Harvey Barnes

[TheBrownBottle]

1 hour ago, McCormick said:

If Miggy had a working right-foot and a footballing brain he wouldn’t have signed for us under Ashley

Tbf we signed some good players under Ashley.

 

Keeping them, training them, surrounding them with other good players was more of an issue  

[Matt1892]

32 minutes ago, Keegans Export said:

You make a lot of good points, but there are two issues I see there;

 

1. We have enough absolute shite in our squad that need shifting, even just to get the wages off the books, before we look at the core 14-15 players who played the majority of minutes last season

 

2. If you sell Wilson for example, yeah you're bringing some money in but you're then committing yourself to bringing in a replacement which is going to cost money, so the gain is going to be fairly limited. There are enough weak spots within our squad that need addressing without creating another weak spot by selling someone who played a lot of minutes and scored a lot of goals.

 

Between them Miggy and Wilson played nearly 4,500 mins last season. Add in the extra European games and that's a lot of minutes that you're going to need to replace by selling those two.

I agree completely with you on point one, the problem with that is that I don’t think we could even give these players away let alone get any sort of fee for them. 
 

The biggest thing holding us back from the Ashley era as that we were taken over with very few saleable players. Even now after the season we have had you have ASM, Almiron, Wilson, Longstaff, Joelinton, Murphy and Schar. I’ve deliberately left Willock out of that due to him falling in the same FFP year as the takeover. 
 

Compare that to Chelsea who despite having a terrible season can sell £200 million of players without any issue, or Man City who have sold £50 million plus of youth players over the last 2 seasons who have had zero impact on the first team and it shows where our issue is.

 

As for Wilson, I think the questions will be around will he sign a new contract? How long would he want the deal to be for and how long realistically does he have at this level? Also, how is he going to react to being a bit part player as we should be building our attack around Isak as he is the future. If we stick with him and need to replace him in 2 years, we have to find that money from an already tight budget again.

 

I am not saying all of them should definitely be sold this summer by the way, what I am saying is there are restrictions put in place deliberately to stop us from progressing and the options are we sell to free up money to invest or we do it at a much slower pace, meaning we could be overtaken by the likes of Liverpool, Spurs and Chelsea.

 

If the company did decide to sell ASM, Wilson and Almiron to fund a similar level of spending we have seen so far then I would be completely supportive of that.

[Cronky]

Yeah, the problem - if you can call it that - is that we went from relegation fodder to Champions League level in one bound. Normally, there would be a much longer transition period, during which the squad could be steadily upgraded by trading upwards on players as we went. As per during the earlier Keegan years, when players like Ruel Fox and Scott Sellars were brought in and then discarded as the team evolved.

 

It's all down to our manager. I hope our Saudi owners realise what we've got and don't take it for granted.

[Cookie1892]

i would be selling ASM to fund Barnes to be honest 

 

We also have to live with the fact that the likes of Bruno, Isak etc are now our biggest saleable assets and selling one or the other for 100m is likely to happen sooner rather than later

 

 

[TRon]

1 hour ago, The Prophet said:

Can't speak for others but I'm not saying that we should be pushing Almiron out the door, just considering any offers if they were to come.

 

As we've seen pressing can be coached providing we buy players who buy into it.

 

I think this is the important bit. Obviously we aren't going to sell key players just to get money in, but in reality we only have a handful of genuine world class players, and if there are players nearing the end of their peak/contract and we have identified replacements, then it's quite possible we could sell if we get a great price.

 

The way FFP is rigged, we probably don't have much option unless we want to tread water for a season or two.

[Max Cherry]

Or how about we don't sell our best players and continue to build our brand and sponsorships to fund our purchases? No way we sell Bruno unless it's to Real or Barca and he wants to go. You're never going to progress selling your best players, no matter how much the money is. 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Need a title change now I think... the thank you but goodbye thread?

[Cookie1892]

8 minutes ago, Max Cherry said:

Or how about we don't sell our best players and continue to build our brand and sponsorships to fund our purchases? No way we sell Bruno unless it's to Real or Barca and he wants to go. You're never going to progress selling your best players, no matter how much the money is. 

 

In an ideal world everyone would agree but unfortunately we are going to have to in order to progress then we will eventually get to the stage that chelski and citeh are at but we have to sell to buy still unfortunately

[TRon]

8 minutes ago, Max Cherry said:

Or how about we don't sell our best players and continue to build our brand and sponsorships to fund our purchases? No way we sell Bruno unless it's to Real or Barca and he wants to go. You're never going to progress selling your best players, no matter how much the money is. 

 

Mind it's a big jump to considering selling ASM/Almiron to the likes of Bruno and Isak. The idea is to have a team of elite players at some point. The former aren't that, but the latter two clearly are.

[Gallowgate Toon]

City have been good at moving players on at the right time and we should do the same, we can't rely wholly on commercial improvement. I love Wilson and want to see him do his thing in Europe but I imagine if Pep was in charge he'd be looking to max his value now and bring in someone else.

[Max Cherry]

4 minutes ago, Cookie1892 said:

 

In an ideal world everyone would agree but unfortunately we are going to have to in order to progress then we will eventually get to the stage that chelski and citeh are at but we have to sell to buy still unfortunately

We aren't selling our best players that's all I'm saying, especially to teams in the PL. Our ownership are not going to knowingly strengthen our rivals. Our days as a "selling club" are over. Of course we can eventually do what City/Chelsea are doing and create saleable assets via our youth development, and also selling players who are just past their best. 

[LFEE]

11 minutes ago, Max Cherry said:

Or how about we don't sell our best players and continue to build our brand and sponsorships to fund our purchases? No way we sell Bruno unless it's to Real or Barca and he wants to go. You're never going to progress selling your best players, no matter how much the money is. 

Exactly  ??

 

Went to bed with Wilson & Almiron sold without any replacements found and woke up to the news that we are packing Bruno & Isak’s bags already. How much do you think we can get for Tonali… ?

[The Prophet]

No one suggested selling our best players, to be fair.

[Max Cherry]

1 minute ago, The Prophet said:

No one suggested selling our best players, to be fair.

Pretty sure they did like, or it was mentioned it's inevitable we have to sell our best players for 100m. 

[TRon]

1 minute ago, The Prophet said:

No one suggested selling our best players, to be fair.

 

Agree. I think there's obviously a line in the sand when it comes to selling. The handful of players in our team who are at a great age and already top level won't be for sale. The rest, if it makes financial sense, and we believe we can replace like for like...why not?

 

 

[The Prophet]

2 minutes ago, Max Cherry said:

Pretty sure they did like, or it was mentioned it's inevitable we have to sell our best players for 100m. 

 

The debate has mainly been about whether it is the right time to move on ASM or Almiron.

 

Not seen anyone suggesting we sell Bruno, but apologies if I've missed it.

[Tina Tooner]

No the only ones being talked about selling is ASM/Almiron which i fully agree with if we can get upgrades in or use the money to strengthen other positions. It will take a few years to build our brand/sponsorships to a level that takes the burden off player sales. We also cant become stagnant, we need change like every club. Liverpool falied to recycle and look at the drop off they had last season. 

[Max Cherry]

Just now, The Prophet said:

 

The debate has mainly been about whether it is the right time to move on ASM or Almiron.

 

Not seen anyone suggesting we sell Bruno, but apologies if I've missed it.

It was mentioned at some point in the near future we will have to sell Bruno/Isak if someone came in with 100 million. 

[The Prophet]

Just now, Max Cherry said:

It was mentioned at some point in the near future we will have to sell Bruno/Isak if someone came in with 100 million. 

 

That'd be madness. Knowing when to sell at the right time is an art, but your best players should be off limits.

[Max Cherry]

2 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

 

That'd be madness. Knowing when to sell at the right time is an art, but your best players should be off limits.

Totally agree, you'll never catch up with that model. 

[Guest]

Build that FFP buffer for when we invest in DNA Cloning and create a super team

[Ikon]

I would prefer a more technical player with flair. One that offers more in general play. A creative one that can unlock deep defending teams. I think we have evolved from the team we were in the beginning, obviously. Transitional play will still be an important aspect of our team but I think we need more of other ingredients against the lesser teams. 

[TheBrownBottle]

Man City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Man Utd and Chelsea have all regularly traded players.  The idea that we’ll not is unlikely.  It’s also likely that due to FFP constraints we would be more willing to offload players for serious profit in the next few years.

 

The problem isn’t selling players - even your current best ones - it’s having an ownership which wouldn’t want to replace them ambitiously.   If Bruno or Isak were sold it would be because everyone at the club think it is the best move for the club, not their bank balance.  This isn’t Ashley’s NUFC.  But sponsorships and commercials will take years to catch up with the current ‘big boys’. 

[LFEE]

3 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

No one suggested selling our best players, to be fair.

They did a few posts earlier. I’d also argue Wilson, Almiron and ASM fall in to that category also. Wilson is out top scorer and we missed him badly when “injured/missing for domestic reasons”. Almiron was our second top scorer and again was a big miss when he was out the team. ASM is still our best winger either side. You can argue he had a poor season for fitness last season but when he played he made a big attacking difference.

 

Its far to easy as we sign a few new players to underestimate the importance and quality of these current players. It’s not as if we are discussing shifting the likes of Anderson or Lewis in this window. These guys got us from 19>4 and a Cup Final on teamwork and spirit which is why they will be rewarded by playing in the ECL for their first time.

 

Yes players will be sold in the next few windows as the squad slowly evolves but not that quickly and there is no need to as long as we continue to buy smartly.

[Max Cherry]

You're not going to catch up by selling your top players either, and then gambling on re-investing the money on players that might not work. You keep your best players, try and be smart in the transfer window alongside FFP, invest in youth development and have a well coached team. 

 

 

Edited July 11, 2023 by Max Cherry