I was very surprised by that. Although he has done a decent job for us as I stated he is not without faults. For someone that tall, he is a poor header and he often looks like he is Bambi on Ice 2. 
Nice lad though.
Seriously, thatās nonsense.
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I think itās get him, and maybe we can get someone else as well.
Ā£500,000 is a really good price. Heās their best player, and theyāve been convinced he was going to make the move to the PL for a while.
Can you please tell me what has changed from start of the month and today? I am excited to have him and its a shrewd signing. Why make it so late when he was already available for 30 days and we donāt even have 1 fit CBā¦ We were top of the league then.
Itās like utter nuts today
If we end up signing Caleta-Car, then itās another Edwards masterclassā¦ To the detail of arranging medicals in Germany to get Marseille to agree a feeā¦
Vice-versa we sign Kabakā¦ Can imagine Eddie sat there all smugā¦
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We probably donāt know what has gone on during that period, but it wouldnāt be too difficult to speculate that a month ago we had other targets ahead of Ben Davies on our listā¦usually you work from the top of your list towards the bottom.
There are probably other reasons one could suggest that are better than implying the club have done next to nothing until the last 48 hours.
You mean other than Rhys struggling with the opportunities heās had, Matip being out for more than a short period, Fabinho getting injured, potentially changed prognosis for VvD and/or Gomez, Keitaās fitness issues now meaning greater priority to get at least one of Henderson/Fabinho back in midfield, the changing availability/attainability of potential targets, financial considerations/outlook, our own performances/results compared with othersā¦you mean whatās changed apart from that?
Nothing, I guess.
But the point was that itās nonsense to suggest that the club have not been trying to get a CB in until yesterday.
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Making signings late is not usual for us and that to me means we are doing it now simply because we have to now. Because of the conditions, we are signing them now simply because we have to now. While Matip had been out this season for days, for 3 weeks even, he had been able to come back and play a few games here and there. But now with this ankle injury, its said that he might be out for months, and that means, we feel we have to get someone in now.
At the end of the day, the club made a decision then based on calculations and risks and information they had rather than making a hash one which I am glad our club is behaving like this. Not perfect but the conditions that we are operating it is far from perfect either.
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And the problems you mentioned were there from December. No one would expect Rhy to a world beater and cover for Van Dyk. Why try to justify something? If its late itās late. And thatās what Klopp said and I would trust him more than your nonsense.
You mean all of those things were there in December, half of which you would have no idea about and the others which hadnāt happened? Ok then.
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Thatās what I felt as well. I couldnāt see the urgency even for a loan signing. I am not qualified enough to question Edwards but its the lost point that worries me. City were there for the taking and we could have been miles ahead.We played 2 midfielders as 2 defenders and thatās like losing 4 players.
Imagine being the selling club and you have a player you are quite happy to sell but have not transfer listed. Liverpool a club with well documented injuries make an enquiry and you think we could do well here, so you bang 20m on top of what you are hoping to get, or you add in some ridiculous clauses.
You are in no rush to sell, you have a full January window to negotiate, you know Liverpool are interested and you will only have to adjust your stance and except lower if Liverpool suddenly appear to be close to signing another player. In which case you would contact them and say ok we can do a deal.
Fast forward to the end of the window and all of a sudden that 20-30m you would be happy to get for a player is at risk as the clock is ticking.
We are now seeing all these clubs suddenly get back in touch reducing their demands on players we have expressed an interest in, yes I believe we could have acted quicker in the window, but at a dramatically increased cost to the clubs budget.
That is my theory anyway.
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Itās quite obvious that the club have been looking for a centre back this month, but the recent bad injury to Matip, has pushed us towards getting another in.
I suspect had Matip shown some resilience, we might have left it. Donāt forget when Gomez got injured in 18/19, Matip came in on the run to the CL final and the second placed finish, and had a good run in the team. Itās wrong to say heās never been able to stay fit.
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Davies signing makes sense. Left footed CB so covers the side we are struggling with the most. Seems to have a good range of passing and fit a āprofileā but whether the quality is there remains to be seen. Presumably Preston see him as a potential England international or they wouldnāt have banked so much on that clause. Wages are probably really low as he was no doubt getting very little at Preston and he probably doesnāt even need to move house to play for us.
Worst case scenario we can sell him in the summer at a profit.
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Of which Preston get 20%, do they are still alright.
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I was under the assumption it was only a 6mo deal, and Davies was still moving on in the summer as he planned.
Talks of a 20% sell on agreed between the clubs would suggest it is a long term permanent deal.
I have seen nothing regards it being six months only, donāt think i have ever seen a deal like that either, that would be a loan deal with no fees involved you would think
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I donāt think it was the football men making the decision not to bring in a CB. There didnāt appear to be any money made available until both Matip and Fabinho joined the injured list. Thatās forced the money men to back down and accept the price of a CB is minimal compared to lost CL revenue so now we are moving on the targets we would have had. Davies is probably the cheap/free cover player target we had identified when there was little money made available and we are still going through with it because of the potential massive upside and we can freely add homegrown cover without any issues.
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Just seeing that now too. Interesting deal. Edwards and team must really like the player. Excited to get him in and see him play.
EDIT: @FowlersLeftPeg regarding the 6mo piece, I read Davies already agreed his deal with Celtic to join on a free in the summer as he would be out of contract with PNE and then we āhijackedā proceedings. So I wasnāt quite sure how that would work itself out.
Yep, 20% of Ā£10mil is a lovely Ā£2mil so they would be laughing. (Figure based on what was reported as his true value).