The best defensive midfielders are going for a lot more than 50 million.
These kind of arguments were put against Caicedo last year, our fans were baulking at the idea of paying even 20-30 million for him based off his 8 games for Brighton. Sometimes a player just stands out. Lavia is an exceptional talent IMO, and I highly doubt we’d regret signing him.
There’s a reason Southampton fans love him and everyone else wants to sign him.
What about something like, 35m upfront and 15 million based on appearances. 100 apps = 10m, 150 apps = 5m more.
If he plays 150 times, he’s clearly a decent player and probably worth 50m.
This makes me think, are there many occasions where a selling club has accepted add-ons that they potentially couldn’t benefit on for half a decade or more? Realistically, reaching 150 games for a young guy who likely wouldn’t be a regular just yet could be anywhere between 3 and 9 years from now. I just wonder if there are examples of clubs accepting these sorts of terms.
Ok, 50 and 100 then. Just plucked numbers from the air tbh.
Wasn’t trying to act like a dick head (I try to reserve that to the Cricket Thread) but just wasn’t sure what length of time a club are willing to wait for a financial return from. The fact sell-on fees exist suggests there isn’t a time limit.
Yeah, no worries. I guess even 100 games suggests he’s been pretty regular for 3/4 seasons.
Curtis Jones is on 97 apps (all comps) I believe.
15m upfront and 135m when he gets a statue outside Anfield
Good call.
As if it makes a difference to us anyway!
Gomez hasn’t done well as a CB recently and he is likely to be used mostly as a backup RB next season, that creates an immediate vacancy. Matip is a fitness concern and he will leave next summer. VVD will be 32 in July, had a poor season, and unlikely to play any significant role beyond 2025. All these combined means Konate is the only competent long-term CB. To be absolutely blunt, there isn’t even a reliable third CB.
Personally think a defender is needed more than a midfielder if we have to choose either or.
I think a between Curtis, Henderson, Thiago, Elliott, Fab, Dom, Baj and Mac there is more than enough there.
VVD, Konate, Gómez and Matip on paper is fine but unfortunately they play on grass. With the lack of reliabilty of fitness, that does not fill me with confidence.
I’m just responding to you saying we don’t have any young CBs, we do. Whether they’re ready yet to play any part this season I’m not sure but they are there.
I don’t see any of Fabinho, Lavia or Bajcetic being viewed as our alternative CB option if we don’t get a new player we’re looking at on the market right now. Neither one of the likes of Phillips, Berg or Quansah.
The price is the price. If the club has the money and wants to spend the money, go for it! Football finances long ago moved into crazy town. Commenting on the structure or price of a deal is fine and all, but the context is utter madness, because that’s what football at the high end has become.
Go back a year or so ago, and Caicedo was a player who could have been bought for similar money to todays Lavia. All the same arguments would have applied. Good athleticism, but not proven enough. The reasonable thinking at the time might have said, £25-30M tops, and we will send a player to Brighton on loan to sweeten the deal.
Fast forward a year and Caicedo looks to be going to Chelsea for £80-90M or whatever. Which is to say, the world’s gone mad! And in the world of football finances it happened a long time ago.
It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest to see Lavia’s value move in a similar direction to Caicedo, and perhaps that’s what Klopp had in mind when he called for a bit more risk, because there will be times when a relatively unproven player might cost £40-50M. You don’t want all your deals to be like that, but overall, you might need some of your deals to be like that.
For our purposes, Mac and Szobo are more proven, so adding a less proven player to the midfield group we sign this summer isn’t a crazy risk, overall.
Our midfield is evolving, but we are in need of a player who is press resistant and can cover the ground, at pace, and protect the defence. Lavia can be that man for us. Fabinho has the nous and positioning, but he can’t do anything about his legs! Yes, we can close the gaps somewhat, and the shape we had towards the end of last season meant Fabinho wasn’t as exposed. But I still think we need a good athlete in there, and Lavia has that in spades.
If he came in he could still learn from Fabinho, but over the course of the season I would expect the young man to usurp the older man.
And what of Bajcetic? He looked a player, everyone agrees with that. What is less certain, for me at least, is where he will ultimately play. At one stage he was a defender. Then he did well as a 6 for us, albeit as a young lad who tired in games, which is understandable as he develops. He also got forward in more of a box to box 8 role, and looked like he had an eye for goal.
All that is to say it is far from certain where Bajcetic will play. To my mind I think he is versatile enough to play either 6 or 8 as needed, and could easily complement Lavia.
He went from City to Southampton for €12.3m on the basis (or part of) 2 senior appearances (97 minutes in total) for City, 1 U21 cap for Belgium (he only recently got his chance in the senior side under Tedesco, in a position where they are crying out for new players). We were aware of him before, also thanks to @Sweeting.
Obviously there “must” be something there. I liked him from what I saw from him last season. But there’s no hiding that I certainly didn’t expect that £50m price tag. Although Southampton are probably well aware that they won’t get that fee, but they must be hoping now that the interest of a few clubs raises the price.
I’d be also interested who else of our #6 options would stay here (at least for next season), if he was to join.
Do we have any reliable links or just twitter tattle?
But the two are not linked. Just because Caicedo has gone to show he can do it over the course of a season doesn’t mean Lavia will. £50m is a huge risk for us. We’re talking Luis Diaz type money here for a guy who was worth £10m a year ago. A good season in a bad Southampton side and he’s gone up in value 5x, nah not for me.
Every transfer is a risk but the reason we like to shop in that 23-25 range is the body of work on which we can judge a player more confidently. I get sometimes we might want to take a risk on someone less proven but are we really in a position to take a £50m gamble without being able to do our usual due diligence?
To be honest I think Caicedo is a £50m player going for way over market value now and that is influencing the price being banded around for Lavia.
Elliot + Carvalho + Ramsey + Doak = £12m OR Low money, Low risk
It is the FSG common sense approach - No complaints from me
I’d look at the other side and think that fabinho’s lack of pace wont matter too much when the other guys around him in the midfield (mac , jones , Dom) and Trent do the pressing. Fabinho can then play the sweeper role and recycle the ball quickly.
One con with that is that we can’t play Thiago and Henderson alongside him which restricts our game style.
Not entirely sure we need a DM this season . If it’s someone with a potential like Tchouameni, Bellingham etc sure , I’d be all great for that.
I think we’ll be fine with rotating Fabinho for this season along with Henderson and slowly bringing Bajcetic upto scratch. With Thiago playing in the matches he’s fit for.
But going on forward to the next season , If we get someone in this year to possibly move Fabinho out by next season. It will be the way to go. Thiago’s out after this anyway.
Fix the CB first. Lavia/Thuram is quite probably a smoke screen to whoever we buy though (even if we do get a CDM).
[quote=“rab, post:78, topic:3633, full:true”]
I agree. He’s a very good player but I also think Caicedo quietly had a bad second half of the season - the fact he played RB for a bit was being bandied about as “look how versatile he is” but he got absolutely rinsed whenever he went back there.
I do recollect Caicedo having a splendid game against man utd. But then it’s man utd. By and large he was pretty average at RB