Claudius wrote:

Bold Tone wrote:

Barcelona reportedly offered Premier League clubs the option to bring him in for the season for a fee of £27million which would include a further option to buy.

Coutinho is refusing to leave the Nou Camp in a loan deal and would instead prefer to leave permanently, should he have to.
https://www.mundodeportivo.com/futbol/fc-barcelona/20190804/463852273950/coutinho-no-se-plantea-salir-cedido.html

£27m?! We can buy a whole Saliba for that. No thanks, sir

Correction: Between £20 and £25 million

under the old regime, i could see selling auba to a domestic rival, undoing all the previous good business we did in a window. under this new regime, i cant see that happening at all

Laurens called the M’vila deal early

Mirth wrote:

Didn't Emery rubbish this rumour?

The evening before we announced Pépé he said:

We are speaking about a lot of players, we want to select on players who can really help us, give us big performances and improve our squad. We have different options. This one at the moment is not closed, but he is one we are following.

He'd had his photos and first interview done by that point!

goon wrote:

mdgoonah41 wrote:

i mean, if we are getting him on loan and paying a modest loan fee, this seems fine. i wont overreact until we know the particulars

I mean the suggestion when we were first linked was they'd wan't something approaching a years worth of the fee they're paying Liverpool, which I think was £25m...

I assume that would be bullshit, but even a 10m loan fee plus what I assume would be substantial wages would cost us in excess of 20m.

Hopefully it is nonsense. This is more of a 'Woodward' rather than 'outsmarting the market'.

The £25m fee figure was wrong. It was included wages for the season. So you're probably right when you say something like a £10m loan fee. Although, if this is actually happening, maybe it's because they're desperate and have given us a deal we can't refuse?

mdgoonah41 wrote:

under the old regime, i could see selling auba to a domestic rival, undoing all the previous good business we did in a window. under this new regime, i cant see that happening at all

Not a fair comparison as that only happened once in 22 years, IIRC.

Muswell Hill Gooner wrote:

mdgoonah41 wrote:

under the old regime, i could see selling auba to a domestic rival, undoing all the previous good business we did in a window. under this new regime, i cant see that happening at all

Not a fair comparison as that only happened once in 22 years, IIRC.

we gave united both robin van judas and alexis. we gave giroud to chelsea. we sold tons of players to man city (that worked out for the most part), we sold ox to liverpool, etc.

@lorddulaarsenal wrote:

Laurens called the M’vila deal early

It's all come flooding back to me. He really went all in on that didn't he!

Coutinho, for me, is no Number 10. He lacks way too much to thrive there, and even Liverpool rarely played him there. The best I've ever personally senn hkm play was at the Emirates in his penultimate season for Liverpool. He played left wing in a 3 man forward line and he took Bellerin to the cleaners. Roasted him every single time one-v-one.

If there's truth to this, it might be to balance our effectively having 2 strikers on the pitch, with Pépé at right wing playing very high and looking to get in behind, and Coutinho deeper and more of a playmaker. Kind of Pires and Freddie-like?

mdgoonah41 wrote:

Muswell Hill Gooner wrote:

Not a fair comparison as that only happened once in 22 years, IIRC.

we gave united both robin van judas and alexis. we gave giroud to chelsea. we sold tons of players to man city (that worked out for the most part), we sold ox to liverpool, etc.

Alexis and Giroud were not equivalent to RVP (then) or Aubameyang (now) by the time we sold them but even counting them it's 3 in 22 years.

Aubameyang is never being sold to United. Would be suicide for the new guys running the club.

if we did bring him in, i definitely think it would be to play LW in a 4-2-3-1. right now, we have iwobi and nelson there, and if we were content to just battle for 4th, then i think we'd go with what we have. a front 4 of

pepe -- laca -- coutinho
------- auba ----------

would be really really good. i dont think we're going to play with a traditional number 10, i think the goal is to play laca and auba off each other. id rather see a regular 4-3-3, but even then, coutinho fits at LW. doesnt have blistering pace, but hes a good dribbler and can create in space

The only player we lost to a rival who was a big blow was RvP.

• Sanchez had clearly lost his explosiveness.
• Giroud had held us back for years.
• Adebayor's and Nasri's purple patches had ended.
• Toure was past his best. Clichy was Clichy.

I wasn't sorry to see any of them leave. Aubameyang would be a different story, and I'm certain he's not going anywhere.

@lorddulaarsenal wrote:

Laurens called the M’vila deal early

which time? We signed him like six consecutive windows

mdgoonah41 wrote:

Muswell Hill Gooner wrote:

Not a fair comparison as that only happened once in 22 years, IIRC.

we gave united both robin van judas and alexis. we gave giroud to chelsea. we sold tons of players to man city (that worked out for the most part), we sold ox to liverpool, etc.

I mean, the main reason we got rid of Giroud was so that we got Aubameyang - no one shed too many tears over that.

jones wrote:

@lorddulaarsenal wrote:

Laurens called the M’vila deal early

which time? We signed him like six consecutive windows

Lol. True.

The less minutes Ozil gets the better

jones wrote:

He managed to be wrong both about us signing him, the player being delighted and about that it would've been a great signing. 

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

jones wrote:

He managed to be wrong both about us signing him, the player being delighted and about that it would've been a great signing. 

I agree with what you said but I have to note that you said "both" and then listed three things. :quincy: