Sell Mo Salah?
The best player in the world, who is getting the summer off and he’s getting a six week break in the middle of the season?
Are you all fucking joking?
If we keep him, we’re winning the league, lads.
He can then get off he wants on a free, but I would not sell Mo Salah for all the money in the world.
He’s not the best player in the world and we didn’t win the league this season.
It’s a nice sentiment but our recruitment is absolutely outstanding, we could do an awful lot with £120 million+.
Ok
Who?
Who is better than him that we can replace him with?
Usual shite.
Use a “funny” gif to avoid an actual answer.
Salah top scorer again, still effective despite an acknowledged dip in form…vs Rafinha or Bowen…Nunez for Owen territory
We are a big club now. Should behave like one.
When did I ever say we will sign a player better than him?
If he doesn’t want to stay we can’t force him to. If that’s the case, I’d take the money and put it to use if we get a suitably large offer.
I didn’t think that would be such a controversial opinion.
You countered Mascot by saying he is not the best player in the world.
I simply asked who was. And who is better that you would replace him with?
Easy questions
You ducked out, no controversy.
He bloody is the best player in the world, and if wouldn’t have dipped in the second half if he hadn’t been flogged by Egypt half way through the season.
Put it this way, if this was a normal season, There might be a conversation to be had about cashing in, but a Mo Salah who we can run for sixteen games off a nice summer break, and then run for the second half of the season of a six week winter break? That’s a hell of an asset and not one we should be parting with lightly.
You could have worded it better, I hadn’t even realised that’s what you were asking.
Diaz and Mane have been better for the last 4/5 months for starters. Benzema too.
He’s in the top 3 forwards, but best player? Van Dijk and Alisson have had more consistent seasons for us alone. Diaz and Mane have out performed him since the AFCON, with Mane playing the exact same amount of games btw.
If his head’s not in the club why do you want him here? I hope it is btw, but if his head has been turned I agree with ILLOK you take the money and re-invest.
Recency bias. In the first half of the season he was unplayable. He then had to play a succession of 120 minute games, in which he was expected to win games on his own, and he understandably struggled in the second half.
The last four months have been the blip, not the three an a half years before that.
Both things can be true:
Salah is one of the best players in the world and we could definitely benefit from having him next season.
Salah could be sold this summer and we could use those funds to bring in another forward and strengthen in other areas.
I’d like him to extend his contract without breaking our wage structure, but failing that I’m good with either outcome - selling him for silly money and bringing in some more players, or keeping him and letting him leave on a free.
@ILLOK
What he said
Good point about the recency bias.
Messi’s the best player in the world.
I could have. Realise that.
Was Messi the best player in the world in November?
Messi has been clearly declining for a few years now, and that’s OK cos he’s well into his mid thirties.
Mo’s patch when he might not have been the best player in the world has been since January. That’s the recency bias. He’s was unbelievable until AFCON broke him.
I’m looking at what Mo could do with a nice summer break and then six weeks off in winter. He might break forty goals.
I would sooner see him go on a free than lose that.
let’s play that famous “what if” game
let’s say Mo is good for 30 goals next season, I think that’s his average last few seasons.
We keep him, we get 30 goals and we pay him his £200/wk so it costs us around £300,000 per goal. he leaves on a Bosman and pockets £10mil in a signing bonus from future club.
We sell him for £80mil in the summer and get in a replacement (let’s pretend it’s Leeds - Rafinha) and we pay £40M for the player and £80/wk (apparently Luis Diaz is on 56k/wk???) so this opens up some wiggle room in the salary department for Mane and Firmino to re-sign. Rafinha is playing with a better team now and pockets 15 goals for us (he got 11 last season).
the profit from the sale of Salah pays for the new player for 5 years, and the re-signing of Bobby and Sadio, is that worth the 15 goals we don’t get?
Do we win, or lose in this situation?
Don’t shoot me, I’m just playing devil’s advocate.
Impossible to say because you can’t tell if Diaz and Mané get more goals over the course of the season because we change our approach slightly and have a different type of player on the right.
My impression is that we’ve been so financially disciplined that we’re unlikely to “need” the transfer money from Salah in order to seriously invest in the squad over the next few seasons. This is the trade off of not signing someone just to sign someone every window.
Selling Salah, unless it’s for eye watering money (£140m+), creates more problems for the squad composition and our prospects than it solves.
Yeah, this, I don’t think we need the money it’s similarly why I expect we wouldn’t sell Mane for 50m though it recoups Diaz, we need 5 players for that forward line and likelihood is we will have 5 If Minimino goes as expected and Carvalho comes in, we will need to then recruit two with everyone in the world going so you got 100m in your pocket?
I assume we will sign another midfielder this summer and then offload a few. Maybe some money will come in handy but it really depends, I can still see Mane staying.