Most of these large fee and wage players dont move on later, your invested in the contract. So its a case of how many years do you get out of a 26-27yr old Tchouameni vs 29yr old Guimaraes.
Bruno Guimaraes | Ornstein: Arsenal nearing total agreement over deal
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I think we'd have a much better chance of success with someone like Bruno G, than trying to find 2 or 3 midfielders within budget though. For example, if our two midfield signings this season were Ederson and Bruno G, I think we'd be more likely to challenge than with Fernandes.
Not the right transfer for us. The fee would be huge, and while 28/29 certainly isn’t old, you’re not buying for the long term. We already have to start thinking about Fernandes’ replacement soon, it would be daft to be sat there in a couple seasons’ time needing to revamp half the midfield all over again.
What is the long term though, if you don't have a top quality midfield in the first place? If I think about it in the 80/40/20 strategy, Bruno G being the expensive one, Ederson and then a prospect would actually be quite a smart bit of investment that you'd see ROI with performances, very quickly.
Don’t care if he’s turning 29. If he’s available for around £60m we should be all over it. Premier League experience, leader, good replacement for Casemiro. I’d much rather take him than any of the options we are linked with which are more expensive.
quality player but we have more pressing needs.
Than a top quality midfielder?
He's a 10 no?
No! he's a 8 that can play 6!
I don’t think he is available, they’ll flog half their squad before considering selling Bruno. He’d have to kick up a major fuss to get out of there.
I agree. Players like Fernandes are the way to go
Squad building plays out over years, whether we like it or not. United have been the masters at failing to look further than the end of their nose, then having to pay big money to fix a problem caused by poor planning in the seasons before. Spending big now on a first choice midfield where 2/3 players are 30+ in just over a year's time, would not be good planning.
Bruno F is already going to be exceptionally hard to replace, and we might find that buying in that special match winning talent requires a much bigger than usual investment. In which case, having the rest of the midfield settled would be a huge advantage.
Seems Iran fecked Newcastle too. You got to love it.
Ornstein: £60m offer from Arsenal rejected
That would make sense if he was 32-33 with just a couple of years left at the top level. If we are not going to be competing within the next 3-4 years, then that essentially means this squad isn't good enough and will need to be renewed anyway. In which case again we will be spending loads more on average/good players because we have multiple requirements and can't buy the absolute best. And the cycle just continues.
At some point if you are serious about competing you need to pay top dollar to get the best players. And I say players in plural because 1-2 great players alone won't win you the league in the current environment. You need a team of top players in pretty much every position and at some point you have to stop passing through buck by saying we have multiple requirements so can't afford the top quality players.
Time to ask what they are smoking over there at Arsenal?
Arsenal are a funny bunch offering that little when they (along with Chelsea) are partly responsible for breaking the market for midfielders.
Umm he is our pressing need…
I suppose with resale value being everyone favourite buzz phrase, that's going to be Arsenal's reasoning for bidding that low, when players much worse players than him after for 20m-30m more sometimes even double that.
You can add Liverpool to that list. Caicedo only cost as much as he did because they offered £111m out of nowhere when Chelsea were trying to negotiate at £80-90m.
The truth is we dont know how far a couple of players will take us
Last summer Arsenal wouldnt have been favourites with their new transfers. Neither would Liverpool have been the season before
A couple of signings who really do the business could take us to the title and help a few of our other players reach a new level. No signing is guaranteed but a player who has done very well in the premier league for multiple seasons at a smaller club like Guimares is as good as you're going to get in terms of likeliness that he'll come in and play to the best of his ability he showed at Newcastle right from season 1.
Sure, but he won't need replacing for 3 years at minimum and in that 3 years you can have developed players like Mainoo and also the "20m" option, or a youth player. You then only have to buy once again and you have less need to buy 2-3 players and your team would be buying from a position of strength.
That's my point though, having Bruno G would mean the midfield would be settled. There's no guarentee who we sign is going to be here or settled by the time we replace Bruno. I'd say it's pretty sure bet Bruno G would easily be a first teamer and we'd far more likely be a stronger team to attract better options.
Agreed, I think sometimes it get's over-egged the amount of bodies you need, if you buy/have quality.
And then…. Van den Ven broke his leg….?
He's one of the most fouled players in the league I think, great at buying cheap freekicks. I remember looking it up before, he gets 2 or 3 more fouls than Bruno Fernandes, whilst also fouling more and getting less yellows.
If he moved to Utd they'd all be waved away and he'd get way more yellows.
If he moved to Utd they'd all be waved away and he'd get way more yellows.
Less than £60mil 
What was the point?
What was the point?
You've ignored the point that we also have Bruno F in a similar part for the pitch to replace in a similar time frame, which is exactly why there's a squad building problem.
Surprisingly he's only had one red for Newcastle. Led a charmed life so far...
60m? WTAF
Bruno F is 3 years older, I don't think that's a similar time frame. When do you think we need to replace Bruno F? There's nothing to suggest either of them would need replacing at the same time.
Ridiculous offer, can only think it is part of a plan to unsettle the player.
Chelsea signed Enzo Fernandez for £105m in the January, so it's no wonder Brighton wanted more for Caicedo!
I think there's a fair case to be made that Bruno Guimaraes is the best midfielder in the league not currently playing for Arsenal or City. I'd said that Tchouameni is who I think would be the best available midfield signing for us. IF Guimaraes is attainable (I still think that's a tremendously big if), that probably changes my mind.
I'd hope we were, at the very least, somewhat keeping tabs on this.
EDIT: OK, gigantic caveat on that "best midfielder in the league not currently playing for Arsenal or City" point there - I was thinking about deeper-lying midfielders when I typed this! If you include attacking midfielders in the conversation, he's not even the best Bruno!
I'd hope we were, at the very least, somewhat keeping tabs on this.
EDIT: OK, gigantic caveat on that "best midfielder in the league not currently playing for Arsenal or City" point there - I was thinking about deeper-lying midfielders when I typed this! If you include attacking midfielders in the conversation, he's not even the best Bruno!
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It’s almost like we didn’t pay £89m for Pogba years before either of the two transfers you’re referencing
Yeah the reports at the time were they wanted as close to 100m as possible while we were resisting. I think we had 4 bids rejected ranging from 80 to 90m with various different addons. But it was Liverpool who made the fee jump to 111m. I'm not removing us from the list of culprits. I'm adding Liverpool to it.
To be fair, I'd argue Pogba was considerably better than Rice or Caicedo when we signed him.
Rice and Caicedo were really promising midfielders breaking through at mid-table Premier League sides. Pogba was already one of the best midfielders in the world when we paid £89 million.
There was something very weird about that move. It felt like Liverpool were trapping Chelsea in to bidding another crazy amount. Caicedo didn't even want to go there, yet they made a big public bid.
£60m to turn the players head and force Newcastle’s hand. Wish we did it.
£60m? I think they should try £50m. Worked out well for City.
Letting Bruno F reach 31 without a serious plan for replacing him has been asking for trouble. We've been extremely lucky that Bruno is a physical machine who is rarely injured. We should have been in the market last summer, or this summer at the latest. Unfortunately poor planning three or four years ago means it's been impossible to try and get his replacement in. We just had too many other positions to fill, and had to hope Bruno could keep it up (which thankfully he has).
The only way that Bruno G doesn't overlap with Bruno F is we again wait too long to plan his replacement. We can of course, again, let a first teamer reach 31 before we think about how to replace them. But that's the same poor planning that brought us to where we are now.
It's fine to have people over 30 in the first team, especially if they're special talents. But when a player turns 30, if you don't have a clear successor, then it becomes a priority over the next couple of seasons. The fact that we lucked out with Bruno F’s availability and form is no reason for make it the norm.
Bet you that's not what will happen