I think £20m-£25m for Doucoure if they go down. They'll need him off the wage bill, he's been a good servant to them for years now I think they'd need to be reasonable.

No to Doucouré from me. He's a very average footballer from a technical standpoint and spends far too much time ahead of the ball for my liking. A midfield of him and Xhaka would be brutal to watch in terms of first touch, seeing quick passes, looking for combinations, seeing forward passes quickly. Partey gives you more than those two combined, in my view, and would give us the platform to go with two technical midfielders alongside him in a 3.

HomeSteak wrote:

Arsenal are ready to sign Thomas Partey. Atletico have made it clear that they will not entertain any player exchanges, Arsenal will have to pay £43m.[AS]

From the little I can remember, AS is not that reliable right? Still, it's picking up some steam, not just news from Ghana.

Xhaka, Partey, Saka is even doable next year. But if we can get another attacker and keep Saka wide even better. Imagine Xhaka, Partey and Szoboszlai with Saka out wide. 

The only concern there is Xhaka and Luiz close together are a nippy forward's wet dream. How would you solve this? is the 343 without Xhaka best?

Gazza M wrote:

Partey should replace xhaka as primary distributor. I don't see how playing both results in a productive midfield. Play partey with 2 B2B players ahead of him

That's exactly my view. Partey is the Xhaka upgrade.

Gazza M wrote:

Partey should replace xhaka as primary distributor. I don't see how playing both results in a productive midfield. Play partey with 2 B2B players ahead of him

I mentioned elsewhere that an aggressive midfield is Partey at base with Saka and Szoboszlai at the top of the V. It's attack minded, but I think it would give you the kind of physicality, penetration and dynamism we have really missed this decade. 

If Partey could work in a midfield with Xhaka it'd be a bigger improvement for us as that'd mean that Partey was upgrading on someone other than our best midfielder.

And now for reality.

Arsenal continue to retain an interest in Partey but cannot meet his €50m buy-out clause. Porto are willing to sell Danil for £20m due to FFP despite his €60m release clause. [@ESPNFC]

We will go for the cheap option

I must remember to not follow transfer sagas or I will go crazy

You followed 100 pages of Arshavin and got him, didn't you? After we'd destroyed the team. And he came with his pudgy self to rescue us from mediocrity

Surely we can raise €50m from selling any of Xhaka, Mustafi, Mhiki, Laca, etc.

€15m each or two for €20m

Posted this in the general as well cuz it had a bunch of other names, new day new weak link:

Arsenal will trigger Thomas Partey's €50m release clause at the end of the season

https://www.larazon.es/laotraliga/20200628/7agnljv6tjbjpcrias4go4bita.html

Trippier says on @Podcast_TBG that Thomas Partey has been asking him about the Premier League. He added that Thomas speaks a very good English and will fit in perfectly in in the PL (should a move happen) via @MrArsenicTM

Agent Trippier talking Arsenal up, no doubt. Funny how he says Thomas speaks very good english.

Ghanaian boy better speak very good English. His colonial masters saw to that.

He would transform our midfield. Massive signing if it happens.

What might make this transfer happen is that he'll become the world 2nd most expensive DM signing after de Jong. But when you factor resale value de Jong is 22. They could likely get most of his fee back in 3-4 years potentially more. Partly is 27 5 years contract he'll be 32 with little or no resale value. In real terms we'd be signing the most expensive DM in the world.and that'll put a lot of super rich teams off.

I’ve been thinking about that very issue, Speedy but we are in dire straits in midfield. We need colossus in the middle to set things right. So it’s worth taking the hit to stabilize things and stitch it all together for all the other parts of the field where we have generally younger players. So, yeah, it makes more sense for us than it does for other teams

At the transfer fee we need to be sure he's undeniably a world beater.

Pepe is a disappointment at £72m, mustafi was in the top 10 transfer records for a CB.

Partey is costing the same as Southampton asked for VVD initially and what city paid for Laporte. That's the level of defensive player we need to be sure he is.

Kante was 8 non prem prove and prem proven at 30m

Pepe will pan out eventually. Philippe Auclair said his transfer fee was complicated, so I am hoping that our wretched form is putting a massive dent in that price.

All this player financing risk does make wonder why clubs don't get together, buy players and register them on their teams and then create a security against all the players registered in a single summer, and sell that debt to the market. Football is growing quite rapidly, so the clubs should be good to repay and by pooling the players you reduce the individual club risk. There will still be some system risk (e.g., Covid - but that's something that would affect all assets). They'd probably be able to raise cheaper debt for the league or a class of club (e.g., the G-14)