Would be an outstanding acquisition but I believe that Swansea are looking for £10-15m. There was a pretty hilarious sentence in that Leventhal piece to the effect of “after missing out on Afobe, Watford have turned their attention to Piroe.” The functional equivalent to “having missed out on Tom Ince, Watford have turned their attention to Lionel Messi.”
Would be a very good signing but almost certainly just a little morsel to keep the fans onside that the club have laundered via Leventhal
Well it’s fairly common knowledge that they’re looking for an 8 figure fee. So if they’re in discussions we must be prepared to pay something in that vicinity, as implausible as that sounds.
8 figures ? We can offer £5,000,000 and another £5 ? I imagine we will just offer £6m and say we did all we could to try and sign him.
He never really was I don't think, the club just feed him lines/snippets which they want publicly disclosed but via a 3rd party Hence why he always has an article on the 'inside track' for each manager sacking within 24 hours, explaining why the hierarchy had no choice but to act as they did
Agreed. But certainly would rather be linked with this kind of exciting/implausible/expensive player than solid uninspiring cheapos like Afobe
Maybe possible with the Cucho money. Sarr and Dennis sold to take care of the shortfall for being relegated which allows us to spend the Cucho transfer fee. Only guessing
I'd completely change my opinion on our approach to this season if we could somehow pull this off Exactly the sort of player we should be spending on, brilliant striker who can score all kinds of goals, proven in this league and a very good age as well
More likely there'll be talks going on with several clubs/targets concurrently and if a deal can actually be struck they decide whether to move on that one or keep trying for a different one.
Posted this yesterday in the finance thread £9-10mil for Cucho (£12mil according to AL) £2mil for Zinckernagel £2-4mil for Bachmann Gray left £70k p/w = £3.640mil Foster left £40k p/w = £2mil N’Koulou left £20k p/w £1mil Kucka left £30k p/w =£1.560mil King left £50k p/w = £2.6mil £10,800,000 in wages gone (approx) Then add Cucho £20k p/w = £1mil Zinckernagel £20k p/w = £1mil Bachmann £20k p/w = £1mil £3,000,000 (approx) So based off that, we’ve “made” approximately £26,800,000 so far on outs. If Bachmann goes for £4mil and Cucho left for £10mil then it would be £29,800,000. I know this is a simpleton view but making up the deficit of the £45mil from the fall out of the Prem is going well. Knowing we have to shift at least another 6-8 more players because of the homegrown squad rule, we should be able to bring in some decent players for Edwards. Adding to the above and going off Edwards interview Sissoko £60k p/w = £3.120mil Sarr £40k p/w = £2mil Dennis £50k p/w = £2.6mil Total of £7.7mil off the wages Plus the fees we would receive for Dennis and Sarr which will likely be around £45mil Total “made” on outgoings with just the above is a bare minimum of £79.5mil, excluding getting rid of the other dross like Masina, Ekong, Rose, Pussetto, and Penaranda off the books. Change that to AL’s £12mil for Cucho and we break £80mil. Then also factor in that most players all received a 40-50% wage cut as well which probably shaved another £5-7mil as well. Realistically we could easily afford the £15mil Swansea want. Again I know this is a very simple view of things so I’m not looking for a financial debate from the experts of our finances on here. Just pointing out in a simple way, we clearly will have the money to spend if we choose too. We won’t.
What club hasn't? @Markoa$ has just given his insight into a possibility of coming up with a fee. Not all monies earned will go into payoff debt.
I said a very simple view. I couldn’t be clearer. Bottom line is we will “make” over £80mil through sales and wages off the books this summer. What we do with it had nothing to do with my post. In a simple view make £80-85mil Minus the £45mil deficit of relegation Still leaves us with £35-40mil £5-10mil pay off debt Still leaves us £25-35mil Bayo £5mil (spread over the length of his contract) plus wages, plus Bayat = £9mil Even if we paid £2mil upfront for Bayo, and he’s on £2mil a year (£40k p/w) and Bayat got £2mil Still leaves us in the approx region of £19-29mil for signings and wages. It’s all speculation on my end, but this is genuinely where I think we will roughly be at. So if Swansea want £15mil for him, we can easily get him.
Would be an excellent, long term signing. Definitely PL quality. We wont get him because 1. He costs money, would want a high wage and is too sure a thing 2. A newly promoted side with cash to burn will probably go for him It's just virtue signalling to the gullible that we are trying to spend lots of money and be ambitious, before we inevitably get some Udinese reserve 3 minutes before the transfer window ends.
I think Gyokeres is slightly better, though I can understand that Piroe could be preferred as he's left-footed and as such might be more ideally suited to playing in a front two alongside a right-footer who likes to cut inside off the left flank such as Bayo or JP. I'd assumed he would be too expensive, but still wouldn't complain if we stumped up for him. Could this end up like the Grimes saga again last time around?
They’re very different players. Piroe is more of a number ten with a lot of goals from outside the box. Gyokeres is a complete striker who can play up front on his own. Not sure a direct comparison in quality is that helpful (though I do think Piroe has a higher ceiling) the question should be more about which profile we need.
So Swansea we’re signing this fella for £1m whilst we were ‘swooping’ for Fletcher? Jesus wept… can we still offer them Sinclair in exchange?
I can't see Piroe being a good fit for us in all honesty - with the amount of strikers we seem to be targeting I imagine (and the departure of Zinc) that we're planning to use Joao Pedro as a 10 this season. Bayo would likely play as a target-man (which was alluded to by Edwards earlier) - having another striker dropping deep doesn't sound great tactically to me. The pursuit of Archer/Obafemi sounds more sensible tactically (and cheaper) than the signing of Piroe. I also have doubts whether Piroe can repeat what he did this season to the same extent - his 21 goals came from just 3.46 xG (12.11 xG from all shots taken), that's a mental over-performance that I don't think is sustainable - with 6 goals coming from outside the penalty area.
That’s fair. He does strike the ball exceptionally well so you have to wonder if he is just an accomplished finisher but the sustainability of his record is something you have to wonder about. I’d imagine that we’d have him and Pedro both playing off Bayo but maybe an issue with them occupying the same spaces. If we want a player of his ilk we should just sign Twine for a quarter of the price. Do you have a radar for Piroe? And maybe one for Archer too?
Can Pedro play as a 10, in a league where defences drop deeper and are more physical i.e. where 10s like Mitrovic, Toney, Deeney, Solanke etc. seem to thrive? If he's in the centre, based on admittedly very little deep thought, I assumed he'd play as a 9/ false 9.
