predicted downturn on revenue and an economic crisis looming. We also have a stadium to fund.
Max Aarons for 35m, don't make me laugh. Would be sheer lunacy giving what's available in the European leagues For a third of the price.
Max Aarons for 35m, don't make me laugh. Would be sheer lunacy giving what's available in the European leagues For a third of the price.
evertony
Player Valuation: £50m
Why maybe not Godfrey? He’s started virtually every game and been our most successful signing of last Summer. What a strange thing to say.
No, realistic.
I also know that we don't need to spend £120m on three players to get better than what we have or bring in players that will improve us. It's on the club to get the best deal possible. Not doing that in the first place is what got Walsh sacked and hasn't helped the process over the last few years either.
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