I like Minteh and I think that he’d do well at Liverpool, but at this point I’d prefer to buy a midfielder and have Szoboszlai cover RW.
Revisit the matter in January.
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We’re not completely desperate. We have bought a right winger in Munoz. Surely he and / or Szoboszlai can cover until January?
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I doubt it, Minteh cost then £35m when he signed just two years ago and clubs came into this window with extremely high asking prices. We have had a belief that waiting towards the end of the window would see prices drop.
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You say that but City have just sold Savinho for a kings ransom are are replacing him with one of the brightest talents in Brazil for £35m.
PSG are replacing Ramos, Barcola and Mbaye with Godts, Torres and Akilouche for £50m each.
Arsenal got Tzolis for £35m. Newcastle got Traore for £40m. Bayern got Saibari for £45m. Athleti got Kang-in for £34m. Barca got Gordon for £70m and Adeyemi for £20m. Even the reported fee we’d take for Gakpo is less than Brighton want for Minteh.
Pretty much all of them coming after the Diomande price had set the market this summer. Options have and continue to be there. Our issue seems to be going with the obvious choice and clubs bumping up the fees knowing we’re desperate.
It’s shambolic from us. In a market gone silly we needed to be decisive and have done our leg work in advance. It seems we put our eggs in the Diomande basket, pivoted to Barcola and then thought shit, what else can we do.
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I think we’re committed to Barcola precisely because we had done our leg work in advance. There has obviously been work done by the club on him and Diomande, perhaps with a view to land both this summer. Having to replace Mo presumably means that we focused on the players at the very top of our list.
The fees we were probably expecting to pay a year ago, or earlier, when much of the legwork was being done was probably much lower than we are seeing now for them and those considered lower list alternatives such as Minteh.
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Replacing Mo, not going to happen, getting a RW possibly, but there aren’t any outstanding choices.
Even trying to plan for his departure isn’t/wasn’t easy, just maybe we hoped that someone would pop in regards to the stats and that was possibly available and turned out to be Diomande and he became hot property at a ridiculous price.
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But we’ve only done half the leg work if we’ve still not got an agreement with PSG.
And as I said, fees have gone nuts but other teams seem to be able to find value. You can’t wait until the final week of the window to move for Minteh to only then find out Brighton want £80m for him. That’s ridiculous for a club like us who used to be so good at this stuff.
So there’s no outstanding choice, I get that. But you can’t just leave a hole there, you have to do something. Be that a bit of a stop gap option or someone younger and hope they can develop into a really good option, even if it takes a year or two.
Give me the relatively untested Brazilian lad City are now getting for £35m and hope he takes to the league like Rayan did. Worst case is you keep him for a couple years and then sell him for a bit of a loss when the outstanding choice presents themselves and we know we can secure them.
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Assuming we get Barcola, I’d prefer we gave Munoz the chance to make RW his own with Rio as understudy, with Barcola and Gakpo (selling him would obviously become a non-starter) covering the LW.
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Are we enjoying the washing line, boys?
On Barcola, I think we have to just be patient on this. It’s frustrating, but we are where we are. PSG have signed three forwards, so it’s inconceivable that he stays. It’s a stand off over price, but if Liverpool are confident that Barcola wants us and his mind is made up, then PSG are going to have to meet us half way. It’s turned into a saga, but it was probably always going to.
On Minteh, I don’t understand what on earth we are playing at. I don’t understand why we’ve left it to the end of the window to start this process, and I don’t understand why we think at this stage Brighton are going to be interested in doing us a deal.
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So two key players competing on one side and two relatively untested options playing out of position on the other.
And when Gakpo or Munoz has to play up top because Isak is injured or needs a break we’re then an option short for switching wingers out.
There is no reason a club of our size, stature and wealth should be “making do”.
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FSG obviously want out hence the sale of 38% of the club,they want a full sale so they can purchase the NFL franchise they’ve always wanted.So they don’t really want to spend money on the squad,so it’s a one in one out till the transfer window ends… That’s my take anyway 
Barcola will be a deadline day signing because PSG want to come across as standing their ground and be seeing to make LFC sweat.
Maybe offer wirtz as part payment
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That idiot Hughes aside, we should just stop dealing with Brighton. They seem quite arsey about transfers.
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would prefer at this stage if we dropped the second winger altogether kept gappo and spent the money on a 6 or a full back
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But you’re talking about bringing in a completely untried 22yo from the Brazilian league, so why is that preferable to what I said?
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Well he was just an example but for one he’s a left footed winger so actually plays in the position of need. Clearly City feels he’s good enough to play a role for them.
I think we forget Rio has still yet to turn 18. It’s not just that he lacks experience and needs development. We also need to let his body develop and manage his minutes carefully, not have him play twice a week, every week for the next nine months.
The other thing is there’s an element of hedging our bets. You have Rio, Munoz and, for arguments sake, Allan competing you can pick based on form, progress, fitness. In an ideal world all three are so great you give yourself a problem you can then work out next summer by letting Gakpo leave with the confidence you have an adequate replacement already here. Takes a load of pressure off needing to over play Ngumoha too.
Worst case is none of them deliver what’s needed but you’ve not spent so much on any of them that means you’d lose a tonne selling one on and trying again.
Right now we’re short even with Barcola coming in. Maybe we’re putting all our hopes and dreams on securing Rayan next summer. But if/when that doesn’t happen then what? An £80m offer for Minteh being turned down because the market has moved on again and now they want £100m.
Every summer we leave ourselves at least one short and try to get by with square pegs in round holes. City lose Rodri and a week later have the best up and coming DM in the world added to the squad. Savinho goes, next day they have a deal agreed for his replacement.
We’ve known we’d had no natural right wing options in the squad for this season back in March. We’ve chased Diomande, Mbaye and now Minteh despite having Rio and Munoz on the books so clearly there’s a need been identified here. And we’re still no closer with the season having already started.
I consider myself generally pretty level headed when it comes to transfers. I try and appreciate and defend why things might not move as quickly as we like or why we might not be after a certain player other clubs want. But there comes a point where I have to say that it looks shambolic from us. The icing on the cake would be missing out on Barcola too and I honestly wouldn’t put it past us based on recent business dealings.
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They say never go back and I don’t think Edwards return was good in hindsight, that stop gap Jorge bloke seemed to understand what we needed more than a guy who’s been around for 3 years.
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I’m not really taking City’s interest as definitive, honestly. It’s coming in a summer where they’re already flipping a bunch of players for a profit after largely ignoring them for the past couple of seasons, like Savio, Marmoush and Gonzalez. Much like Chelsea they seem happy to take punts confident of flipping them favourably down the line.
Our situation is a lot different.
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