Ismaila Sarr

We are back and that means we have to compete.

The only reason to sell at that fee now would be if the finances are very bad.

 

People have short memories, as soon as Gerry got injured we were screwed. Sarr was our only meaningful threat and teams shut him down easily with nothing else to worry about. If we could get £50m we’d be far better off using half the funds to rebalance the team and give us more than one dimension to our attack.

I’m not saying sell him, but I’m saying if we’re offered £50m sell him and improve our team in more than one area.

 

That is because they had absolutely no fear of the threat from either our central striker or left winger.

Not really sure how you could watch those games where deeney was hobbling around injured and unfit and think that Sarr was the problem.

 

Staying up is, by some distance, the best way to generate the biggest amount of reliable income on an on-going basis. And, although I don't like it, the fact is that football clubs now treat debt as a way of life. The size of the debt only becomes critical if the Premier League money tap is turned off, hence our fears of a firesale if they'd not bounced straight back last season.

 

It'll be Ashley Young all over again. We'll be absolute gash for the first half of the season with Sarr the only bright spark, then as it's clear we're going down we'll flog him to Villa in January and sign some todd ready for the Championship.

 

I’m not sure how you’ve possibly taken that from my post, Sarr was obviously far from the problem, that was my entire point, he was our only decent player hence easy to shut down and conversely enable the opposition to push forward and put even more pressure on our defence. Are you that confident from what you’ve seen so far in the friendlies it won’t be Deeney starting again then?

 

Good luck with that one

 

There is no guarantee we stay up with Sarr though, far from it. If we go down the premier league tap you speak of is obviously turned off. We’ll then have to sell Sarr but for about £20m so we’ll be in a complete state. My point is if we sell him for £50m we can do both, we can give ourselves some financial security if we go down, but also rebalance our team to give ourselves a better shot of actually staying up.

 

Buendia is creative and for sure can/will offer some of the same characteristics that Grealish offers. That said, I think they are likely to be adding a couple of players to replace what he offers and Sarr, Bailey etc could be part of that.

They bid for Smith-Rowe a couple of weeks ago for example and he looks like a Grealish type player - yet they already had Buendia.

 

I still laugh when TVOR said he’d turn down £35m for Hughes.

 

£20m for Sarr when he still has 2 years left on his deal. I’ll have what you’ve been smoking.

 

I think that Cucho, Sema, JP, Dennis are all more threatening than Pereyra was in that last season. I think King, JP and even Fletch is more threatening than Deeney was.

Even if the club demand Deeney starts then we will at least have two threats on the pitch.

 

I admire your optimism. Sema has proven he’s not PL standard, JP is young and went massively off the boil last season a league lower. Fletch has done precisely nothing in his career to warrant any optimism that he’s all of a sudden an oven ready premier league player. King is about the only one that has some previous pedigree that he could hit close to again. Cucho is the one player who probably has the upside potential.

An awful lot of stars need to align for us to have a better attack than we had last time round.

 

You don’t think Joao Pedro has any upside potential? He’s in the same boat as Cucho - maybe even more so due to him being acclimatised to English football already. He faded last season for sure, but he still contributed and I don’t think it’s right to say he went ‘massively off the boil’.

He has massive potential upside and is only going to get better with age IMO.

 

He did go massively off the boil, there is no other way to describe it. He didn’t do anything for the last 10 or so games. His stats in the last 10 games compared before that are pretty stark to say the least.

Of course he’s got upside potential but he’s no way going to be a regular starter, if we were relying on him game in game out then we’d definitely be going straight back down as he’s just not ready or good enough yet.

 

Tbf I've been quite impressed with what I've seen of Fletch so far, yes only highlights but atleast he has some ability. Not saying he's the answer but I'm not as worried as I was. Cucho looked enterprising and could be a real blessing down the left. Dennis looks to have pace to burn which is always a plus. King just needs the opportunity because he's more than capable of leading the line. Yes my glasses are slightly tinted but I prefer it that way at the start.
But take Sarr out of the equation who is more than capable of double figures and we're totally fooked. It's going to be hard enough with him let alone without. I don't even see Villa as a massive step forward for him.

 

There's no guarantee of anything. We could stay up without Sarr, or go down with him. I'd say the latter is more likely than the former, but that's speculation. But one thing I am fairly certain of is that a team that has some obvious weaknesses at Premier League level will be more fun to watch with him than without him and that is what matters to me. The question of financial security is something that does not affect my matchday experience, nor is it something I have any influence over whatsoever, nor is there any guarantee that selling Sarr – even for £50m – will have any steadying impact on the finances. What will have a steadying impact on finances is staying up.

I suppose I choose not to live in a world – a slightly joyless one, it seems to me – where the company's balance sheet matters as much to me as the players I can watch on a matchday. Perhaps it's age that's done it to me. I've seen the buckets being rattled and chucked in some money, I've seen the club approach the brink and narrowly avoid toppling over the edge and although those times were terrible the club survived. I can do without a pragmatic grind, I'd like to fly close to the sun again, reach another cup final and meet someone other than the best team in the country, qualify for the Europa Conference League and go to Bulgaria or Belarus on a Thursday night.

I simply can't believe, after the grind of last season, that we'd really advocate the 'let's go down in order to come back stronger' policy when we've literally just done that and it's turned out to be much, much harder to keep a good team on the pitch AND balance the finances in practice than in theory.

 

There are question marks around all of them, but it is an incredibly low bar to be an improvement on Pereyra. These players have strengths and weaknesses. Pererya offered literally nothing.

JP went off the boil but he also had the just about the best numbers for a player his age at that level last season. He is a massive talent and we probably expected too much from him.

 

Maybe £25m. We wouldn’t get top dollar for a twice relegated winger, at a Championship club, with only 2 years left.

 

He did go off the boil but we need to take his age into consideration. Richarlison dropped off even more but it hasn't stopped him moving forward. JP still put a shift in and helped the team especially with the assist against Norwich for instance and is only going to get better, I personally still believe he has possibly a higher ceiling than Sarr. Time will tell. Anyways who did we have to replace Pedro late on in the season? Success, Perica, Gray I'd still rather of had a tiring JP anyday.

 

Also worth noting, if people are looking at his stats, that he was often asked to drop deep/play CM/drift wide in a number of games. He was very unselfish for someone of such a young age in his first full season of English football. Always did what was asked of him to help the team out. I think it’s very unfair to criticise him for anything he did last season really, and certainly don’t think any of it is a consideration when thinking about what he will offer next season.

 

It is worth remembering that João Pedro is still only 19 years old and that it was his first full season of senior football. Burnsy has pointed out that he showed the flexibility to play in different positions because he was asked to drop deep/play CM/drift wide in a number of games.

Richarlson also faded during the second part of his only season at Watford because he had been playing continuously for two years and some supporters wrote him off, but he did very well in his next season at Everton.

hornetboy1 mentioned that Danny Rose said (during his interview with Ben Foster on his Cycling GK youtube channel) that João Pedro was the player who has most impressed him in training. I read somewhere that he was the highest scoring teenager in a major league in Europe. I know that it is a matter of opinion, but I think that João Pedro has enormous potential and could develop into a major star in the future.

 

Totally agree. And I think the only thing that will impair his progress this year is where will he fit into our current team and system.

 

I don’t disagree with any of that, I just don’t think for all the reasons you’ve stated he isn’t someone we’ll be relying to keep us up. He’ll play a part here and there which will all help towards his development towards hopefully a player that in a couple of seasons will be that player.

With regards to that second point, that is slightly curious considering he’s been injured since the Millwall game and was pictured in a knee brace a few days ago. He may well have impressed Danny Rose in training, but that can only be based on an extremely small sample size. If anything it’s more of a concern to me that he’s impressed him the most, compared to every other one of our players who haven’t been injured.

 

It's simply insane for anyone to criticise what he achieved. Very happy he got tied down to a massive new contract and hope his injury doesn't hamper him to much. As you said his game was about doing everything he could for the team which was implemented as well as he could. Presently he has more competition and that can only be a good thing for him and us. His attitude is the one thing I've witnessed that can almost guarantee to me that he will become a top player. He's already proved that he can mix it with the rough and tumble of the Championship defenders and most definitely has the skill and ability to take on the Premier.

 

Now I get that not every year is an AFCON year, and that Leon Bailey has been at the Gold Cup, but still, would Villa want to spunk £50 odd million on a player who will leave in the winter?

 

I said there's no guarantee we'll stay up with Sarr, but that's not my point. The only way that any form of financial security can be achieved is by significantly reducing the percentage of turnover spent on transfer fees, wages and agent fees. Selling Sarr for £50m, while still committed to paying off the remainder of the circa £35m he cost does not provide the sort of financial security you're talking about.

If I may say so, your logic is slightly bizarre. There's absolutely no way selling Sarr, getting relegated, 'rebalancing the team' and coming back up will give us a better shot at staying up than we actually have now, this minute, when we actually are up! If it was as easy as that we could have 'rebalanced the team' with the money received from selling Doucoure and before that Richarlison and all the money saved from losing some of the highest earners last summer. But we've seen what sort of rebalancing relegation entails – some of the best players leave, others want to leave, some of the most expensive ones are impossible to shift, and the players who are recruited in the Championship come with a higher degree of uncertainty and may not be equipped for the Premier League.

 

In terms of the balance sheet we’ll make a decent profit selling him for £50m after owning him a couple of years.

Absolutely no guarantee we’ll stay up with him, and if we don’t his value will halve, whilst simultaneously finding ourselves in a position that we have to sell him.

There is an argument that instead of sticking with the method of gradually and incrementally improving the team across the board which worked for four seasons, spunking our entire budget on one player contributed at least in some part to our relegation.

You seem to be labouring under the binary misapprehension that keeping Sarr = survive and selling him = relegation, which is perhaps why you’re struggling to understand my point which acknowledges the situation is far more nuanced than that.

We may very well go down with Sarr, we may very well be able to build a better team more capable of survival if we sell him for £50m.

I think it’s a bit short sighted to view the situation as simply down to having Sarr or not having Sarr.

Again, I reiterate I’m not advocating selling him, but there is a price where selling him would make sense all round. Especially on the basis that if we get relegated with him his value halves. That is something that has to be considered, I mean it’s not like we haven’t clung onto players too long in the past and then it’s come back to bite us later on is it?

 

Sarr is a gamechanger.
If we sell him then relegation is almost certain.
I have a feeling that Sarr will have a really good season. His third season here, and looks settled and comfortable. Let him make 10+ goals this season. And then let him go.

 

No I literally said the opposite to this. I said that we could go down with him or stay up without him, none of us knows. I'm quite happy to hold a different opinion to you but please don't misrepresent my point – twice.

 

But you equally misrepresented my point, you said it was ‘bizarre’ that I thought we’d have a better chance of coming up if we went down, rather than staying up in the first place. That wasn’t my point at all, my point was we could conceivably sell Sarr and strengthen the team and be in a stronger position to stay up, but if we went down (which we could very conceivably do with Sarr) we would be in better shape and wouldn’t have to take a bath on his transfer fee.

I’m not advocating selling Sarr and weakening us, I’m advocating selling Sarr (if the price is right) and then addressing some of the chronic deficiencies elsewhere in the team (something we didn’t do to our cost when we bought him) with the added bonus of providing greater protection if we go down.

 

How many good players actually want to sign for on a permanent basis with us currently with us looking one of the strong favourites for the drop?

Get rid of Sarr and that problem becomes even more pronounced.

 

JP is still a baby, he will go on to surpass Sarr in value by some way imo.

 

This is all hypothetical, like everything on this forum.

It’s mostly hypothetical because I don’t believe anyone would spend £50m on him, personally if they are prepared to I think they’re mad. Sancho, a younger player also an England international with significantly better stats in the bundesliga for a top team just cost Utd £72m. I don’t care what we paid for him pre Covid, post Covid he isn’t worth anywhere near £50m, which is why such a figure has to be considered especially when you consider his value if we get relegated.

It’s also hypothetical because I don’t control transfers at the club, do I think we could sell Sarr for £50m and put ourselves in a stronger position? Absolutely 100% I do, would it actually happen? Who knows, it’s not me in charge of spending the money.

But again, it’s all largely irrelevant because nobody will pay £50m for him, not a chance.

But it’s certainly not as binary as sell Sarr for £50m and we get relegated, far from it. There are other players out there, there always will be, every year.