I don’t know what are PSG’s plans for the rest of the window, but looking at their squad, they look settled for the new season. Better equipped than last season, when it seemed to me that they’re a bit short. Hence some struggles they had in the first part, when it took ages for them to finally get their best XI on the pitch.
They’re currently on a little net profit of €2.3m and on the back of winning everything in the last year or so apart from the last Coupe de France. So they can play the long game and want big money. Possibly even if they risk going into the season towards January with an extra forward. Considering how it all started last season.
I guess their 6 main players for 3 offensive positions are; Doue, Kvaratskhelia, Dembele, Akliouche, Godts and Torres.
I mean, maybe the reason we went for Mbaye first was because we thought we could get him a lot cheaper than Minteh. Then, as the fees being asked for him rose towards what Brighton value Minteh at, we decided we might as well return to our preferred choice?
I think so too, but I guess it could depend how comfortable they are keeping him and sending him somewhere on loan for the season, or if they’ve decided they want to sell now.
There’s an argument for buying both him and Minteh in addition to Barcola, if Gakpo gets sold. We’d be stacked with wingers, which would be a good thing, and I could see the thinking behind it if Liverpool see one or two of them as options through the middle as well.
Which makes the touted Cody sale even more crazy. Had one or both of those shown enough in pre season to think they’d add numbers of the viable options this season then you can make sense of it. The two players we’re trying to bring in were thought to be moves to address existing limitations of the squad, in part caused by Harvey’s and Chiesa’s situations, not something that requires a cost balancing move for a guy who has got more appearances over the past two years than probably anyone bar Virgil.
The Gakpo situation is a strange one. He is a good player and a reliable source of goals (nothing like Mo levels - who is? But a steady stream that is very useful).
So the likes of Man City and a flush Tottenham are interested.
If we have determined that Barcola is the better player, and Rio can get useful understudy minutes on the left as he continues to develop, then I can see the sense in selling Gakpo if there are good offers on the table and he is open to going.
Then if it ends up being Minteh and Munoz on the right, I’d be fine with that too.
Generally you want to keep good players, but if the ~£70M fee helps you bring in a better player, and do the business you need to do, it’s understandable. Mind you, it will only make sense when we see the full picture at the end of a few moves, because in isolation it very much makes sense to keep him.
Yes. I think that is usually the way. You want to keep players unless you need to get the cash (or position in the squad) to bring in somebody better, or a player/s that will benefit you more in the aggregate.
In theory we should be open to sell literally anyone if a better player or player that will make us even better is available. Obviously in reality that´s not always the case.
70m would be a poor sale. Savinho just went for 85. PSG are using the state of the market to get 120 odd out of us for Barcola. I’d hope we adopt a similar premise and get a proper fee for him if we do sell
Thing is, a player’s value for the team can dramatically shift according to how he’s used by the gaffer, and the training he gets. This season’s Gakpo might be far far better than last season’s.
He’s fit, settled and from what we can see, happy to stay. I wouldn’t sell him so late in the window, nor anyone else for that matter.
Gakpo is a good player and I’m certain he will show that more than last season. Most of them were bad last season, for various reasons.
I’m not anxious to push a good player out the door. But if we sign Barcola and one other winger, I can see us taking the money for Gakpo if a good offer is on the table and he is open to the move.
I have not got a clue what the fee would be. ~£70M is a guess. I could argue all the way up to £100M given some of the other moves we have seen, and I would love it if my guess proves to be too low, should he move. Let’s see what happens!
I think it is interesting that he has had an agreement with Spurs since July. That suggests that this is something that has been planned for, which seems strange considering he signed a new deal only a short while ago.
Otherwise I would have thought that this was a cost balancing measure. If Barcola comes in, he will be on a big wage and presumably first choice on the Left Wing. We need options for the right wing. We know the club are unhappy to pay top wages to someone they have on the bench?
Yes, cody covers two positions but he will likely have even less playing time once Ekitike is back.
Then there is the issue of us losing so many players recently on free (or relatively low fee in Jones’s case) transfers - and the likelyhood that Elliot may go that way too.
There have been people with supposed connections to the club who have been saying that the plan was to move him on this summer from the moment he signed that deal. I think maybe Lynch is the one who has pushed this the most. It has never made sense to me as an idea, or the kind of refusal for the idea to go away despite it only being hearsay that the insiders know about but wont attribute to anyone. But maybe it was right?
Ian Graham often spoke about the idea that when you spend money you need to see it on the pitch. Maybe the idea was that we needed him to play a big role during the transition, but would soon look to bring in reinforcements in his role. SO we were paying him handsomely in the meantime on the proviso that once we started looking for his replacement he did his job of finding a landing spot for himself to so we did not have to have 260k a week sitting on the bench.
I can sort of make a sensible story out of it other than the idea that we’d know that far ahead we wanted to move him on or even that now is the time to be doing it with so much uncertainty in the team
This is what I’ve been thinking as well, with that Ian Graham quote in mind. That if a player is paid starter money without being a starter, he becomes someone the club would like to move on.
And that’s also why I interpreted the new contracts for Gravenberch and Szoboszlai as a commitment from the club just as much as a commitment from the players, basically saying you’re our guys.
That doesn’t mean they will be no matter the circumstances. But for now I think they are.
Yeah no idea. Not much about the whole situation makes much sense to me. But maybe a sense of overpaying him now to give him more room come down to a more reasonable level on his way out? Seems absurdly convoluted and liable to blow up in your face (because who ever gets a raise and treats it as temporary?). Im just trying to make sense of what is a weird story
