Tah would be brilliant. Proper giant of a CB

Can’t be all that if he’s behind Rudiger for the NT.

Löw picks his favourites regardless of form or quality, anyone who plays or has played for Stuttgart or is from that area is guaranteed 20 caps for the national team. Tah is a lot better than Rüdiger already, brilliant centre half but I don't like how he's had a number of muscular injuries at 22 already.

@lorddulaarsenal wrote:

Who in their right mind would sign Mustafi?

Inter wanted him last season

Ah cool. Fingers crossed they didn’t watch any of our games this season

Klaus wrote:

We need one cheap and one expensive defender this summer.

Agreed but Sokratis at like £15m would be one hell of an underwhelming signing! He's not a terrible defender but he is 29 and had all sorts of injury problems. I'd rather we look at someone like Lewis Dunk who might be available for that kind of money. Then if we can offload Mustafi then try to spend a bit bigger on another.

Okay, yeah. I didn't realise the quoted price was that high. I thought he was a free agent.

Jonny Evans then. Let's swap up that little prick in all his manc glory before someone else gets to him. That £3 million clause is the biggest bargain we're gonna get in this window.

klaus id rather you play CB for us than jonny fucking evans

I thought Sokratis was free as well...Twitter nonsense probably. That changes things.

mdgoonah41 wrote:

klaus id rather you play CB for us than jonny fucking evans

He's a huge upgrade on Mustafi for a start though.

Yeah, but so is Klaus.

Bild: Sokratis to #AFC is likely to happen for a fee _€20m and a contract that runs for two years.

Meh?

We probably have an option to extend for one year.

I thought Sokratis looked very good a couple of years ago, but haven't watched much Dortmund after that. €20m out of our £50m budget seems like a lot based on what you guys are saying about him. Also, I don't see how our budget is that small just because we lost out on Champions League. Every mid table club spends more than that nowadays.

It's probably limited because our wage bill is so large. It's the one leverage we still have over a lot of competing clubs to be fair.

Lets put it this way, Dortmund fans are quite happy to sell Sokratis for 20m for his age 29 season. He isn't any better than Mustafi and he has no resale value. Definitely don't want, and I hope it's just more lazy rumour-mongering from the shit UK press.

Too often, we fail to factor in resale value - expensive transfer fees for young players often end up being cheap or even profitable, and inexpensive fees for older players end up being money down the drain.

The £50m thing is misleading, remember?

kamikaze wrote:

Lets put it this way, Dortmund fans are quite happy to sell Sokratis for 20m for his age 29 season. He isn't any better than Mustafi and he has no resale value. Definitely don't want, and I hope it's just more lazy rumour-mongering from the shit UK press.

Too often, we fail to factor in resale value - expensive transfer fees for young players often end up being cheap or even profitable, and inexpensive fees for older players end up being money down the drain.

What Dortmund fan is happy to lose him?

I can't say I follow Sokratis closely over the past couple of years, however our defence needs some leadership and guidance on the pitch as well as individual talent and Sokratis certainly fits that role.

I'm comfortable if Sokratis can do what Mertesacker did when he first turned up.

We do need to find an outstanding CB to partner him though