Ben DAVIES: 2021/22 (on loan at Sheffield United)

Davies > Virgil

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So he left the training camp for ā€œpersonal reasonsā€ and then was at a wedding the next day. I can only assume thatā€™s allowed to happen because we are looking to move him on? I suppose a covid delayed wedding of a close relative is a fair reason?

Itā€™s clear he wonā€™t be sent out on loan.

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So, who is more reliable, Sheffield United Bible (Iā€™m guessing itā€™s their official fan site) or Neil Jones?

Would have preferred a permanent deal, but I guess The Blades are still a bit sore from the Brewster deal. I guess a loan is as good as it can get for a player who havenā€™t played in 2021.

Far from it mate - a FB page with 30 followers. Worst than some twitter ITKnow nothings.

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Thanks mate. So, Neil Jones it is :rofl:

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So 1m for loan - we only paid 500k plus 1.1m performance related for him in January. However if we are going down this buy-only-for-loan-then-resale route ala Chelsea, Iā€™d prefer we did it more in their ā€˜highly rated youngstersā€™ manner where they stand a reasonable chance of convincing clubs to pony up 10, 20 or 30m for these players who will never play for them rather than signing a 26 year old lower league plodder who surely has quite limited upside.

Think it was an emergency deal to give us emergency cover that we didnā€™t end up using. They got something as he was in his last six months, he got a great experience and we had cover in case anything else went wrong. Only losers were Celtic who were all set to sign him on a free in the summer.

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A bizarre signing. Squad was on its arse. Every senior CB injured plus one or two of the back ups. Iā€™d have thought the last thing JK and the coaching team needed was Ben turning up. No offence to the lad but he was always going to be a long term project rather than a quick fix. As it turned out we had better CBs at the club already (Phillips/Wiliiams) so he wasnā€™t required. Ultimately no great harm done and we can rejoice at the Ā£1 million loan fee but I still canā€™t understand what the club were thinking.

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My theory is that he was dirt cheap and the club took a blind punt. Klopp and Ljinders probably watched those first few training sessions, shared a few concerned looks and decided heā€™s not good enough.

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When he came in Phillips and Williams still werenā€™t all that fancied and Fabinho was playing at CB still. If things had continued in that way Davies would have been the CB on the bench backing up Kabak and Fabinho starting and when Kabak then got his injury Davies would have been the guy coming in whilst Phillips or Williams was on the bench. As it was Phillips and Williams started to really impress allowing Fabinho to return to CM and Phillips in particular shone as more and more teams tried to target us in the air (the one part of his game that really stands out with Davies as something that makes him a bad fit for us). From his arrival to when he would have started being used things changed. He was no longer a safe option as heā€™d have made us significantly weaker in the air than Phillips and Williams did. Iā€™m glad for the academy kids and Iā€™m sure Davies wonā€™t regret the time spent working with quality players, facilities and coaching staff. A taste of a level he probably never expected to reach.

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Ben Davies has joined Sheffield Utd, on a season long loan.

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I remember the deal being talked about before Matip had that injury, apparently we had discussed with him a deal on the Thursday morning only for Matip to go down injured in the evening during the Spurs game I believe.

In a way maybe we got lucky as it forced us to seek out a better defender in Kabak and though he wasnā€™t amazing he did fill a gap for us in that period and allowed us to potentially work on Phillips and Williams as an alternative.

Unless he was always a back up plan in case Kabak or Carr who was talked about didnā€™t happen.

Irony is he isnā€™t the first defender to fall foul like this Caulker played three games, two up top and one in defence under Klopp.

Maybe Davies wasnā€™t even that good going forward :rofl:

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mike myers oscars GIF by The Academy Awards

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Ah Iā€™m sorta gutted for him

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More than likely. He had also been linked to West Ham the previous summer for around Ā£8m so we probably just thought of it as ā€œfuck it we will probably be able to make a profit eitherwayā€.

According to the Liverpool Echo, the club have fielded enquiries from Celtic and Middlesbrough already, and have set a price tag of Ā£4 million for the Englishman.

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This signing is up there with LFCs most bizarre signings along with Sean Dundee and Steven Caulker.

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If we get Ā£4 m for this lad, Ward will go up immensely in my esteem. :joy:

Weā€™ve already recouped the Ā£500k fee we paid PNE for him when Sheff United payed us that much to loan him last season. None of the fee add ons have been met, so PNE wonā€™t be getting anything else out of us.

Reckon we end up somewhere like Ā£1.5m upfront, then some 750k in add ons. Anywhere near Ā£4m would be very good work!

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He was bought in to make sure we had enough numbers alongside Nat, Rhys and Ozan. As such, he did his job.

As @rupzzz points out, we also got a loan fee for him last season. If anyone offers anything for him, he should be sold.

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