I’d be fine with 3 new additions if they were Bellingham,Gvardiol and Neves.How to fund that outlay would need a bit of creative accountancy of man city proportions.
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Kim Min-Jae would be a great signing, apparantly has a 40mil release clause. He’s a fucking unit.
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And is currently on relative peanuts, which would presumably make any move that much more viable. Having only seen him a handful of times, he does strike me as similar to Konate in style and strengths and so I wonder if that creates the right balance for a future partnership.
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Exactly, spend his salary on a younger and better player. He will be 38 soon, has no speed anymore and needs too much time handling the ball which is normal for a guy his age. Great for him that he wins that pre-season running test every year but that is not what you need in a football match.
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It’s the second time you’ve said to just ‘spend his wages on someone younger’ and it’s such a reductive thing to say.
We’ll sign central midfielders this summer regardless of if Milner signs a new contract or not, he’s not a barrier to that.
His contract, if he signs one, will cost about £3mill and if you think you can better invest that in a young player then you need to step away from football manager and get real.
I don’t mind at all whether he stays or goes this summer but the idea that his salary is better spent elsewhere is nonsense.
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Thanks for your ‘friendly’ advice and I will ignore it.
Have a good day.
We’ll spend the wages from Keita, Ox, Bobby and a few others on the 3 main and 4 (or more) in total signings we need. That is already a nice sum to be freed up.
We can’t look at everything through wages. There’s value in what an experienced player like Millie offers to the first team. Great leadership off the pitch and still pretty solid on the pitch.
I have no problems if he’s earning more than someone like Bajcetic. It’s how football goes, it’s the balance of youth and experience.
And now we have to offload a few players who are younger than Millie, but they rather look 37-38 when they play. And get a few fresh legs and quality in, who are better than our younger ones + Jones.
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Ox, Keita, Firmino and Arthur going will clear probably upwards of £520k a week off the wage bill. Add in probably Matip, Phillips and Adrian and you’ve got maybe another £175k a week.
Even if Milner signs a new deal on the same terms he’ll make about £60k a week, or maybe 10% of what we’ve already saved.
What new, younger and better player are we getting for £60k a week? What’s the transfer fee for this kid? And is he one of the two or three centre mids people are already expecting or is he a fourth one? And won’t this kid expect to play fairly regularly? Where’s his game time with 8 other players already vying for a CM berth?
It’s so simplistic to just say give his money to someone younger and better.
Did I say they have to give Milners wage to 1 kid, no put it in the total salary kitty and use it for better and younger players.
Giving Milner money to play for is is a waste of money IMHO, we can and must do better the the old legs from Milner. His time a a player for us is up.
Milner on £50k a week isn’t the problem. The planning which lead to him starting a champions league game against Real Madrid is the problem.
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Errr yeah, that’s exactly what you said actually.
Milner only becomes a problem if we can’t afford the salary of someone else and there’s an awful lot of salary being freed up already. Or do you want to pay a couple new signings £30k each more than they asked for?
How about next summer, when Milner leaves we give that money to Elliott and Bajetic? Would that be okay or should we reserve that purely for new people.
Well it is obvious what you are trying to do and I will not give you that pleasure.
Have a good day.
Riveting discussion going on in here, I see. Some really well argued points from both sides. 
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Milner should not be the focus for our midfield woes. Or at least not now.
Fast forward to the end of summer. Let’s say we sign one midfielder, and Klopp says we couldn’t add a second as the wage bill needed to be trimmed.
At that point, let’s get the microscope out.
Right now it doesn’t seem worthy to argue the toss. Let the full picture build up as to what we are going to do this summer, and then see how Milner fits into that.
My guess is there will be two midfielders this summer, with wages probably covered from expected outgoings. Then one more midfielder the following summer, with wages being covered as a couple of the old guard age out then.
I just don’t get the supposed interest in Nunes and I am hoping it was driven by Ward and his apparent fascination with Portugal.
The numbers are, at best, average. Low pass completion, doesn’t play forwards, can’t win a header. Does make tackles, which implies a decent work rate at least and he’s good at moving with the ball. Doesn’t seem to have made a very good impact with the Wolves fans either. There are way better options out there for 40m.
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This is an interesting point, we’ve signed a lot of Mendes clients over the last few years… Could that be why Ward is leaving? Some sort of review to ask why is that the case?
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We could have done with Nunes’ pace and ability to beat the press this season.
Just like playing Thiago as a 10, Nunes doesn’t look at all like an attacking midfielder. If he was used in a similar role to the one he played at Sporting I’m sure he’d have looked better.
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Noticed we haven’t heard as much about him since Ward announced he was moving on.
I know he moved to Wolves and I just find the whole scenario odd but I’d be very very surprised if he arrives here.
We could also be waiting to see if he gets relegated, apparantly the price drops £20mil!
He was really good in Portugal so I’d assume thats where most of our data and scouting comes from, as ILLOK says he has been shunted much further forward this season which hasn’t helped him.
Yet the same reports that say we’re still interested are the ones saying we stayed out of last summer because we werent convinced he was ready for the Prem. It’s really difficult to see anything he’s done this season that would meaningfully alter that perception.
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