The Unreliable Rumours Discussion Thread (Part 1)

First offer not final offer. :+1:

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It’s far more important to get the squad size down and make some room on the wage bill than it is to increase the transfer money coming in by a couple of million.

For whom? We seem to be perfectly happy to take our time to see how the window pans out, i.e. there’s no urgency to bring anyone in. Our rumoured targets also seem to be ones for the future/squad rather than an immediate need…

Weirdly Shaqiri could hold the key to us getting Saul, he would directly replace Alberto who wants to move to Atletico. And we have a 20% clause on Alberto… What a web of madness Edwards has woven…

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…and thats the messages/impression we should be giving out even if we were absolutely desperate to bring people in behind the scenes. But even without bringing anyone in we still need to clear the decks. We can’t list and use all the players we currently own. We have about ten players or something who we really need to sell or extend their deals so they don’t enter their final 12 months next summer. Extending contracts requires payrises but we have a load of players we don’t even have the ability to use clogging up the wage bill.

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Seen today Lazio have signed Felipe Anderson too. Even more hopeful Alberto will leave and get us some cash now.

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Do they sell footballers in shops.

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No, but they sell plenty of other items with a limited shelf life.

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The issue will be lowering the wage bill which is the third highest in the League and having to sell before we can buy with Konate’s 36M upfront free as Leipzig refused staggered fees.

Outgoings: Total 69-70M, 300k per week of which 71k were on loan:

Shaq 12M, 86k pw (Lazio)
Williams 8-9M, 25kpw (Brentford or Leeds)
Wilson 10M, 41kpw (Cardiff or West Brom)
Grujic 13M, 15kpw (Porto or Sassulo)
Origi 9M?, 77kpw (Rangers, Gerrard to the rescue)
Philips 15M, 65kpw (if he decides he needs regular playing time and there will be no shortage of takers Burnley?)

Not included in the above calculations are the following loanees that will also likely be moved on again either on loan or if possible sold:
Karius (25kpw), Ojo (32.5kpw), Awoniyi (7.6kpw), Woodburn(10kpw), a total of 75wk.

The difference of Wijnaldum and Konate’s wages 90k and 70k will be 20k but will be absorbed by the returning Elliot and contract renewals, which if anything will probably increase our wage bill even further.

In a perfect summer, 69-70M generated from sales and freeing up 230k in wages if we don’t include the loanees will sign us one very decent player i.e. Nicolo Barrella, or two pretty decent players from the Bissouma, Niguez, Sarr or Sanchez bracket without denting our finances or squad depth.

From a pure salary and age perspective Bissouma 25k and Sarr 75k can be improved upon without blowing the budget and will be in the under 25 age bracket we will normally target, while Niguez is 26 and on 165k per week. Having said that Thiago was signed at 29 years of age on 200 kpw, joint top highest with Salah so it is anyone’s guess.

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I remember that game. He’s far too good for Arsenal

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I like the idea of signing Aouar. Very good player, had an average season by his own high standards, so the timing to buy him might be right, as the price will be slightly depressed. Young, clever, versatile… there’s a lot to like.

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Welcome Yokohama Red!
I’m not sure where you’ve got the wages figures from and I can’t speak with any authority about them but your point that we could strip a big chunk of wages out is well made.
Not sure Rangers have the funds to take Origi - though he’d surely score a hatful up there.

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Hello Yokohama Red. Irrashaimase!!

Bit of a scorcher today, eh?

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Welcome to TAN. Live long and prosper.

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I’d imagine Nat is closer to £6.50 pw, with a bonus of a Snickers for each clean sheet.

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The wages he quotes are from spotrac.com. They’re educated guesses rather than fact - in the case of Davies and Phillips who they have as both earning over 50k - I believe they reach that conclusion by averaging out PL wages for similarly aged/experienced players. There isn’t even the smallest chance that we are paying them anything close to that.

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Correct, I read Davies basically quadrupled his wages coming here up to around £10k a week.

We, in particular me, have been through this before. I got figures from some internet site that put Nat on 65K per week. I believe wz/I decided it was a factor of ten error putting him on 6.5K per week (quite embarrassing for me really not realising how much 65K a week really is). I notice your going by a factor of 10K error in which case why are we not paying him solely with Snickers (yummy) and a breakfast. :wink: :rofl:

Surely just a factor of 10, 100 … error surely, often happens when you don’t par attention as I pointed out above and the last time I used that site to look up Nat’s wages. :smiley:

You Starwars fans get everywhere. It’s for nerds, grow up! I don’t know, you think you have the measure of a man and you realise you just can’t accurately define the data.

:wink: