Like all them players. Never seen Brozovic play though but does well in Football Manager so I’ll back him.
Signing Bellingham, a teenager, for big money after seeing how the other young BL talents have done after leaving the league would be straight out of the Barcelona/Man United playbook.
@MarcusBerglund put up a good list in another thread - Fabian Ruiz, Bissouma, Barella, Tchouameni. Ruiz and Bissouma would dominate the league, and Bissouma’s contract hasn’t got much longer to run. The only questions would be about previous allegations and his lifestyle.
Inter’s next target is to prolong their deal with Brozovic and it looks like it will happen.
Barella signed a new one recently and I believe he’s going nowhere.
I hear you. It’s a mixed bag. I think someone like Haaland will do just fine on leaving the BL, while another very highly rated prospect, Sancho, probably made the wrong move, though I suspect he will still come good.
My thinking is Bellingham would be fine, and as a youngster he would not be required to hold it all together for us from the off, as there would still be mileage left in Henderson, Fabinho and Thiago… who will, in time, be making way for Bellingham, Jones and Elliot, maybe Morton.
I liked the look of Bissouma. Not sure on the character side now, so needs careful evaluation. Tchoumeni is excellent and I would love to have him here, but suspect a fairly big money move to someone like Chelsea.
Maybe the problem is you then.
I think Bellingham is a bit different personally, obviously no guarantees in football but I think he’d be a superstar here. Is he what we need right now? Potentially not, we are clearly missing Gini/Thiago i.e. someone who can actually keep the fucking ball… Milner/Henderson’s pass completion was 60-70% levels, which is woeful.
Bissouma is still on bail whilst they investigate allegations of sexual assault.
Tchouameni is a great talent, I’d love us to sign him.
Its quite a surprise he stayed at Torino as long as he did. Great stats but not sure he is the kind of player who would be ambitious enough to play outside of Italy. A move to the traditional top sides in Italy might be more probable for him.
My take on Kessie is that he has some very qualities like pretty strong on the ball and difficult to get the ball off him, however, I don’t see a lot of dynamism from him which is pretty important for players we play in the CM positions. May not be the most skillful of players but the work rate, the runs and hustling throughout the game, I am not sure Kessie looks like that kind of player.
I feel that a lot of people now post-Gini are mistaking or putting all “black” midfielders who run a bit or they heard they work hard into the same exact bracket, regardless of style, strength/weaknesses, position/role, etc.
Example: Zakaria, Kessie, Tchouameni, Bissouma, god knows who else…
There can be huge differences how these players play, even if it seems it’s the same type of player.
Superstar? Maybe in 5+ years, not now. The level here is totally different to what Bellingham is playing at.
@RedOverTheWater mentioned Haaland, but he’s a different case. He is on a different level to any of these players, he’s already one of the best forwards in the world.
For Bellingham, see Sancho. If we could access TIA you’d see many posters arguing we should be spending 100 million plus on Sancho for his performances at Dortmund at the same age Bellingham is. Some even went up to £129 million at one point iirc. 20 goals 20 assists, a dead cert to make it.
Even if he does come good for United, it’s quite obvious now he is not as good as many thought and definitely wouldn’t have been worth that money. The league, the way Dortmund set up, the lack of (relative) pressure all made him look better than he is. Whilst I prefer Bellingham to Sancho, particularly in the way he carries himself, it’s hard to look past the fact that all those factors are probably in play again. He wouldn’t make a big difference to our midfield in the short term and we’d be banking on his development continuing in the long term.
I find the fixation on Bellingham a bit weird, he’s the latest teenager cursed with the generational tag, another one that can’t fail to be one of the best players in the world. It’s possible he’ll reach that level, but there are a large handful of players out there already better than him, who are just entering their peak or not too far off. We should get one of them instead.
Other than the usual suspects, I thought Denis Zakaria might be worth a look? I think he looks deceptively slow but he loves to run with the ball and is pretty good with it. In a way, he looks like Sarr in terms of style with of course both different in terms of position.
Yeah, but it’s still early days. On the other hand, you have other examples like Keita, Ndombele, Bakayoko, etc. Not many fans knew much about them, but they all seemed like good fits for their next clubs, even with a big price tag. I say caution like you say, but some will be worth it in the long run. I believe Sancho will be quality for United long term. Bellingham also looks like he belongs to the top level. That sounds pretty general and not detailed enough. All that we’ll see.
I think Spurs will target at least one of those mentioned ones. Conte is probably not a big fan of what Spurs have in central midfield. Probably only really counting on Hojbjerg and perhaps someone in backup roles like Skipp/Winks (recently). They also have Sarr (not the Watford one!) arriving next summer though, so we’ll see for which exact role he competes. But I can see Spurs going for someone like Zakaria or Kessie. More than us.
If Klopp team actually dishes out £90 million to buy Bellingham, then he is more than good enough. Well, unless he keeps getting injured like Keita and Thiago - let’s hope that he is durable. As our manager, Klopp generally handles money very well.
It depends. You do get quite a lot of (most) expensive players who haven’t quite worked out or even flopped. Not every club can feel the weight of that price tag equally. Same with players, sometimes it’s part of the reasons, sometimes it’s less and more footballing. You get a Bakayoko and then you get a Fabinho. You get a Mendy and you get a Cancelo. You get a Coutinho and you get an Mbappe. You get a Frenkie de Jong and you get an Arthur. You get a Mahrez and you get a Lemar. You get a Sterling and you get a Jovic.
We have to try and look at case by case, individual by individual.
Sure, but the point is, there were many who wanted to buy Sancho for 100 million plus at 19.
Now we see, at 21, he’s still not good enough to start for a pretty crap United side. He’d have to develop significantly to have been worth it instead of buying Jota, who despite not being generational, does actually score goals.
I’d say 2-3 years personally, but from what I’ve seen he is a big talent.
Not sure I agree about Sancho, I think he’s been grossly miss-managed, from the poor advice to move to Utd and then actually being at the old toilet circus. Imagine having Ole try and coach you and then basically be discarded for the rapist (allegedly). If he had come here I’d say he’d be some player under Klopp, but no he wasn’t worth the money they paid but they overpaid massively.
A lot of who we should target depends on the long term position of Elliot, if he’s going to continue as the right sided no.8 as he did earlier on in the season then someone like Bellingham is a luxury signing. Bringing me back to the point we need a left sided midfielder to come in who can control a game totally and a proper rotation option for Fabinho as no.6.
For me the midfield needs a proper overhaul, Keita/Oxlade I’d sell, Milner I’d offer a coaching role but certainly not a playing one and bring in 2 players to be alongside Fabinho, Elliot, Thiago, Jones, Henderson. A no.6 and a left sided no.8 whose ball retention is Gini levels…
I actually really like Rice and Phillips, both really likeable guys and would fit here really well. I appreciate they’d be overpriced easily but still if money was no object they’d be big additions to the squad.
Yeah, it’s easy for us fans (the majority, depends for which player) to quickly buy the idea of splashing money for someone fresh/young/new.
Felix, Dembele, Sancho, Havertz… these are probably all examples for your point. And so far it’s true. Some of those still have time to become what it was expected.
I believe we’d be interested in someone like Bellingham but also have a limit how far we want to go in terms of the whole financial package; price, wages, extra fees, etc.
Jota is one of those perfect “out of the blue” examples, yes. Like Fabinho was. And then lower in the price range someone like Tsimikas, etc.
And then, another huge factor… what is the team?
Sancho joining this Liverpool side which is brilliantly oiled is not the same as joining United where you have to start from zero all over again.
Sometimes there are reasons why some players move for big money elsewhere, they both need them more and are able to pay them more.