The continuation of his poor form justifies Slots decision to originally drop him.
The resultant dummy now looks even more silly.
However he has a remarkable fitness record and should still be able to bob up with a few finishes. But he can’t expect to keep starting now.
Amazing how only 12 months ago he was all the Ballon talk.
For me, as sad as it is, he isn’t in the best eleven. He should be coming off the bench in the last twenty minutes of games.
The experience will be really chastening for FSG. They are so reluctant to give aging players big deals, and they broke their rule for Salah and Van Dijk. Both (Virgil to a lesser extent than Mo) are huge reminders why that thinking exists in the first place.
The decline in Mo has been quite pronounced, perhaps even more than the pessimistic side of the forecast might have suggested. I would imagine that we knew he was declining, but would still have expected more than we’ve seen from him this season.
With that said, the new deal still makes economic sense, as instead of going on a free last summer at the end of his contract, the club has preserved a transfer fee.
That still has to play out, so we don’t know for sure, but I would imagine the Saudis will come in for perhaps 100M in the summer.
Declines can be of different levels in different aspects of the game, unpredictable, sudden and quite fast once they happen.
Of course, it’s also connected to how we’ve been doing as a team so far this season, our issues, etc.
Lampard (I know, a totally different player to Mo) talked about how he approached every season/summer year by year once he entered his 30’s, because he knew it could be around the corner and can come in as bad surprise.
Some things we can see through our eyes, some things are a combination of that and data.
I don’t think we (both the club and the player) had a drop like this in mind or hope. It’s more the sheer numbers (as he’s been a monster numbers wise), because Salah was never really a technically perfect player and we had to camouflage him defensively.
It’s part of decisions and it’s easy for the public to always call for new contracts to be give. Now we see that not all of them can get new contracts. Sometimes we’ll have to disappoint other people and prioritize.
And I don’t see us getting quite that type of money from Saudi, but let’s see if it is happening this summer, what’s on the table and which club he would want.
I’d be over the moon if it was that much.
I hope it eventually makes economic sense. By the end of the year we have paid him 20 million pounds.
I think 100m is way way over what we could expect. Half of that would be nice and a no brainer sale.
Maybe 100M is too ambitious, especially as we will presumably be willing sellers.
If the amount helps to pay for another winger, say Yan Diomande, and we then put our budget into other areas, I’ll be more than fine with that.
I watched Diomande again today and he is impressive. You would think he is one of the next expensive production line Leipzig sales to EPL or Bayern.
I suspect the valuations between him and Mo are moving in opposite directions very quickly.
I can only talk in hindsight but I wonder if club would have sold him last summer had his contract been running for an additional year at least. I wonder if club’s analysts saw signs of his physical decline in the second half of the last season - if there were any.
This situation with Tottenham and Robertson suggests that there’s a bit of clearing of the decks and, as politicians like to phrase it, financial consolidation going on. Maybe they thought last summer “OK, we’ll pay Mo 20 million quid but will get 50 million quid in the summer from Saudis, so all is well”.
I would be very surprised if there was any expectation around selling him for a significant fee. I still don’t see it happening.
Math is great, but there is one tiny little thing in between that.
A year (or more) of football and damage that can happen also (not only!) due to all those moves we’ve made last summer.
We might be in a situation having to replace Salah (which can be done in different ways) without even figuring out how to incorporate the likes of Szoboszlai, Wirtz, Ekitike and Isak.
So what type of player do we potentially aim for, if there are questions with all those players with and without Salah?
I know the decision makers obviously know more than we do, especially what they plan to do. We don’t have to know it. I just want to see it. In the not so distant future.
One possible way is to play Szoboszlai at right wing, and use the money to buy a midfielder like Wharton.
I hope we are able to buy Wharton and a fast winger like Diomande. As well as sorting out the central defence.
I can see us spending 250M and recouping around half that back.
I would imagine it would take us close to our limit, so the spending wouldn’t continue like that or last summer. But the team would pretty much be renewed, and with a lot of young talent we would be much better placed to fight on all fronts for the next cycle.
Maybe.
But then the question is, is Szobo as a RW good enough attacking wise for a side that wants to win leagues and CL’s (hopefully we’re there next season…)?
There are options and combinations that can be too offensive or not offensive enough.
Last summer left us with too many questions and we’re bound to enter the next one with a few of them unanswered.
Yes if he is supported by an overlapping full back, but would imagine that he wouldn’t be used the same as what we have had in the past.
Before AI and Photoshop, that would be a cool pic
Been a bit naff even then… though it would have had some effort.
