Sandro Tonali

[Craig]

Losing Tonali to another premier league club can't be seen as a positive in any form no matter the money we get. Losing Isak, Gordon and Tonali within 12 months (even for ~£300m) would be a disaster. You don't get anywhere near to competing at the top doing that.

Buy some players, sell the ones which do well and repeat, all that happens is you get left with the players that don't do well and if you have one or two bad transfer windows where you don't unearth a gem you get stuck struggling in mid table for the foreseeable. 

Will be interesting to see how we take this as a fan base, people seemed happy Gordon talking about us as a stepping stone to Barcelona, Tonali going to Spurs doesn't have the same ring to it.

[TK-421]

Just now, gbandit said:

What would be a total we’d accept for him? I can’t see anything below £75m being accepted 

 

As another article suggested, I'd say around £85-90m + (easily achievable) add-ons to £100m ish

[simonsays]

1 minute ago, gbandit said:

What would be a total we’d accept for him? I can’t see anything below £75m being accepted 

Considering Fernades from West Ham is £80m and Anderson is £120m, i would suggest £100m is about right

[TheBrownBottle]

1 minute ago, TRon said:

 

 

That's the other thing. There's no doubting he can be a hell of a player when it comes to closing down and moving the ball quickly, but he's what you would have called a water carrier back in the day. Not that their role should be under-estimated, but we should be able to replace him with a younger version without that much issue if we have good scouts and a competent DOF. 

Completely agree - and he is a water carrier.  I’ve zero issue with him being sold - I don’t think he’ll be the last ‘name’ out of the door, either.  We need funds and a squad overhaul - he did the sum total of pretty much fuck all last season, I’d rather there was money in the pot to go out and build a new squad. 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

I tend to agree with @Craig, we need to be smart sellers but we need to balance that with not just selling everyone who does well. 

 

I think selling Isak and then Gordon back to back should be it TBH. Of course there are reasons players might have to leave, but strategically we should avoid IMO.

 

 

Edited 8 hours ago by AyeDubbleYoo

[TRon]

3 minutes ago, gbandit said:

What would be a total we’d accept for him? I can’t see anything below £75m being accepted 

 

 

For Spurs we would probably add an extra £10million just for the embarrassment factor. 

[TBG]

The last minute draw against Spurs has cost us more than we could have ever expected. 

[TheBrownBottle]

1 minute ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

I tend to agree with @Craig, we need to be smart sellers but we need to balance that with not just selling everyone who does well. 

 

I think selling Isak and then Gordon back to back should be it TBH. Of course there are reasons players might have to leave, but strategically we should avoid IMO.

 

 

 

We need funds to buy players - we have no headroom.  As hard as it is for people to believe, last summer’s transfer window had long term consequences - as did our poor league form.  

[r0cafella]

1 minute ago, TheBrownBottle said:

We need funds to buy players - we have no headroom.  As hard as it is for people to believe, last summer’s transfer window had long term consequences - as did our poor league form.  

Wissa is almost 10% of our squad cost. Highly amusing this has now become Nixon's fault now he's leaving. 

 

Yes the guy who the media said wasn't involved in incomings last year bought Wissa

[captainhaircut]

Spurs fans possibly in for a shock. They think they’ll be getting a creative, press resistant midfield who can pass the ball well.
 

In fact they’ll be getting a physical monster who is quite limited technically.

[JT24]

7 minutes ago, gbandit said:

What would be a total we’d accept for him? I can’t see anything below £75m being accepted 

Has to be at least £90m for me, I’d want more than £100m but can’t see it. 

[sketchygr]

I'm sure we could reach a deal if they want to throw in Bergvall + 70m 

[nufcjmc]

Just now, TheBrownBottle said:

We need funds to buy players - we have no headroom.  As hard as it is for people to believe, last summer’s transfer window had long term consequences - as did our poor league form.  

I think both points are painfully valid. 

 

We need funds to comply with the rules and allow to refresh and fix some of our issues and we need to generate that through sales. We also cant skim off the top and expect not to be left mainly with those who are unsellable or deemed not good enough for where we want to be.  

 

If selling Tonali and Gordon does the rebuild then great if it also means we are left with having to keep Murphy or Willock as we have sold too many of the squad or that we cant get the fees we want then we cant expect to be surprised that losing our better players can mean we are starting the season in a position of weakness not strength. 

 

Linear squad building and development isnt possible with the financial restrictions in place doesnt mean I need to be happy about it (not saying you are by the way). 

[KaKa]

1 minute ago, gdm said:

Spurs fans are buzzing 

 

Wait till the season starts and they actually have to pay attention to what he's doing on the pitch every game for them 

 

I haven't been a believer in Tonali's game for a while now. The absolute clincher was how he shrank when Bruno went down injured last season.

 

And now here he is looking for a move to Tottenham Hotspur for goodness sake, after claims he wanted Champions League football 

 

I hope we get decent money, and send this guy on his way. Not only do I doubt what he is as a player, but the people around him, and perhaps even he also lacks character. Everyday since January we have been hearing he wants out, and it's reflected badly on the club, coming off the nonsense with Isak last year.

 

I'll be relieved that just be virtue of him leaving, we'll at least never have to see him playing as a lone 6 ever again at Newcastle, because I think he really sucks there.

 

De Zerbi is a good manager, and is also Italian, and so perhaps he'll better get the guy and be able to get more out of him somehow. I'll actually be very interested to see what that looks like if he goes there, because at this point other than tracking back, I'm not so sure what he does well consistently.

[TeddySAFC]

Dan Neils a free agent, or maybe Alan Browne would plug a gap.

[TheBrownBottle]

2 minutes ago, r0cafella said:

Wissa is almost 10% of our squad cost. Highly amusing this has now become Nixon's fault now he's leaving. 

 

Yes the guy who the media said wasn't involved in incomings last year bought Wissa

 

Funny thing is, I think this is all positive stuff - get the players out who don’t want to be here, get good money in, and get recruiting.  It’s what we should’ve been doing for a couple of years - instead we allowed the squad to stagnate and then wasted hundreds of millions on panic buys.  

[duo]

tbh I think this is probably the only move he could get this window - you'd think if City or Man U were really interested they'd have moved by now.

[Gallowgate Toon]

I think an aggressive rebuild is needed this year, tbh. Think we need to go higher risk/reward to best set foundations for the next few seasons.

 

Normally, I'm of the Wenger opinion that you want to only add a few per window but this feels different. 

 

Mind, if we were doing this to scale every year then I'd have a problem with that.

[r0cafella]

Just now, TheBrownBottle said:

 

Funny thing is, I think this is all positive stuff - get the players out who don’t want to be here, get good money in, and get recruiting.  It’s what we should’ve been doing for a couple of years - instead we allowed the squad to stagnate and then wasted hundreds of millions on panic buys.  

I'm not sure what to make of it tbh,  I do think we need to ship out anyone who doesn't want to be here but it has to be on our terms and according to our timeline. 

 

Very much unchartered waters for us I think, can see it all ending in our tears. 

[Novocastrian]

How far have we fallen in a season? Spurs?

[KingArthur]

11 minutes ago, Craig said:

Losing Tonali to another premier league club can't be seen as a positive in any form no matter the money we get. Losing Isak, Gordon and Tonali within 12 months (even for ~£300m) would be a disaster. You don't get anywhere near to competing at the top doing that.

Buy some players, sell the ones which do well and repeat, all that happens is you get left with the players that don't do well and if you have one or two bad transfer windows where you don't unearth a gem you get stuck struggling in mid table for the foreseeable. 

Will be interesting to see how we take this as a fan base, people seemed happy Gordon talking about us as a stepping stone to Barcelona, Tonali going to Spurs doesn't have the same ring to it.

Losing Tonali and replacing him with 2 good players is certainly a positive. 
 

We need better value for money than 80 million for Tonali or 70-80 for Gordon. 

[Craig]

1 minute ago, TheBrownBottle said:

We need funds to buy players - we have no headroom.  As hard as it is for people to believe, last summer’s transfer window had long term consequences - as did our poor league form.  

We spent last season in the Champions League, we sold our best player for a record transfer fee, Spurs finished near the relegation zone for the second year running. Selling isn't the solution, is just another story pushed by the cartel clubs that player trading is how non-cartel clubs can supposedly spend money and compete, when really it's them saying we'll buy your players that do well and then we will also likely sign the players you would look to replace them with as we can spend multiples of what you can.

PIF need to invest to break into the top group or make it clear this is our limit and they are happy with that.

[KaKa]

4 minutes ago, captainhaircut said:

Spurs fans possibly in for a shock. They think they’ll be getting a creative, press resistant midfield who can pass the ball well.
 

In fact they’ll be getting a physical monster who is quite limited technically.

 

Now here's the even funnier part ... they already have Gallagher, Bentancur and Palhinha.

 

They'll be shocked to find they're just getting a more fancy sounding run around and win the ball guy, unless De Zerbi has some kind of masterful insight into him that we've missed, which I'm highly sceptical about.

[Stuy_O]

Spurs are his only option left, everyone else has withdrawn seemingly. 
 

I don’t think many can be surprised he’s probably being sold, especially with the Trafford rumours lately, but going to spurs would be a considerable kick in the bollocks. Over the players mentality and also the direction of this project… but that’s a whole other discussion. 
 

100mil if it’s Spurs. 

[nufcjmc]

Just now, r0cafella said:

I'm not sure what to make of it tbh,  I do think we need to ship out anyone who doesn't want to be here but it has to be on our terms and according to our timeline. 

 

Very much unchartered waters for us I think, can see it all ending in our tears. 

it all comes down to what we do with it I guess last summer rightly makes everyone think negatively and I am probably included in that. 

 

If we get 85/90/95m for him I assume at this point he doesn't have as high of a book value being a few years in? IF that money gets a couple of new players in and they work to progress the club then great. They have to spend the money wisely and while it may not be a "better" player than say Sandro is it has to be an effective purchase and for a 1st teamer a relatively quick hit the ground running period. 

 

I keep telling myself the current crop of players were part of the issues of last season and contributed to how the season went, no one particularly covered themselves in glory if they look themselves in the mirror and say fuck this get me out of here then I guess we need to see them gone. I hope that leaves us with a refreshed/hungry/motivated squad but we aren't going to have any certainty on that.