Anthony Martial

[THFCSPURS19]

I agree that there is/will be a Top 6 market now/in the future - because the other teams at the top of the PL will be the only ones to afford the fees clubs want - but that doesn't mean I want them to shaft us to get Toby whilst we fail to get our top target.

 

[dtxspurs]

But they will have to stump up another €10m (£7.6m) if he scores 25 league goals, €10m if he wins 25 caps for France and €10m if he is nominated for the Ballon d'Or award. That could total upwards of £60m. So far he’s scored 13 EPL goals and 18 games for France. However I’d assume he made his international debut while playing for Monaco.

Yeah so he hasn't achieved those marks, whats your point? I would assume those only count if he's under contract to ManU. Anyways I'm trying to stop getting myself excited about this as the most likely outcome is they get Toby and we end up with Sessegnon

 

[Hans Gruber]

Rashford burst onto the scene under Fergie, scored for fun, called up for his country & did the same.

Van Gaal.

As for Rashford, Mourinho's set up hasn't helped him but I don't think it's a given he would have become world class somewhere else. Strikers get massively overhyped when they score a bunch of goals (remember Michu anyone?) and for me Rashford hasn't shown enough over the long term to suggest he's up there with the best. I'm also not really sure what his best position is, he doesn't seem to have the close control needed to be a winger nor the hold up play, instincts, and finishing for the lone striker role. Bit of a mishmash of both. This might be controversial with Utd fans but he's the one I'd actually be looking to offload, not Martial. The fact that he's a youth product shouldn't really figure.

 

[Hans Gruber]

£60m does make things interesting. Could Zaha be get-able for that amount? Mahrez? As has been mentioned Fekir is rumoured to be this amount.

Martial does tick a lot of boxes but he's not without risk either.

Mahrez is off to City and Zaha is on far higher wages.

 

[dagraham]

I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing unless our targets after Martial are a steep drop in quality, which they have been in the past. No matter how much we like to imagine otherwise United have god tier money and can afford to do what they want, and we do not (yet).

You act like we don’t have a choice. We can choose not to sell to a rival, and either take a lower offer elsewhere or choose to keep him and run the risk of his clause being activated at a later date.

Might cost us money, but we are hardly bankrupt.

Would you be saying the same thing if in two years time it’s Dele, Eriksen or even Kane.

I know Toby’s circumstances are slightly different, but don’t presume unending loyalty from all of our players. Things can change quickly.

 

[CoopsieDeadpool]

Van Gaal.

As for Rashford, Mourinho's set up hasn't helped him but I don't think it's a given he would have become world class somewhere else. Strikers get massively overhyped when they score a bunch of goals (remember Michu anyone?) and for me Rashford hasn't shown enough over the long term to suggest he's up there with the best. I'm also not really sure what his best position is, he doesn't seem to have the close control needed to be a winger nor the hold up play, instincts, and finishing for the lone striker role. Bit of a mishmash of both. This might be controversial with Utd fans but he's the one I'd actually be looking to offload, not Martial. The fact that he's a youth product shouldn't really figure.

Was already pointed out to me at quarter to eleven this morning & discussed.

As for the rest, who'd have thought you'd once again appear to disagree with someone I'm talking about.

Sorry but there does appear to be a bit of a pattern emerging, especially after your own admission yesterday that you make it your mission to stop others having a differing opinion, AKA spouting their nonsense.

 

[Univarn]

You act like we don’t have a choice. We can choose not to sell to a rival, and either take a lower offer elsewhere or choose to keep him and run the risk of his clause being activated at a later date.

Might cost us money, but we are hardly bankrupt.

Would you be saying the same thing if in two years time it’s Dele, Eriksen or even Kane.

I know Toby’s circumstances are slightly different, but don’t presume unending loyalty from all of our players. Things can change quickly.

I understand where you are coming from, I really do, but the degree to which we have a choice is dramatically less than ManU. ManU can give everyone the bird, let Martial sit on the bench and play in the youth squad for a year, pay his wages and turn down 60million offers and barely feel any impact to their overall business. New players won't turn them down over fear of the same treatment because ManU can offer them wages to make that less of a concern. They'd rather not do that but they can and will if they feel it's in their favor.

And yes we are "hardly bankrupt" and we realistically could wait and wait and hope Barca or PSG come in with a decent bid but that doesn't mean we can afford to ignore ManU if they are willing to pay 20/30 million more than anyone else if that is where Toby wants to go. The "no selling to rivals period" absolutism is just impractical given the structure (self imposed or not) of our club.

 

[dagraham]

I understand where you are coming from, I really do, but the degree to which we have a choice is dramatically less than ManU. ManU can give everyone the bird, let Martial sit on the bench and play in the youth squad for a year, pay his wages and turn down 60million offers and barely feel any impact to their overall business. New players won't turn them down over fear of the same treatment because ManU can offer them wages to make that less of a concern. They'd rather not do that but they can and will if they feel it's in their favor.

And yes we are "hardly bankrupt" and we realistically could wait and wait and hope Barca or PSG come in with a decent bid but that doesn't mean we can afford to ignore ManU if they are willing to pay 20/30 million more than anyone else if that is where Toby wants to go. The "no selling to rivals period" absolutism is just impractical given the structure (self imposed or not) of our club.

Yeah I know what you mean, I just find the whole thing frustrating and quite contradictory.

On the one hand there’s talk about doing what’s needed to take us to the “next level” and yet we appear to be off loading experienced key players ( some of them to direct rivals) and replacing them with potential or in Aurier’s case a worse player who we may even cash in on already by all accounts.

Problem with this strategy is that while we wait for the potential to be fulfilled, others are already nearing their peak and then we get the same situation, but just different names. And so round and round we go.

 

[Hans Gruber]

Was already pointed out to me at quarter to eleven this morning & discussed.

As for the rest, who'd have thought you'd once again appear to disagree with someone I'm talking about.

Sorry but there does appear to be a bit of a pattern emerging, especially after your own admission yesterday that you make it your mission to stop others having a differing opinion, AKA spouting their nonsense.

Jesus. Quite the paranoid.

Cute that you think any of this has been about you, if it helps I can assure you that up until now both you and your posts have been a complete irrelevance to me. Although I must admit I'll probably take a bit more of an interest from now on, just to see if your future comments display any other signs of grand conspiracy.

As for Rashford, I stand by what I said. If you feel like disagreeing with my argument be my guest, but if you're gonna just try and turn into an internet slagging match then frankly I can't be fucked.

 

[jay2040]

Jesus. Quite the paranoid.

Cute that you think any of this has been about you, if it helps I can assure you that up until now both you and your posts have been a complete irrelevance to me. Although I must admit I'll probably take a bit more of an interest from now on, just to see if your future comments display any other signs of grand conspiracy.

As for Rashford, I stand by what I said. If you feel like disagreeing with my argument be my guest, but if you're gonna just try and turn into an internet slagging match then frankly I can't be fucked.

Get a room guys!

 

[SEANSPURS1975]

Man United would never screw us over, I thought selling them Berbatov and getting Fraser Campbell on loan was a great deal??

 

[Ekmek]

They already did as of yesterday from what I saw.

And he has been very good for them

 

[Donki]

Van Gaal.

As for Rashford, Mourinho's set up hasn't helped him but I don't think it's a given he would have become world class somewhere else. Strikers get massively overhyped when they score a bunch of goals (remember Michu anyone?) and for me Rashford hasn't shown enough over the long term to suggest he's up there with the best. I'm also not really sure what his best position is, he doesn't seem to have the close control needed to be a winger nor the hold up play, instincts, and finishing for the lone striker role. Bit of a mishmash of both. This might be controversial with Utd fans but he's the one I'd actually be looking to offload, not Martial. The fact that he's a youth product shouldn't really figure.

Your judging a 20yo quite harshly, I’d love Rashford in our team.

 

[shelfmonkey]

I really like Martials physics, he is young but looks like he has


And he has been very good for them

 

[Timberwolf]

Yeah I know what you mean, I just find the whole thing frustrating and quite contradictory.

On the one hand there’s talk about doing what’s needed to take us to the “next level” and yet we appear to be off loading experienced key players ( some of them to direct rivals) and replacing them with potential or in Aurier’s case a worse player who we may even cash in on already by all accounts.

Problem with this strategy is that while we wait for the potential to be fulfilled, others are already nearing their peak and then we get the same situation, but just different names. And so round and round we go.

It's unfortunate and indeed a little contradictory but given our financial situation and position in the footballing food chain it's hard to see what other choice we have. We can't attract the top echelon of players because of our wage cap, nor we can hold on to 100% of our players due to our lack of silverware/wage cap. Clubs bigger and richer than us have been screwed by player power and we have to accept that every now and then we'll lose a player like Walker. At least we can be grateful Levy doesn't fuck about with contracts like Arsenal and we get our moneys worth.

At the time Aurier made perfect sense. He's quick, has top club experience, had the most assists of any defender in Ligue 1 one season (I believe) and cost us a third of the price of Walker. It hasn't worked out but what was the alternative? Spunk all 60m and break our wage structure for a replacement right back? Who in the market even fits the bill? We have to be savvy in the market and take risks on potential. And of course, they wont all pay off.

While hopefully this summer we will roll the dice and splash out for a couple of big players, this isn't something we can afford to do on a regular basis. While there's talk of "the next level" we actually have to work harder than any of the other top 6 clubs to simply stay where we are. The fact that we've even managed that is an amazing achievement, and while some of the pundits recognise this, others moronically think we're treading water and should commit financial suicide to compete with City and Utd.

It's a delicate balancing act and in order for it to work Levy has to frustrate the fans and come out with contradictory statements sometimes. It's part and parcel of where we're at as a club.

Still don't get why we signed Sissoko though.

 

[Johnny J]

It's unfortunate and indeed a little contradictory but given our financial situation and position in the footballing food chain it's hard to see what other choice we have. We can't attract the top echelon of players because of our wage cap, nor we can hold on to 100% of our players due to our lack of silverware/wage cap. Clubs bigger and richer than us have been screwed by player power and we have to accept that every now and then we'll lose a player like Walker. At least we can be grateful Levy doesn't fuck about with contracts like Arsenal and we get our moneys worth.

At the time Aurier made perfect sense. He's quick, has top club experience, had the most assists of any defender in Ligue 1 one season (I believe) and cost us a third of the price of Walker. It hasn't worked out but what was the alternative? Spunk all 60m and break our wage structure for a replacement right back? Who in the market even fits the bill? We have to be savvy in the market and take risks on potential. And of course, they wont all pay off.

While hopefully this summer we will roll the dice and splash out for a couple of big players, this isn't something we can afford to do on a regular basis. While there's talk of "the next level" we actually have to work harder than any of the other top 6 clubs to simply stay where we are. The fact that we've even managed that is an amazing achievement, and while some of the pundits recognise this, others moronically think we're treading water and should commit financial suicide to compete with City and Utd.

It's a delicate balancing act and in order for it to work Levy has to frustrate the fans and come out with contradictory statements sometimes. It's part and parcel of where we're at as a club.

Still don't get why we signed Sissoko though.

Everyone should read this post. Fantastic.

IMO Levy has run the club brilliantly, and he and Poch have done wonders to get us to where we are. Not all our transfers work out, but that's true for all clubs.

The crux of it is, as you say, the balance we have to strike to ensure that we remain as competitive as possible while operating within our means and with an eye on the future. The media go on and on about our wage cap and Levy's negotiating style, but often ignore that fact that we are operating on much lower revenue than any of the other big six clubs.

Yet, despite that, have a team regularly featuring in the top four and CL; several players would attract enormous fees is available; a world class training facility; very soon, a world class new stadium. And no huge debt or stability problems.

 

[Hans Gruber]

Your judging a 20yo quite harshly, I’d love Rashford in our team.

Yes I agree his age is a factor. But he seems to have gone backwards the last 2 years. It could be Mourinho, but equally some players just don't kick on.

 

[Donki]

Yes I agree his age is a factor. But he seems to have gone backwards the last 2 years. It could be Mourinho, but equally some players just don't kick on.

I’m saying Mourinho here, while he has played a good number of games he hasn’t really had a decent run, still scored 7 league goals.

 

[Mattspurs1982]

Is he really all that?? I’m not sure

 

[BuckeyeSpurs11]

Is he really all that?? I’m not sure

Agreed - he’s good, direct and as a group Kane- Son- Dele- Eriksen, Martial would add outstanding depth and improve the squad but so would Pulisic..