Yeah I certainly would have preferred Gebriel Jesus but the club did not go for him.

Anyways Barca are posturing with Auba to get the best price, like with De Jong, they are no doubt delighted to sell both and raise 100mill between the two if they can push them out while any club convinces them to join.

Kinda ironic that Gordon and Fofana are the opposite, desperate to join us but their clubs are desperate not to sell them. Which I find really silly.

Smart business would mean you could get one or two players to help your cause plus a pot of money.

Everton - Gilmour, Batman and 35mill? I could see it as we offload one we don't want.

Leicester CHO, Barkley and 50mill? Again I could see it for the same reason.

They strength with 2 players that go straight in to their first teams, and money to spend on a replacement.

Edited August 18, 20223 yr by axman2526

1 hour ago, d-one said:

Jesus would have been the best option for us. We dropped a serious clanger there.. 

Jesus was always heading towards being reunited with Arteta.  Jesus wanted that. so there wasn't much we could have done there tbh

Apparently our focus is on Auba this week and De Jong next week, as Barca still want De Jong to take a significant pay cut and avoid legal action.

No new offers for Gordon and Fofana, seems like we are leaving our offers on the table and hoping the players and agents pressure the club's in to taking them.

I wonder if De Jong and Auba will be offer Lukaku level salaries?

We are in direct talks talks Auba and his agent today. Barca have allowed this despite no few agreed and Xavi saying he wants to keep him.

Would they allow us to talk to Gavi or the like in the same way? No, so clearly they want him and De Jong gone as they allowed United to talk to De Jong.

I still think that Jesus wasn't good enough for City and if we are to catch them we need to do better.  I do think Jesus would improve us right now, but If we did go for Jesus we would need to stick with him for the foreseeable whereas a stop gap striker will allow us time to find the best long term solution.  The problem comes when we are constantly looking for stop gaps without finding the right player, then we would probably have be better off just settling for Jesus.

1 hour ago, axman2526 said:

Yeah I certainly would have preferred Gebriel Jesus but the club did not go for him.

Anyways Barca are posturing with Auba to get the best price, like with De Jong, they are no doubt delighted to sell both and raise 100mill between the two if they can push them out while any club convinces them to join.

Kinda ironic that Gordon and Fofana are the opposite, desperate to join us but their clubs are desperate not to sell them. Which I find really silly.

Smart business would mean you could get one or two players to help your cause plus a pot of money.

Everton - Gilmour, Batman and 35mill? I could see it as we offload one we don't want.

Leicester CHO, Barkley and 50mill? Again I could see it for the same reason.

They strength with 2 players that go straight in to their first teams, and money to spend on a replacement.

This is far too logical and has no part in any footballing strategy of this club.

56 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

I wonder if De Jong and Auba will be offer Lukaku level salaries?

Boehly hasn't been shy to pay top dollar to Sterling and Koulibaly so far.

If we can shift the 12 players I listed in the deadwood thread that would free up about £900K a week, so assuming we manage to offload some of that lot (and hopefully all) there is definitely scope to pay a good whack for a couple more players. Hopefully the "star" players turn out better than Lukaku !  

Edited August 18, 20223 yr by Sexyfootball

1 hour ago, axman2526 said:

Yeah I certainly would have preferred Gebriel Jesus but the club did not go for him.

Anyways Barca are posturing with Auba to get the best price, like with De Jong, they are no doubt delighted to sell both and raise 100mill between the two if they can push them out while any club convinces them to join.

Kinda ironic that Gordon and Fofana are the opposite, desperate to join us but their clubs are desperate not to sell them. Which I find really silly.

Smart business would mean you could get one or two players to help your cause plus a pot of money.

Everton - Gilmour, Batman and 35mill? I could see it as we offload one we don't want.

Leicester CHO, Barkley and 50mill? Again I could see it for the same reason.

They strength with 2 players that go straight in to their first teams, and money to spend on a replacement.

Football directors are too egoistic to consider trades like these.

12 hours ago, timetowaste said:

But is it a poor deal if he becomes integral in us winning trophies over the next couple of years? Admittedly it does seem like we're paying too much for a player Barca got for free but there's a massive scarcity of good strikers out there that are available that have scored goals at the top level.

Also, Barca don't need to sell Aubameyang while they're doing these dodgy tv right/merch deals.

All in all Tuchel wants someone who's proven he can goals playing for him and Aubameyang fits that bill. 

But if we don't win trophies and we end up with a Lukaku, Falcao, Pato? He has no resale value. Like I say he has had a brilliant goalscoring record, but I don't think we should pay that free for a 33 year old because I don't think it is a given that he succeeds here.

Very little said about the meeting today. Gur feeling is his demands are too high.

10 hours ago, Bob stark said:

I don't understand how people think auba is a good idea. Depay would have been much better for us. The minimum requirement for our st is he need to comfortable to be the extra guy in possession. He need to keep moving to the left and right to maintain possession. Auba does not want to do this. 

 

 

Depay really wouldn’t be any better than Havertz. He’s already had a stint at United and failed miserably, and he’s not doing that great at Barca either… You talk about players who can play in possession, we already have that with Havertz or Sterling if he plays as false 9.

What we need is a player who can put balls in back of net! Auba already proved he can do it so it’s a pretty safe bet, especially with the quality of our wing backs, he’ll be feasting.

It would be nice if we can find the next Brazilian wonder kid but no one else is doing that at the mo, talent out there is scarce.

 

4 hours ago, dansubrosa said:

Depay really wouldn’t be any better than Havertz. He’s already had a stint at United and failed miserably, and he’s not doing that great at Barca either… You talk about players who can play in possession, we already have that with Havertz or Sterling if he plays as false 9.

What we need is a player who can put balls in back of net! Auba already proved he can do it so it’s a pretty safe bet, especially with the quality of our wing backs, he’ll be feasting.

It would be nice if we can find the next Brazilian wonder kid but no one else is doing that at the mo, talent out there is scarce.

 

Unless Tuchel decide to change the way we play and replace some of our personel, we can't play with a 9 who is looking for goal. We had similar problem with rom. 

It comes down to kids math. 

2L -  st -  2R

2 dm

3 cb

This is how we play. 

You want your st to score goal so you want him to be in the box, so let's remove him. What you have left is

2L -  2R

You want to attack with minimum 3 player on on side to create overload. Let's say we attack through the left. We have our lw + lwb but who will be third guy.Our ldm is jorgi so no. So you need you st to be that 3rd guy which mean he can't stay in the box. It is very simple, City did the same thing last season. This season with Haaland rather than

5 fw 

DM - dm

3 cb

City played more of

        5fw

DM - DM - Dm

     CB - cb

That two side dm are walker and cancelo who both more than happy to make overlap. 

Football can be very complicated at times but it comes down to kids math.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 19, 20223 yr by Bob stark

12 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Apparently our focus is on Auba this week and De Jong next week, as Barca still want De Jong to take a significant pay cut and avoid legal action.

No new offers for Gordon and Fofana, seems like we are leaving our offers on the table and hoping the players and agents pressure the club's in to taking them.

I honestly don't believe the de jong rumours. None of the tier one journalists have reported on it all summer, it just seems like an attempt by either de jong's agents to get chelsea interested or barca to put pressure on united.

This deal would make sense. 20 odd million is okay. He is an elite player. No one can deny that. Even at 33. 

2 year deal would be optimal. I can imagine Auba would like a longer deal but I don't think that is in the cards for him.

Pierre Aubameyang update. Been told meeting with Chelsea on Thursday night was "very positive", personal terms won't be an issue - Chelsea and Auba's camp are on the same page about contract. 🚨🔵 #CFC 

It's now time for talks with Barça - €30m price tag considered too high.

30M?!

I thought this would be on a free...

This is complete madness if you ask me. Ok a fee of 5-6M, I could understand that, but 25-30M for a 33 yo Aubameyang?!

Not only he is a few steps away from the retirement door, but he is not needed anymore at Barcelona and they are also desperate to cash in some players and get rid of their wages to register new ones and we are the idiots to help them with that?

I'd rather Ronaldo for that money or else throw it in a bin and burn them, it's the same thing as buying Aubameyang to be fair. Burnt money have no meaning, nor does Aubameyang at Chelsea.

30M on delayed payment, 12 months later we will claim the contract invalid and criminal and sue them, do a Barca on them!

13 hours ago, STATS said:

But if we don't win trophies and we end up with a Lukaku, Falcao, Pato? He has no resale value. Like I say he has had a brilliant goalscoring record, but I don't think we should pay that free for a 33 year old because I don't think it is a given that he succeeds here.

You're right that it could happen but it seems we have an issue with strikers at whatever stage of their career  we buy them in. Werner was 23/24 when we got him and one of the best young strikers around and we've ended losing about £30m getting rid of him, Lukaku was 28 and in his prime and we'll probably end up losing £40m+ when it comes to the final sale. So even if we spend say £25m and he totally flops it's no different to the money we've lost elsewhere.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is on the brink of Chelsea move. After the endless wait for Frenkie de Jong, the first major sale for FC Barcelona is likely to be that of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. The Gabonese is getting close to becoming a new Chelsea player (Diario SPORT) #CFC #FCB

I think he'll be great for us personally, with still plenty left in the tank for a good few years.

 

2 hours ago, azpi28 said:

 

That was a fair few years ago, in a weaker league when he was a younger player with more pace.

22 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

That was a fair few years ago, in a weaker league when he was a younger player with more pace.

yes but Benzema is still going strong. Different type of player. But we don't need his pace that much. We had pace with Werner. We need his clinical finishing.

I was never a big fan of Aubameyang and his personality but i trust in TT. 

5 minutes ago, azpi28 said:

yes but Benzema is still going strong. Different type of player. But we don't need his pace that much. We had pace with Werner. We need his clinical finishing.

I was never a big fan of Aubameyang and his personality but i trust in TT. 

Much rather have Benzema lol