- May 7, 2004
- 42,707
- 78,635
I don't think those examples make it any better and I don't want to be harsh on Johnson who has a lot of promise.The price I believe is £31.5m including add-ons.
The fact they're getting it from a MUCH smaller PL club demonstrates where the market is.
We paid that for Moussa Sissoko in 2016 prices.
We paid £25m + Lamela for Gil.
We paid £47m for Johnson with a much more limited skill set. One so much coaching can do about that (though I still back him).
Nusa is proven at CL and International level, Sarr and Udogie were arguably not much more proven if at all.
Any player capable of replacing Son will cost £70-100m+, much bigger wages, AND likely have bigger suitors than us.
Not every signing we make, especially one aimed to complete our starting XI, is going to be a bargain.
Where we can be costs efficient, great, where we can't just build the team with the best players you can get.
Again Nusa isn't the only player, but it's still a huge miss and one I fear we'll regret as we did Kvara.
Fact is that our best deals have often been done for less than 30m. Kulusevski cost us less coming from Juve.
£30m is a fair chunk on what is very much a gamble. Sorry but there are plenty of players like this who pop up and end up nowhere near their hype years later.
The difference between us and Brentford is we can afford to sign more proven players and convince them to sign. They can't convince players like Dragusin or Maddison to join.