Dele Alli

[Jamturk]

Don't think he's currently got enough hype for Barca, luckily. As trix said, they need a young star to placate their fans.

Probably right, but would be a very clever signing for them.

 

[SpartanSpur]

As far as I can tell there has been no PL player apart from Coutinho mentioned in the Spanish media. Until then I won't be worrying about it. Hazard and Alli links are just for clicks over here.

Personally I think it's too soon for Alli and I think he has admitted it himself even.

 

[Deleted member 27855]

I think they would want Eriksen more and he is the one team he would leave us for. He has always dreamt of playing for Barca so could be a testing few weeks for us.

I love Dele and don't want to lose him. I don't think losing him would be a complete disaster though. Losing Eriksen would be. He's irrreplaceable. If we lost Dele we could immediately flip the £120m transfer fee over to Dortmund for Dembele or Pulisic ourselves. Both are on reasonable wages at BvB and either would be perfect for us. It also may balance us out and help make us a better team. An attacking 3 of Son/Eriksen/Dembele behind Kane would be deadly.

 

[panoma]

Dele not good enough for Barcelona yet either, luckily for us. Atleast if hes supposed to be a starter

 

[thebenjamin]

Barca should buy Bale

 

[ardiles]

I hope Barca uses the Neymar money and targets one or more of Coutinho, Hazard & Sanchez.

 

[ardiles]

I love Dele and don't want to lose him. I don't think losing him would be a complete disaster though. Losing Eriksen would be. He's irrreplaceable. If we lost Dele we could immediately flip the £120m transfer fee over to Dortmund for Dembele or Pulisic ourselves. Both are on reasonable wages at BvB and either would be perfect for us. It also may balance us out and help make us a better team. An attacking 3 of Son/Eriksen/Dembele behind Kane would be deadly.

If that happened, do you really think that Levy will flip the whole lot onto an incoming signing? I don't .

 

[Danners9]

Looks like it'll be Coutinho. Two Catalan papers saying 100m Euro, 5yr deal already agreed and Liverpool will sell because he wants to go.

 

[ItsBoris]

£100 million answers an awful lot of whys.

Which is then used to sign new players. But unless you are signing only the very best players, only about 50% or less of signings are successful. So it would make more sense to keep the world class player you already have.

Right now, neither Liverpool nor ourselves need the money, so it wouldn't make sense to sell a player we want to keep.

 

[ItsBoris]

How were those sales mistakes? We had no choice but to let Bale go, he wanted out. Same with Suarez. Despite any contracts in place, once a player wants to go like they did, you can't keep hold of them.

In the sense that we would have had a better team had we kept the player, rather than sold and used the money to sign new players. Also it's completely possible to keep a player who wants to leave but is on a long term contract. Modric wanted to leave but we kept him for a season. Then we sold him for 30 million or something, but again the players who replaced him weren't the same quality.

So to me, selling a world class player is never worth it, plus when you look back a few years later the amount paid always looks like too little because of transfer fee inflation.

 

[Led's Zeppelin]

In the sense that we would have had a better team had we kept the player, rather than sold and used the money to sign new players. Also it's completely possible to keep a player who wants to leave but is on a long term contract. Modric wanted to leave but we kept him for a season. Then we sold him for 30 million or something, but again the players who replaced him weren't the same quality.

So to me, selling a world class player is never worth it, plus when you look back a few years later the amount paid always looks like too little because of transfer fee inflation.

I agree with much of that, except for one thing.

If we want to compete at the top level we need to attract top players, obviously. And until we can compete with the richest clubs for established stars, we need to buy promising young players. But if we get a reputation for always frustrating them when the time comes to move on, we will find it hard to attract many of them in the first place.

It's a very fine balance which overall I think we get about right, so while I agree that I never want to see us selling our best players, I don't think it's right to say it is always a mistake to do so.

Winning trophies consistently would solve a lot of the problems but when even Barca can't hold on to their second biggest star, I think we have to have a bit of pragmatism in our dealings.

 

[Deleted member 27855]

If that happened, do you really think that Levy will flip the whole lot onto an incoming signing? I don't .

I really don't think he'd have a choice. He's building a new stadium and trying to fill it up with fans. Losing a marquee star like Dele is not the same thing as losing Kyle Walker.

 

[poc]

I hope Barca uses the Neymar money and targets one or more of Coutinho, Hazard & Sanchez.

Agreed hazard would make me happiest since Chelsea are rank average without him (Ok maybe not average but he is the difference in the big games imo)

 

[King of Otters]

Looks like it'll be Coutinho. Two Catalan papers saying 100m Euro, 5yr deal already agreed and Liverpool will sell because he wants to go.

I'd rather this didn't happen tbh. No way is he a £100 million player. I'd rather Liverpool had Coutinho than that kind of cash in their back pocket.

Seeing as money is no object to Chelsea anyway, I'd prefer it if Barca went for Hazard. I think Chelsea would struggle to replace him with like for like quality.

 

[Doctor Dinkey]

I really don't think he'd have a choice. He's building a new stadium and trying to fill it up with fans. Losing a marquee star like Dele is not the same thing as losing Kyle Walker.

We wouldn't buy a big player like you're suggesting even if we had the money- because of the wages issue. The wage limit seems sacrosanct to levy.

 

[thelak]

I love Dele and don't want to lose him. I don't think losing him would be a complete disaster though. Losing Eriksen would be. He's irrreplaceable. If we lost Dele we could immediately flip the £120m transfer fee over to Dortmund for Dembele or Pulisic ourselves. Both are on reasonable wages at BvB and either would be perfect for us. It also may balance us out and help make us a better team. An attacking 3 of Son/Eriksen/Dembele behind Kane would be deadly.

Think more chance of Levy flipping the cash into ENICs pocket, stating the market has gone crazy and that we are lucky to have a manager that wants to use the Academy!

 

[worcestersauce]

Which is then used to sign new players. But unless you are signing only the very best players, only about 50% or less of signings are successful. So it would make more sense to keep the world class player you already have.

Right now, neither Liverpool nor ourselves need the money, so it wouldn't make sense to sell a player we want to keep.

I don't disagree with you and I am not advocating it but it is a mistake to assume that owners do, especially when the player clearly would like the move.

 

[Deleted member 27855]

We wouldn't buy a big player like you're suggesting even if we had the money- because of the wages issue. The wage limit seems sacrosanct to levy.

I agree with you totally on the wage issue. That's the main reason we'll never see Bale back here. The transfer fee wouldn't be a problem, it's the wages we can't afford. The Dortmund players however are all on reasonable wages. We could give Dembele or Pulisic a nice little pay raise without destroying our wage structure. If we sold Dele that would be the first place to look for a possible replacement.

 

[Dirty Ewok]

£100 million answers an awful lot of whys.

If you are Barca and just got ~£200m from selling a single player then calling anyone in the PL about a star player isn't a great tactic.

ALL the PL teams now have massive revenue streams all can afford to hold out for a king's ransom on any player that they aren't actively looking to sell.

Good chance that someone like Levy would ask them how badly that £200m was burning a hole in their pocket to open negotiations. Figure Pool are doing the same with Couthinho.

 

[ItsBoris]

I don't disagree with you and I am not advocating it but it is a mistake to assume that owners do, especially when the player clearly would like the move.

I don't think I did assume that? I'm just saying I don't think it would make sense for us to sell Alli even for a big sum (and likewise with Liverpool selling Coutinho). Whether the owners agree remains to be seen.