Good player. Better than Mertesacker.

Starting to look like a half-season wonder to me. Worse knees than Diaby too. It would be a huge gamble.

He had some good games at Udine as well, he's clearly talented. Wouldn't be against it, he's miles better on the ball than anyone we have for the position, might be problematic though that he's a left sided centre half like Koscielny who we'd look to pair with him.

Would be risky given his injury history but to be fair that's because the charlatans that are Bayern's medics have repeatedly mishandled his injuries just like they did with Thiago, Martinez, Robben and many others, they make our medical department look like high end professionals in comparison. Benatia had virtually no history before his move to Bayern, of course there's always a risk involved giving that he'd be signing for Arsenal but I'd try our luck, not like there are many other readymade CBs around and from the sound of it he should be around 15-20m which is decent

No thank you.

Injury prone and I don't want the AFCON to completely fuck us over, having Elneny leaving in January is bad enough as it is.

Would prefer Manolas myself. Reported today that Roma are in financial trouble, but reportedly they might be selling Pjanic to cover for that.

He was really good up until signing for bayern. I wouldn't be against it if we could get a cut price deal for him

Would prefer that Roma get a cut price deal for him and we send Szczesny back there as makeshift in Manolas' deal.

But should it really come to this, i wouldnt say no of course.

Manolas is very unlikely to move this summer. His contract was leaked to the public and Roma are yet to pay the second half of his transfer rights in this window, a sale now would mean Olympiakos get half of the transfer fee.

Yup Jones is right.

Unless they get some ridiculous offer it would make more sense to sell him later when they have to give less to Olympiakos.

You're all thinking like a Premier League club and not a Serie A club though. Roma struggle financially. From their viewpoint, all it means is that they got two seasons out of a class defender and he only cost them half of what they were supposed to pay. That's great business. And in return, they could take Benatia back now for less than half of what they sold him for to Bayern two years ago. Manolas will be likely to leave soon anyway, because he's too good. Benatia won't this time around.

Yup. There is also the fact that you can sell them Szczesny for next to nothing, so that in net terms you keep Roma whole without having to pay Olympiakos a king's ransom.

Klaus wrote:

You're all thinking like a Premier League club and not a Serie A club though. Roma struggle financially. From their viewpoint, all it means is that they got two seasons out of a class defender and he only cost them half of what they were supposed to pay. That's great business. And in return, they could take Benatia back now for less than half of what they sold him for to Bayern two years ago. Manolas will be likely to leave soon anyway, because he's too good. Benatia won't this time around.

Boom. Klaus wading in and shutting shit down.

Klaus wrote:

You're all thinking like a Premier League club and not a Serie A club though. Roma struggle financially. From their viewpoint, all it means is that they got two seasons out of a class defender and he only cost them half of what they were supposed to pay. That's great business. And in return, they could take Benatia back now for less than half of what they sold him for to Bayern two years ago. Manolas will be likely to leave soon anyway, because he's too good. Benatia won't this time around.

https://footballleaks2015.wordpress.com/2016/04/07/olympiakos-as-roma-konstantinos-manolas/

You don't set this kind of contract up if you expect to sell him within two seasons, not only would that represent poor business but it would negate the point of setting it up in the first place. Roma have kept Pjanic and Nainggolan despite interest of other clubs for a few seasons, they'll probably play CL next season - they'll manage to hold on to a 24 year old centre back for another season if it means they'll make an almost guaranteed 20m+ more than they would this summer.

Also Benatia has probably little to do with the situation, his agent came out and denied the Roma rumours. Bigger chance he'll move to Juventus

But Juve once also wanted Bendtner...

Benatia was a great CB before going to Bayern, still rate him. You would imagine his future will be in Italy where he could have another 5 years at a top team e.g juventus.

He'll want to try the prem - most do. The pulling power of it is as high as it's ever been