Football: Steve the Bruce King of Geordies

[A Horse Named Stranger]

8 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Ceballos is a great addition for Arsenal to help replace Ramsey, but it shows how far they have fallen that they will offer a loan with no option to purchase for a player who obviously does not intend to stay very long.  It does give them a niche short term opportunity with some quality players, but it sets them up for longer term struggles. 

That sounds a bit too harsh. Kroenke has given them a limited budget. 40m are for Arsenal very little to actually strengthen their team in this market. So they can do two things. Either split the money and make two signings for 20m each (not sure what that would get them), or spend it on one target and fill other gaps with loans, and try to fill the next gap permanently next year. A suitable centreback won't come cheap. Best case scenario for the Cebalos loan. Ceballos improves Arsenal's team, and in the absolute best case helps them get back into the CL (thus giving Arsenal more money to spend next year). Maybe Ceballos and Barca would then be open for an extension of the loan or a permanent move.

[Jordan La Cabra]

2 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

That sounds a bit too harsh. Kroenke has given them a limited budget. 40m are for Arsenal very little to actually strengthen their team in this market. So they can do two things. Either split the money and make two signings for 20m each (not sure what that would get them), or spend it on one target and fill other gaps with loans, and try to fill the next gap permanently next year. A suitable centreback won't come cheap. Best case scenario for the Cebalos loan. Ceballos improves Arsenal's team, and in the absolute best case helps them get back into the CL (thus giving Arsenal more money to spend next year). Maybe Ceballos and Barca would then be open for an extension of the loan or a permanent move.

I saw Kaveh Solhkol of Sky Sports suggest that Arsenal actually have a larger transfer budget than just £40m. In the current market, £40m gets you very little - and they have already spent £27m of that on Saliba and whatever the loan fee was for Ceballos. They remain in talks with Celtic over Tierney, for a fee of around £25m. Arsenal trying to pay that fee via instalments and add-ons appears to be the issue, as Celtic want more up front. To be able to sign Saliba, Tierney and Zaha with only £40m, they'd need to arrange some pretty impressive incentive based deals with very small up front payments or offer up some players as part of the deal. The idea of an incentive based deal doesn't appear to satisfy Celtic, and it definitely won't satisfy Crystal Palace, as Zaha is their star player and they just received a very good fee for Wan-Bissaka. 

With regards to Zaha, I see the Telegraph reporting that Everton are willing to offer £60m + Tosun in order to sign him from Crystal Palace. Everton fear that Chelsea are weighing up a deal, though, which could see Zaha arrive when their registration ban is up. I think this would be a good move for Chelsea, and one that would probably appeal to Crystal Palace; Chelsea, flush from the sale of Hazard to Real Madrid, and the sale of Morata to Atletico Madrid (to go through at the end of next season) would be able to offer Palace the money they seek for Zaha, while Palace would get to keep Zaha for another season. Chelsea and Palace have done regular business over the past two seasons, with Chelsea loaning them Loftus-Cheek for the whole of 2017/18 and Batshuayi for the second half of 2018/19. The timing would also be perfect for Chelsea, as surely by the end of next season either Willian, Pedro or both would be ready to move on.

 

[Raja]

44 minutes ago, Jordan La Cabra said:

already spent £27m of that on Saliba and whatever the loan fee was for Ceballos.

Nah - Firstly it's in installments & secondly we're paying very little of his total fee up front, so it is not 27 million.

Also - it's a bit rich to say 'how far they have fallen' - he's exactly the sort of player we needed and cost us nothing. I'm fine with that as opposed to whoever we're supposed to be signing for 50 million or whatever.

All about what makes the team better, less about how much someone costs or how long he's staying for. I still think we have a decent squad to get top 4 next season, and then eventually build on that, especially if we can sign a CB before the window closes.

[Jordan La Cabra]

32 minutes ago, Raja said:

Nah - Firstly it's in installments & secondly we're paying very little of his total fee up front, so it is not 27 million.

That approach is likely to work better for teams like St. Etienne or other teams in the mainland Europe, who would be happy to receive incremental payments because they are probably inflating the fee for their players (in this case Saliba) due to the buying club is Arsenal in the Premier League. It follows the whole approach that these teams have: 'one price for selling players to the rest of Europe and another price for selling players to Premier League clubs'. You wonder if St. Etienne were selling Saliba to, say, Borussia Dortmund, would he have cost as much as £27m.

Fair play to Celtic, though, for actually playing hard ball with Arsenal over their offer for Tierney. Celtic are smart enough to know that a club like Arsenal should be able to afford £25m without laying out the deal some deal based on incentives and add-ons.

When it comes to trying to sign players from other clubs in the Premier League with low ball offers based on incentives and add-ons, it is even less likely to work. Crystal Palace are clearly in no great need to sell, as they have just recently pulled off a great piece of business in getting over £50m for Wan-Bissaka after one full season in of Premier League football. 

[Consigliere]

I actually think £45m + £5m in bonuses for Wan Bissaka was a very good piece of business by United. Defensively at least he was great last season and thus far he has been a rock in preseason. We also managed to keep our 25% sell on clause for Zaha even though Palace wanted it removed. 

 

re: Arsenal's budget. It's worth noting that it is the norm for transfer fees to be paid in instalments unless the buying club is triggering a buyout clause. So, assuming Arsenal's budget really is 40-45m, their total spending could exceed that without them having actually gone over budget.

[Raja]

40 minutes ago, Jordan La Cabra said:

That approach is likely to work better for teams like St. Etienne or other teams in the mainland Europe,

My only point was that you can't say 45 million minus 27 million based on the Saliba transfer, which is what you stated in your initial post,  because that is not how the transfer fees have gone through.

 

[Jordan La Cabra]

4 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

I actually think £45m + £5m in bonuses for Wan Bissaka was a very good piece of business by United. Defensively at least he was great last season and thus far he has been a rock in preseason. We also managed to keep our 25% sell on clause for Zaha even though Palace wanted it removed. 

 

re: Arsenal's budget. It's worth nothing that it is the norm for transfer fees to be paid in instalments unless the buying club is triggering a buyout clause. So, assuming Arsenal's budget really is 40-45m, their total spending could exceed that without them having actually gone over budget.

I think the AWB deal was a pretty good one for both Man United and Crystal Palace. When you look at it from Palace's perspective, they received a fee in a similar region to what Kyle Walker cost Man City, despite the fact AWB had only played one full PL season and is yet to be capped by England at senior level. On the other hand, Man United have paid a big fee for a relatively inexperienced but highly rated young full back, which could look expensive now but end up a brilliant investment. 

With regards to Arsenal's transfer kitty situation, by the idea floated about that they have only £40m or so to spend, that is what they can spend on initial instalment fees this summer, as opposed to what they hope to spend over all on a whole transfer fee for a player? In the case of Saliba, with the transfer fee of £27m and an overall kitty this summer of £40m, they are only deducting whatever percentage they actually pay this summer of the Saliba fee from their £45m transfer budget rather than the full £27m they are going to pay for him altogether?

[Consigliere]

28 minutes ago, Jordan La Cabra said:

With regards to Arsenal's transfer kitty situation, by the idea floated about that they have only £40m or so to spend, that is what they can spend on initial instalment fees this summer, as opposed to what they hope to spend over all on a whole transfer fee for a player? In the case of Saliba, with the transfer fee of £27m and an overall kitty this summer of £40m, they are only deducting whatever percentage they actually pay this summer of the Saliba fee from their £45m transfer budget rather than the full £27m they are going to pay for him altogether?

I would assume so, yes. The club has also bid on Tierney, Zaha and rumours are they are interested in Everton Soares as well. The club would not be making these bids if there was only £13m left of the budget after Saliba. Things can get even more complicated because clubs always amortise player costs over the duration of the contract as well. For example, Saliba was signed for £27m on a 5 year contract (I haven't seen reported wages but let's assume £3m/year for arguments sake) so that's £42m in total. On Arsenal's books this cost will be reflected as £8.4m per year over the next 5 years. 

[Jordan La Cabra]

14 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

I would assume so, yes. The club has also bid on Tierney, Zaha and rumours are they are interested in Everton Soares as well. The club would not be making these bids if there was only £13m left of the budget after Saliba. Things can get even more complicated because clubs always amortise player costs over the duration of the contract as well. For example, Saliba was signed for £27m on a 5 year contract (I haven't seen reported wages but let's assume £3m/year for arguments sake) so that's £42m in total. On Arsenal's books this cost will be reflected as £8.4m per year over the next 5 years. 

When you look at it that way, £40m or so isn't such a small transfer budget for a summer after all, and likely isn't too different to a lot of other clubs. It is when you see reports that Arsenal have a budget of £40m and then other reports of Real Madrid giving Zidane a '£300m war chest' to spend this summer, it makes Arsenal's budget look tiny in comparison. Yet, obviously, Real Madrid's total transfers this summer so far add up to nearly £300m, but they have only actually paid a fraction of that £300m this summer.

[Consigliere]

34 minutes ago, Jordan La Cabra said:

When you look at it that way, £40m or so isn't such a small transfer budget for a summer after all, and likely isn't too different to a lot of other clubs. It is when you see reports that Arsenal have a budget of £40m and then other reports of Real Madrid giving Zidane a '£300m war chest' to spend this summer, it makes Arsenal's budget look tiny in comparison. Yet, obviously, Real Madrid's total transfers this summer so far add up to nearly £300m, but they have only actually paid a fraction of that £300m this summer.

Yeah, I think those reports of a £40m budget are too vague to be of any use as they give no idea of how this £40m figure is being calculated. If it's being calculated on either initial instalments or amortisation of player costs then that changes the picture quite a bit. I think just based on the players Arsenal have been chasing, it's fair to assume that they have a decent budget to work with. 

[ljkeane]

2 hours ago, Soylent Brown said:

So the £40m figure could mean that's what they have to spend on initial fees and first year wages for signings

That would be an odd way of reporting Arsenal's transfer budget.

Yes, transfer fees are almost always paid in installments across the life of the new player's contract but they're pretty much always discussed in terms of the entire fee and, correspondingly, when people talk about transfer budgets they mean the budget for the entire fees rather than just the first installments. You'd think it would merit an explanation if it was different in this case.

[Rorshach]

I don't really see why we should go for Zaha. 

Sure, he's good on the ball - very good, indeed - but he would have to fit the team, more than the team fit him, and I'm not sure that fits him. 

Not worth the money, I'd say.

[Consigliere]

Josep Pedrerol reporting that James will remain at Real Madrid this season. 

[Iskaral Pust]

5 hours ago, Rorshach said:

I don't really see why we should go for Zaha. 

Sure, he's good on the ball - very good, indeed - but he would have to fit the team, more than the team fit him, and I'm not sure that fits him. 

Not worth the money, I'd say.

I’m still disappointed that Bolasie fizzled for Everton.  He looked like a good acquisition to pair with Lukaku but he never regained form/progressed after injury. 

I agree that I don’t if Zaha would suit Everton now with Digne very good as a attacking LB and Richarlison available as a left-sided forward (or probably striker again).  Zaha is very good, but he would have to share the ball a lot more, and probably take on fewer dribbles to avoid slowing down attacks.  I imagine Gomes and Siggurdson will be the main play-makers, expecting other forwards to make runs rather than dribble the ball.  I think Zaha could adapt his game, and definitely help create more chances, but probably not worth Everton spending so much on that position. 

Speaking of which, why did Everton let Gueye go so (relatively) cheaply?  He was really important to your MF.  Everton improved a lot in the second half of last season, and they got a permanent deal for Gomes.  Seems crazy to let Gueye leave without more of a fight.

[BigFatCoward]

Bale to China sounds likely. I was on his side until this. 

 

[Jeor]

21 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Bale to China sounds likely. I was on his side until this. 

 

Well, it might have been a forced exile (albeit a handsomely paid one) if he was told he was going to get frozen out at Real.

[BigFatCoward]

20 minutes ago, Jeor said:

Well, it might have been a forced exile (albeit a handsomely paid one) if he was told he was going to get frozen out at Real.

So he should go to somewhere he can compete at the highest level, not just follow the money surely. 

[mormont]

53 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

So he should go to somewhere he can compete at the highest level, not just follow the money surely. 

Where?

Which big team is looking for Bale?

[BigFatCoward]

26 minutes ago, mormont said:

Where?

Which big team is looking for Bale?

If the rumours of a free transfer are true and if he was prepared to drop his wages since he is already a multi-multi millionaire? I'd say everyone. 

He's of course entitled to go for the money, but doing it at 30 when he is still in his prime just makes him seem a bit/lot pathetic.

[mormont]

12 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

If the rumours of a free transfer are true and if he was prepared to drop his wages since he is already a multi-multi millionaire? I'd say everyone. 

This is the sort of thing that's easy to say and sounds true, but isn't.

I mean, it's a no-brainer, right? But... there are two enormous 'ifs' in your statement before we even get started. And then there are issues like whether Bale would be a starter, whether even if he did drop his wages the club prefer to spend that elsewhere, whether he'd fit into the manager's tactics, what impact his recruitment would have on other players, the list goes on. And all of it adds up to what we actually have, which is... no teams at the highest level interested in signing Bale.

Quote

He's of course entitled to go for the money, but doing it at 30 when he is still in his prime just makes him seem a bit/lot pathetic.

But as noted, Bale's not turning down better footballing offers for this money. This is the only real concrete offer he has, as I understand it.