banduan wrote:

tantalising. I won't mind him at all. Just getting into his prime too... I just hope the Chinese haven't inflated his wages.

the rumors are that he'd be willing to take a pay cut to get out of china, so that helps

jones wrote:
Burnwinter wrote:

Want. Prefer this link to Denis Suarez.

We need both

This. Sell Mkhitaryan asap and get both in.

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

Is this Twitter guy legit since his tweet got Carrasco his own thread?

The question is. ...are We legit for him to tweet about us and carrasco? !

BWoolley wrote:

Emery saying in his press conference that we can't buy anyone, only loan, in this transfer window.

That's exactly what we should be telling Barcelona. If we can get them to agree to a loan with an unconditional option to buy in June, then that would be great for us from a cash-flow perspective. We can agree that, then sign Carasco immediately, and have two excellent midfielders on our books for the rest of the season 

Claude, they know. We have people who negotiate on our behalf. If we want a player they've probably tried every angle: loan, loan with small token fee now and obligation to pay a bigger fee later, loan with mandatory buyout clause, etc. The bottom line is that Barca don't have to do us any favours. If we don't buy Suarez they can probably sell him in the summer instead for the same fee, and meanwhile they can finish the season with the squad intact.

Claudius wrote:
BWoolley wrote:

Emery saying in his press conference that we can't buy anyone, only loan, in this transfer window.

That's exactly what we should be telling Barcelona. If we can get them to agree to a loan with an unconditional option to buy in June, then that would be great for us from a cash-flow perspective. We can agree that, then sign Carasco immediately, and have two excellent midfielders on our books for the rest of the season 

This can't be a cash flow issue, I would have thought. Isn't this how all deals are done, i.e. payments made in stages with a small portion upfront? I assume this is just us not wanting to pay up for Suarez. Especially with the larger sponsorship contract already signed for the summer, it can't be that difficult to buy a player now if we really wanted to and even get a small bridge finance for a few million if required. I wonder what's really going on.

My rather optimistic view is that we want our budgets unrestricted for the summer so we can go all out for targets we really want. Suarez just happens to be someone where a loan deal could be a possibility.

BWoolley wrote:
Claudius wrote:

That's exactly what we should be telling Barcelona. If we can get them to agree to a loan with an unconditional option to buy in June, then that would be great for us from a cash-flow perspective. We can agree that, then sign Carasco immediately, and have two excellent midfielders on our books for the rest of the season 

This can't be a cash flow issue, I would have thought. Isn't this how all deals are done, i.e. payments made in stages with a small portion upfront? I assume this is just us not wanting to pay up for Suarez. Especially with the larger sponsorship contract already signed for the summer, it can't be that difficult to buy a player now if we really wanted to and even get a small bridge finance for a few million if required. I wonder what's really going on.

Not all deals are created equal. Some are heavily weighted up front. Others stretch for several years. Depends on the individual deal and the circumstances of the negotiating parties

Financing is a separate issue. We generally do not use short-term financing, so would not fund the difference between a Barca payment in January and an Adidas revenue. More likely that we would advance the Adidas payments to January. 

Kroenke will send this club into irrelevance sooner or later. Unlike Wenger, Emery is not willing to act as a shield for him and will expose his lies. Wouldn't surprise me if he decides to resign eventually.

Clubs like Bournemouth spend £19m on nobodies but we have no money to do permanent deals? Astonishing.

We have a much, much bigger wage bill though. And that's not really a bad thing, contrary to popular belief. The size of our wage bill is what kept us in Champions League for so long while clubs like Spurs and Liverpool were locked in cycles where they spent one year in, then a few years out, then one or two years back in, etc. It gives you the ability to sign and maintain players good enough for Champions League, and to keep a bigger squad around.

It's very tempting to trim the squad right now and get rid of some expenses, but once you've downsized there's no obvious way to go up again unless the chips magically fall in your favour. It only took a decade and a half for that to happen to Liverpool.

Claudius wrote:

Not all deals are created equal. Some are heavily weighted up front. Others stretch for several years. Depends on the individual deal and the circumstances of the negotiating parties
 

Agreed. All I was saying was that if it is a cash flow issue, we could try and negotiate a staggered payment than making a blanket statement that we can only take players on loan. This feels more FFP related, although I can't fathom how.

Jed wrote:

Kroenke will send this club into irrelevance sooner or later. Unlike Wenger, Emery is not willing to act as a shield for him and will expose his lies. Wouldn't surprise me if he decides to resign eventually.

Clubs like Bournemouth spend £19m on nobodies but we have no money to do permanent deals? Astonishing.

to be fair, clubs like bournemouth also dont spend £50m on aubas or lacazettes either

The outrage at the lack of funds is puzzling. The wage bill is maxed and we've missed out on cl football for 2 seasons

We should look at loans with option/obligation to buy in the summer

And it's probably the same people who wanted us to drop out of the CL.

Gazza M wrote:

We should look at loans with option/obligation to buy in the summer

I'm hoping we have better luck with the Chinese than with Barcelona. The Chinese Super League doesn't start again until March, so they'd get Carrasco off the wage bill for a while in the off season, and they'd have plenty of time to find a replacement.

He's better than Iwobi, so get him in.

Apparently his wife confirmed that Milan United and us are the front runners for his signature, and that's it's probable he'll be back in Europe soon