If we are going for someone who is immediately guaranteed better this year, then you have limited the field to a couple IMO.
Harry Maguire | Signed
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That's opinion.
Thing is considering we need someone very good in the air, there are no alternatives to Smalling. Tuanzebe is very promising but only 1.84m tall. Jones and Bailly are always crocked
Are you saying there's only a couple of players better than our starting centre backs?
But yes, it's utterly pointless going for someone who isn't better than what we've got. Don't you agree?
We went for the "Project" types, in Bailly and Lindelöf, and despite some amazing turnaround in opinion by many on the latter, for me, neither have emerged as strong choices.
...but they can improve our squad. Alderweireld/Milenkovic for CB.
As a left sided CB, which is the only type of CB we need, Ake is easily better than our current options.
Everything here is opinion.
I’m saying there are few players who we can get, who come in and are guaranteed to be better in their first year here. Most of the ones people mention are gambles. Unless you think we can pry one of the wc defenders from another club. Koulibaly probably is the main option. However I can’t see him being cheap. Getting him would mean sacrificing CM or a striker.
Don’t see aldeweireld coming here and milenkovic is at best a gamble.
MAGUIRE! why is that so hard for people to get right considering his name is in the media every day?
People still say Bailey here instead of Bailly... Considering he is in fact our own player, that is much worse
Poor Alderweireld's name gets crucified on a daily basis as well.I'm not saying it because it's common on the caf.. I just find it hard to believe we have many alternatives available to us who are as sure a bet to improve us as Maguire or Koulibaly. If there were others available we'd have perused them earlier.
Finally
If that tweet is true, which it likely isn’t, it suggest either Ake or another project defender like Tah, Konate, etc because we all know how well they work out. The Caf will be ecstatic when we pay 50m for another gamble, who then turns out to be another Bailly, Darmian, Smalling, etc
"Lingaard" is another onePeople still say Bailey here instead of Bailly... Considering he is in fact our own player, that is much worse
So instead we should spend 100m on someone who is slightly better to what we've got am I right?
Got my doubts personally.
Just get Ruben Dias and be done with this bull.
Leicester can do one. Fed up of paying the overrated English player premium.
Leicester can do one. Fed up of paying the overrated English player premium.
Yes spending 50 million on a talent who doesn't immediately improve our first team is more wasteful than spending 100 million on someone who instantly goes into the first team, is just coming into his prime, even if he might only be slightly better than what we have.
This is true.
Spellcheck did it
Vidic was a gamble, Stam was a gamble too. He never played outside the Dutch league prior to use signing him. I'd rather see us spend 30m-50m on a gamble who might become WC. Then 100m on someone who clearly isn't
Is there anybody else that would describe themselves as indifferent to signing Maguire? I'd be reasonably pleased if we signed him, but wouldn't care if we went and signed somebody else as long as they're an improvement on what we have? I'd just like us to sign a centre half at this point, if this one isnt going to happen I wish we'd just move onto whoever is next on the list.
We were in a position to gamble back then, given the squad we had. We aren't in a position to gamble in every position today. We are gambling in hoping our raw youngsters in attack can step up, and we've gambled enough at the centre back position for a few seasons now. An established player in the heart of defence is long overdue.
That's certainly been our strategy for the last several years - Smalling, Rojo, Bailly, Lindelof. Our success rate has not been great.
Look, if Maguire was a Rio or a Vidic then I'd say break the bank for him. Unfortunately he is nowhere near as good as them. He is not even WC and his flaws can't be improved with time (ex his lack of pace). I can't help thinking that buying a 50m CB for 90m is crazy
We’ve had too many gambles at this position though. Bailly, Lindelof and Rojo were just such. Only one, so far, looks like first team material, and if i’m honest I don’t think he’s that great either. We desperately need to improve in this area and we can’t afford another gamble. Trouble is every other club with a decent CB knows this.
Sure, I agree he's not amazing as yet. But who would you suggest we nab for £50m who is the same level?
Lindelof is doing well while Bailly was decent until injuries ruined him. Smalling would likely succeed if we play him with the right player. The problem is we are trying to invent the wheel here. A United CB need to be good in air, he needs to be fast, he need to have decent positioning and he needs to be comfortable with the ball. Remove any of those and he will likely fail. That's what happened with Rojo, Smalling and co
50m might be chicken feed in the UK but its still serious money outside the local pond.
Snappy quote but you forgot to actually name anyone.
If Jaap Stam was a gamble, then you just have to call every player a gamble. Stam arrived as the lynchpin of the Dutch defence, and for a record fee for a defender. It would be the equivalent of paying 75M for Van Dijk today. Vidic indeed was a gamble, and obviously the result of good scouting. But look at our current defence, it is the result of a series of gambles - Smalling, Jones, Bailly, Lindelof, and Rojo. Of all of those, only Lindelof looks good enough. I am pretty sure that the answer is not yet another gamble. We desperately need an established figure to bring some leadership and quality to that back line. But to get it, it will cost big money. Maguire might not be World Class, but he is certainly a reliable top class defender who would improve us immensely. I would take that over another punt, who might not be any better than what we already have, any day of the week.
OK so who does it fetch worth the "gamble"?
I won't be mentioning names as I am no scout. However these are the transfers that concern CBs. As you can see 50m is quite a huge sum of money. At 100m we should be aiming for someone better then the new Steve Bruce.
https://www.transfermarkt.com/trans...ng=&spielerposition_id=3&altersklasse=&leihe=
Of course he was a gamble. In some ways he was even a bigger gamble then Van Dijk. At least the latter had played in a top league before moving to Liverpool. Anyway he was such a gamble that no one dared putting the amount of money we did for him which is why we could sign him. Rest assured that if the Italian clubs were ready to spend the money for him then they would have offered a bigger salary then we did. TBF we refused on paying the full amount as well . In fact Stam had to forfeit his 20% signing on fee bonus to sign for us.
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Then honestly, you have to call everyone a gamble. Bear in mind this was 1998 and he was coming from the dutch league which had just produced the Ajax team that had gone to the final, won, and semi final of the CL in the three previous years, and many of the top dutch internationals were still playing in the league. It was much more internationally competitive than it is seen today. Stam was signed for a world record fee for a dutch player, and world record fee for a defender. He was the business. If you were to extrapolate this to today, it would mean paying 80M pounds for a defender, as that it what it would take to break the current world record. So not a "30-50M" gamble.
That list includes de Ligt, some veterans, some young punts worse than Bailly and Tyrone Mings. You seem to be missing the point that taking a punt is worthless to us now because we need an instant improvement. A league leading team can take a punt, wait to see if they develop and can normally survive just fine if they fail but we cannot do that right now. We need to stop the bleeding and at a minimum make top 4 or better to get back into the CL and get our seat back at the big kids table. Maguire is a significant upgrade over anyone on our roster and unless you can find someone else like that who is available and wants to come then we have to commit to this deal and get it done.
It is already obvious from the 2 pre season games that the heart of our defense is still a massive weakness and is going to cost us in a big way if we don't fix it in this window and as others have already pointed out, the difference Maguire would have made last season in the goals allowed column probably would have been worth the 6 points we needed for top 4 and then we would be ordering our Sancho jerseys this summer. For fecks sake lets not make the same mistake 2 years in a row or before long it will be Leicester picking over our squad and not the other way around.
The ignorance is stunning.
How sure are we that Napoli wouldnt take the money for their defender who's legitimately up there with the best in the world?
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