Pretty much. I think the club has shown that it’s more than willing to lose a little bit of money as a reward for those players who don’t kick up a fuss on the way out, e.g. Lovren, Mané.
I’m fine with the fee, we’ve doubled our money on a player who never cemented a first-team spot, only played 10 league games a season, will turn 28 this season and who had an unsuccessful loan spell while with us.
He seems a nice lad and always tried his best, but it was unrealistic to expect more imho.
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Minamino was the standout along with Haaland in the Salzburg team. Had we also picked Haaland before his Dortmund move we would have been unstoppable with Haaland, Mane, Salah, Bobby and Jota.
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I think it had been the case even before he announced his departure. Simply, a combination of COVID’s influence and the fact that our surplus players weren’t as good or as in demand as we thought they were… And maybe, just maybe, buying clubs looked at Edwards’ previous sales and thought that they should drive a harder bargain or employ a witch doctor. 
I’m jealous of Man City’s outgoing business, to be honest. I can make some peace with them selling Sane, Sterling, Jesus and Ferran bloody Torres for a higher amount than Liverpool got for Mane but it’s their less illustrious players where they really nailed it, in my opinion. Just had a quick look at Transfermarkt and the fees they got for the likes of Bazunu, Angelino, Douglas Luiz, Gunn, Harrison, Porro… I think some of our sales should have been more expensive.
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If I was someone at UEFA who actually gave a shit about FFP, I’d be having a little look at the cash flow of those transactions.
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Tbf uefa did catch them out before, but when they went to the CAS city were allowed to pick 2 of the 3 judges. Unsurprisingly the CAS then ruled in City’s favour.
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Not really. TV money in French league is awful and they have a tiny stadium.
On a related note, any idea about their fan base? Monaco has a population of 40K 
Yeah, was thinking the same. Some of these deals look fishy like hell.
Their fanbase is tiny (2-3k crowds per match). But they are always among the biggest spenders in their league. To think of it, before PSG came in, they were in a league of their own for large periods, in economic terms.
Edwards was great but he also couldn’t shift everyone at prices we wanted. Wasn’t able to move on the likes of Woodburn, Ojo or Karius for any fee for example. We got less for Grujic than we were reported as wanting. Wilson and Awoniyi were also sold below the initial price we set.
Ultimately we are selling a 27 year old forward we signed for about 7m for more than double that price, having seen him play well but essentially just playing the minutes we’d expect a good youth player to get (894 minutes - just 176 in the league).
Always remembered for a great run of goals in the Cups but he wasn’t threatening to become a mainstay in our team and we are cashing in while his stock is up.
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They had a wealthy owner for a while, but that ended around the time they flogged all their best players to try to make ends meet, like Fabinho and Lemar, as well as loaning Falcao to United. It’s been a fair few years now since they had any money to speak of.
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All expensive players to begin with. Bazunu was 500k at 15 years old. Angelino cost over 10m, Douglas Luiz cost over 10m, Gunn was a couple of hundred grand when he was 13, Harrison was 3m but they signed him off a club they also own, Pedro Porro they made a loss on having bought him for over 10m.
Basically the outgoing looks impressive but it’s not really when you factor in that these were already some very expensive players.
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Ok fair enough then, I don’t follow French football anymore, so my view on them might have been outdated. Thanks for the update!
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Rybolovlev bought them right at the beginning of the FFP era and used a loop hole in how that accounted for Monaco’s special tax situation to massively increase their ability to land players. That situation within french football has evolved to the point they no longer hold that advantage they did then, and he was personally hit with what was at the time the most expensive divorce settlement of all time. Those two things basically cut off the money from the family and turned them into what is essentially a footballing arbitrage operation. The period in which they spend lavishly was really only a small period, it’s just relatively fresh in our minds.
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That’s right, but before FFP, during the eighties and nineties, they were a real force despite of their empty stadium. I remember for instance how they managed to land Klinsmann from Inter for a horrendous amount of money at the time, when he was still in his prime.
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This came out of the blue. I am really surprised Takumi is going to Liverpool. Quite sad really, quite a few of our players leaving. Taki was great in the Cup tournaments. It is such a shame, he could not get a regular game time.
Best of luck Takumi at Monaco, hope you do well.
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Klinsmann was purchased with the money they received from PSG for Weah. Monaco is an attractive place to live and so they have periodically been able to land decent players, but prior to Rybolovlev it was never because they were out spending their peers.
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I think we’re seeing a strategy by the club of being willing to accept lower bids and be flexible with payment structure in order to create good relationships with clubs that have a good track record of bringing through players or with an eye already on a future transfer ie. the Grugic deal with Porto seems to have been with a eye already on the Diaz one.
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… and players didn’t and still don’t pay any tax, so that’s of course a big incentive, also nowadays.
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Circumstances helped.
In 2014, Ibe had a loan spell with Derby and did well. We were struggling post Suarez, and even recalled him in January. Played a few cameos for us, and the hype for some was that he was better than Stirling.
That summer, we gave him a 5-year deal, which shows some faith. Then the Klopp era begins, and Ibe scores a good goal on the last day of the season (and he was involved 27 times that season). So when we sold him, a lot of people were scratching their heads, that had Klopp made an error. In hindsight, Klopp knew exactly was he was doing.
With Solanke, he was involved in a lot of games for us, but never hit the net apart from once. His attributes were there though. When we sold him, I think many were rightly surprised at the high fee we received (was 19mill).
His Premier league performances for Bournemouth just highlighted that we fleeced them. But fair play to Bournemouth, they believed in him, and now after two years in the Championship, he seems to have finally started to live up to his potential.
With their return to the Prem, Solanke has a chance to show that he finally belongs in the top division. Will be hard for a promoted club, but he should be looking to try to emulate Ivan Toney’s return to the Prem.
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