I understand that at the end of the day it isn't our money to spend, but it still isn't great to see the club getting ripped off and also potentially taking away a big chunk of money that could go towards a more important player.
The club probably don't see it as getting ripped off. They want a top class wingback, because it's so important to how we want to play, and they know they'll have to pay for it. Those kind of players cost a lot especially when they come from other top clubs.
Would you say no to signing Sanchez in favour of starting Pedro and signing some young forward for cheap? Barcelona could have signed some young Spanish player but when they got the chance to sign Suarez, they jumped at it. Right now they're trying to sign Verratti too and he definitely won't be cheap. This whole mentality of trying to be economists even though the club is financially healthy enough to handle a big splash every other summer is actually puzzling.
How is Sandro for 55m a rip off? You think he'd have come for 30 million or something? Have you seen today's market? They're quoting 100 odd mil for Lukaku. LUKAKU FFS! Have you seen the prices being slapped on players everywhere? Players like Van Dijk, Mbappe and Belotti have ridiculous price tags after 1 good season. Sandro has been great since his Porto days (along with Danilo back then) and has finally made the leap from great to world class. And he's 26. We get a good 6-8 years out of him. How's that being ripped off?
By all means sign Sanchez but that would make someone else redundant. I personally think someone should replace Pedro or Willian if we're looking to get better so yea I would be quite happy adding one younger player with talent and easing them in alongside Willian or Pedro but that would mean one of those two has to go purely from a minutes perspective.
No mate. Alonso/Rodriguez is nowhere near Sandro/Alonso. Not even close. Rodriguez is a solid LB. That's it. He's not world class. You need world class to win the CL. When team apart from us have you seen win the CL in the past 10 years with sh*t/average/decent/very good full backs? Just go on a memory trip and you'll see what I mean. It's an absolute important position and even more important for us now that we deploy them as wing backs. We may not even retain the title next year with Alonso and Moses starting every game for us.
Sandro is £100 million better than Bertrand. Bertrand is a mediocre mid table premier league left back. Sandro is probably the best LB/LWB in the world along with Marcelo.
In the current market we'd be lucky to even get Bertrand at 25m. With being homegrown and all plus he'd want the first team spot to avoid history repeating itself. If Southampton is fleecing us for Van Dijk, I highly doubt they won't fleece us for Bertrand. It'd be around the same fee I bet if we went back for Bertrand now
I blame it on the Pogba-MU deal. Funny thing is, this is only common for clubs in the Prem. Anywhere else the prices are still relatively ok.
Everyone knows how rich us Prem teams are now. Try and fleece us for every penny we have.
the end of the day though, premier league is becoming a much more lucrative league and the financial distribution in the league is allowing the bigger clubs within it to spend more, whereas this isn't possible in other top leagues. in some ways the premier league clubs have never had it better financially, but it also doesn't guarantee success as we've seen. it also doesn't guarantee top players will want to come play here, money or not. until the money equals success in the league and english clubs are top in europe again, spain and italy, and bayern will always be preferred destinations for success.
You'd be surprised. Bertrand's got four years left on his contract and Southampton don't have to sell.He's an English international and at 27 he's in his prime so he may fetch 35-40m in today's market easily. I agree that 55m is a lot even for a world class fullback but if I were to overpay, I'd rather do it for the for world class talent.
I think the fact that only Milan were in for him this summer should tell you a lot but oh well.
