i think we should sign yumtitty, if kos who has achilles pain after every game is leaving soon then we need to replace him with a player who has knee pain after every game.

Our new strategy is to buy young, with potential for value to rise, Umtiti doesn't really meet that.

Umtiti is a world class player who potentially happens to be available at a decent price. If we're sure about his fitness, I don't care about our general strategy.

No way I will sell Koscielny. Even on 1 and the half legs this season he is so far better than our next best defender its a joke

Better league?

Wouldn't want him here. Bad vibes on both his knee injury as well as his general attitude (didn't want to have surgery, etc.).

Gunner89 wrote:

Claudius wrote:

You can likely get Konate for 40m pounds or less. Have you ever taken the time to look at defender prices? Defenders are not priced like strikers.

Of course I agree they are not priced at striker levels.

But if you're looking at the good even young CB's that are in demand they cost more than 40m. 

Davison Sanchez went from Ajax for a reported 42m.

Laporte went for 60m plus.

De Ligt is being touted at 70m.

Hernandez went for 80m odd euros.

Konate plays for a richer club in a better league who have no financial obligations to sell at all.

So you name 4 of 9 most expensive defenders in all of football history and a likely one, and that’s evidence of what this guy will go for? I think amongst the 100 most expensive transfers in history, defenders appear ₁₂ times far less than their typical 40% representation in startling lineups.

We and Liverpool are the only teams really sniffing. There isn’t a hot market and hype around this guy. How much do you really think he would go for?

There goes our non CL transfer budget.

If we only buy one player this summer, it should be a top talent at CB. It has to be. Blow the whole kitty on it, I don't really care.

Umtiti is exactly the right age and talent, but is short and injury prone. Think I'd prefer Konate.

If it were a choice between one or the other, I'd rather have Nicolas Pepe (or similar) over Ibrahima Konyate (or similar).

Gunner89 wrote:

Claudius wrote:

So you name 4 of 9 most expensive defenders in all of football history and a likely one, and that’s evidence of what this guy will go for? I think amongst the 100 most expensive transfers in history, defenders appear ₁₂ times far less than their typical 40% representation in startling lineups.

We and Liverpool are the only teams really sniffing. There isn’t a hot market and hype around this guy. How much do you really think he would go for?

There's a reason that these are all in the last 1-2 years.

Even the cost of defenders is rising.

Soyuncu remember him? He went for 20m from a small club with hardly any money.

Konate won't go less than 45m IMO.

A final note on a helpful proxy for pricing. Kicker does a semi-annual review of the best players in each position. It’s quite credible. They rank the best players in each position in 4 classes: world, international, wider circle, field of vision. They ranked no Bundesliga defenders in January 2019 as world class, and put Ginter/Hasebe as international. 6 players like Akanji were wider circle. They put Konate with a group of about 8 others in the last group. This group included Diallo who was transferred for about 22m pounds last summer to Dortmund at the age of 22, and Sule who Bayern signed for around 15m pounds at a similar age.

I am inclined to believe that Konate is more likely to be priced in line with the players that he is graded amongst than the top 5 or 6 transfer fees of all time for defenders.