Yes....or we keep the guy who has shown he can do it ? Bottom line is I'm sure we are going to continue to play tight careful football so goals will continue to be a challenge from midfield positions so having a 15/20 goal striker up top would keep us away from trouble.
£40m for Ighalo though is just too good to turn down. The lad from Granada is deemed good enough to play in La Liga and has had an excellent start to his career with people way more qualified than us saying he is going to be a hell of a player. As I said, we still need to sell and they will sell when they deem an offer is as high as it's likely to go. If you think Ighalo is worth more than £40m then I'll swap what I'm taking for what you are
I can't think of a manager in world football who could turn Deeney, Jurado, Abdi and Capoue in to regular goalscorers at this level... Amrabat managed only 8 goals in 58 games for Malaga and hasn't scored this season. Relying on Penaranda would be bonkers! The only player I can think of who we've been linked with recently who could be a realistic replacement is Khouma Babacar - if we can sell Ighalo and buy someone of Babacar's quality for half the price while also bringing in Penaranda then okay, maybe we should deal. But Iggy will leave ridiculously big shoes to fill and as Liverpool showed when selling Suarez it doesn't work losing your head-and-shoulders best player and trying to replace them with multiple, but much poorer players. Our game against Spurs also re-emphasised that you can't just defend your way to survival in this league, you need to carry an attacking threat as well.
QSF has spoken about trying new things once we're safe, having fun and working on more systems as we establish ourselves at this level - his initial philosophy being about doing one thing really well. So yeah for now his style is rigid and relies on too few players but I can't imagine that's the medium/long term plan. Plus I'm not convinced that the guy who has shown he can do it would choose us over some of the bigger names in the division. I agree. If only there some sort of window in which players could be transferred between clubs in exchange for money eh? Then we could sign other players.
I think recent games have emphasised the fact we need a better striker than ighalo as much as anything. I'm not saying I want rid of him, but he has not looked like a £40m player. Surely with silly money like that our famed scouting network could find someone even better. He's good, but not that good. And let's face it, we will be playing 1 up top asap.
I can't see any of Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City or Man Utd signing him, he's not good enough. Liverpool or Spurs maybe as back up, but would he go there? Then you're looking at Everton, West Ham, Southampton etc but would they be able or willing to pay the amount we'd want for him? I can see the Atletico link cropping up again in the summer, Torres will be going and Griezmann could leave, plus they just got a nice big cheque for Martinez.
China is the answer. He may take the big pay day once he has experienced a full year in the premiership. They just pay ridiculous amounts. We will sell him to them for £45m, he earns £15m in wages for a year and comes back to us. In the interim, we have Deeney, Vydra, Penaranda and some unheard of gem scoring for fun, in an egalitarian rotation system. We sell the unheard of gem to the same Chinese club for £25m + Ighalo. Problem solved.
Yes he did. For one of the top teams in the league who scored goals for fun. How many years ago ? How many 17/18 year olds have since ?
I don't think its a question of how many ££s "he is worth". Its a question of will we be a stronger team after selling him and reinvesting the money. If it happens, time will tell.
finding a regular goal scorer in the premier league is hard. However when you look at the goals he has scored in most instances you are also having to mention Deeney. He has made Ighalo look better than he is. Personally if someone wants to pay £20 million plus i would snap their hands off and re-invest. There will be another player very similar to Ighalo within the scouting network already earmarked. The Pozzo's arent silly enough to not have a plan. Every player has a price !
If we were under different ownership and had someone like Mike Ashley in charge then i'd be terrified as to what dross he'd bring in, but if there's anyone out there who can sell a key player like Ighalo and reinvest to make the team even better, it's the Pozzo's.
Could you imagine if there was a period of time where clubs could make transfers? That might solve the problem! Thankfully we don't have Brendan Rodgers or the Liverpool scouting network so to compare Suarez and Ighalo leaving is ridiculous.
I think Liverpool "scoring goals for fun" is somewhat of an exaggeration. They actually scored 65 in a 42 game season of which Fowler got 25. Another more recent example is Harry Kane although I accept he is a couple of years older than Penaranda.
As a matter of interest, which players currently in the Prem with a goal scoring record as good as Iggy's would you say could be bought for £20m?
I really don't think that's true - for most of Ighalo's goals yes they've been assisted by Deeney, but usually he still has a lot left to do to actually score. Take the goal he scored at home to Spurs - he had absolutely no right to squeeze through their defence and score from the position in which he received the ball. True he's not going to spring with the ball from the halfway line on his own and score but those kinds of players are a rarity - but there aren't many strikers more deadly when you put the ball in the box. Probably our network is better than Liverpool's, but our signings and failed attempted signings of attacking midfielders and wingers have shown that it's not infallible.
Can we just have it absolutely clear that Ighalo is STILL an exceptional striker in a world where Troy Deeney does not exist. If he signed for a big club he would probably be even more prolific. Thanks.
Agreed. At the rate some are going on here, we'll soon be paying someone to load him on a lorry and haul his big, stiff carcass away before he scuffs trenches in the nice new pitch. All strikers need service. The better the service the more they score. I am very confident that all of the big clubs can provide a a high quality midfield that can deliver a level of service at least as good as Deeney is providing.
