I suspect with Leoni’s unfortunate injury the calculus will shift, and rather than waiting to sign Guehi on a free next summer, we will be in for him in January. Hopefully as soon as the window opens. Decisive. And if it means slightly overpaying, even 25M for half a season and beyond, instead of 35M for a full season and beyond, we might still do it as we will have big prizes to go for.
In terms of career achievements, after the move fell through Guehi might have written this season off as another season biding his time at Palace. But now a renewed sense of ambition for the 2025-2026 season might awaken, as if he joined Liverpool in January, he can compete for the Premier League title and the Champions League in half a season, as well as the domestic cups however they are panning out.
Yep, I would imagine we will have to overpay to secure the deal in January, and we might do that, but only to a point, due to circumstances.
My guess is 25M max in January, and if they don’t play ball, we will sign another target and add Guehi in the summer on a free.
Edit:
The way I would look at it is we were going to sign him for 35M for 5 years. Signing him for 25M for four and a half years is the comparison, not just the current season.
I don’t think so. We might be willing to overpay a little, but Liverpool have shown they don’t get dicked about in the market - even if that means leaving the squad a little short. We’ll have a January valuation and, within a small tolerance, we’ll stick to it.
There was noise when the window closed a move would be sorted in late september for January window. Will be interesting to see if that is true or what other options appear.
Whether it’s Guehi or another, at this point it’s very important he must be through the door as soon as January comes, Virgil style. Until then we can’t do anything but hang tight, but absolutely set the wheels in motion already.
Not being dramatic, but 3 CBs is now our best case scenario until Jan and one of them is Gomez who, while I think he’s good, I wouldn’t trust to start consecutive games for more than… 3 weeks? All I’m saying is start doing the groundwork already to get one asap, don’t get in a situation where we’re on the 31st Jan with Palace uncertain on whether they want to sell or not, again.
In the summer, it was widely reported that Guehi was intent on joining Liverpool, though a report from Football Insider claims he’s performed a U-turn as his ‘heart is set’ on Real Madrid ahead of next year.
This is reportedly due to Guehi ‘blaming’ Liverpool for his failed transfer in the summer, as revealed in a ‘private confession’. Regarding the reasons for this stance, the report explains: ‘Sources with knowledge of the situation say Guehi “privately” blames Liverpool for failing to secure an agreement at the turn of the (Aug)month. Guehi’s camp felt the Premier League champions delayed their move and then spent too long haggling over the fee and the terms of the deal.
It’s still the Palace Reddit and doesn’t really fit with what we know.
We need to sign a CB so if he doesn’t move then maybe it’s true, however Palace fans would like us side with their club so anything to absolve blame.
Ornstein I believe said we were interested in August and put a bid in then and we were told to wait I believe. It seemed familiar to the Isak deal in which we were waiting for them to open the channels again.
I assume on both occasions the clubs got in touch to tell us they were open to a move.
What I expect and hope the club would be doing is working on someone.
