Julian Alvarez / signed for city / loaned back

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Abraxas

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For 20 mill euros a steal, with no risk of losing money
Course there's a risk of losing money. We bought the Uruguayan lad for what..8/9 million. Not a lot certainly but considering he's not excelled at a poor Spanish side his value would be pretty negligible, it would be hard to get it back, we might recoup a bit. If he'd have cost 20 million we'd have no chance at all.
 

Giggsy13

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Looking more and more like our name being dragged in to drum up interest. We should address the need for a striker in the summer with Haaland.
 

Bondi77

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Looking more and more like our name being dragged in to drum up interest. We should address the need for a striker in the summer with Haaland.
Are we due for another multi million pound donation to Dortmund already?
I was'nt aware this was an annual event.
 

Marquee Moon

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Yes, we will see then as i'm not Nostradamus.
But he's worth a punt at 20M from what we're seeing.
You may not be Nostradamus but I seem to recall you expressing doubts in the Alexis Sanchez transfer thread. To your credit you certainly had a clue on that occasion. Unlike just about everyone else around here. So maybe I shouldn't argue with you!
 

bond19821982

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16m is nothing for a Southamerican talent . Worst case we can always sell him to Laliga or Serie A for 10-15m. If he is a success, we could have an Aguero or Lautaro.
 

P-Nut

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From only watching the video on the first page he's got that same striking technique as Greenwood were they strike the ball with little backlift to catch keepers off guard.
 

VictoriaRed

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So good and so true:
We made money on Dan James who cost about the same.

Well played Scholesy2004

This is not talked about enough. Unreal business, this.
 

troylocker

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16m is nothing for a Southamerican talent . Worst case we can always sell him to Laliga or Serie A for 10-15m. If he is a success, we could have an Aguero or Lautaro.
Again, the Argentinian league is ranked 18 in the world, below the Championship, The Danish league, Austrian Bundesliga, the Swiss league, MLS, the Ukrainian League etc. It's not like in the 90's when the Brazilian and Argentinian leagues where almost up there with the best leagues in Europe anymore. He's turning 22 in 28 days, and he's been on form in this league for 3 months. He is 1,70 m tall and has never proven anything outside South America. He has 5 goals in 25 apps for Argentina U20 and U23, and nothing in 5 short apps for the seniors. How would this be anything but a high risk gamble for both the player and the club? Every pound that goes out of the transfer budget, goes out of the transfer budget, and we have no tradition of buying, developing and selling young talents. They won't get time to adapt and gel in here, it's hit the ground running or fail. The step up from Liga Profesional to the PL is gigantic!
Aguero had played football in Spain for several years already at this age and the jury is still out on Lautaro (I wouldn't have him here). Why would a LaLiga or Serie A team buy an unproven and failed PL project for 10-15M?
 

troylocker

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So good and so true:
We made money on Dan James who cost about the same.

Well played Scholesy2004

This is not talked about enough. Unreal business, this.
Almost sounds like he elevated us to another level and didn't get payed the 2 years he was here..........

Edit: How Leeds payed 26M for him is a mystery to me
 

sun_tzu

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Can't see us signing him... I'm sure somebody will.and his agent is probably just using the tried and trusted link him with manchester united as its great for clickbait and getting and getting his clients profile increased

But with ronaldo, cavani, Greenwood and assuming nobody is going to take him off our hands martial ... as well as rashford and Bruno who under ragniks system might find themselves tried up front as well he really would probably find himself getting his game time in the u23 for us

And I'm not sure thats the right move for him... or infact us considering mcneil, hughill and a bunch of other forwards already in our system so spending 16m on him just seems unlikely for us

Spurs could probably do with a striker as could west ham or a bunch of other teams in Europe where he would probably get a decent amount of game time in the first team squad
 

Wednesday at Stoke

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Can't see us signing him... I'm sure somebody will.and his agent is probably just using the tried and trusted link him with manchester united as its great for clickbait and getting and getting his clients profile increased

But with ronaldo, cavani, Greenwood and assuming nobody is going to take him off our hands martial ... as well as rashford and Bruno who under ragniks system might find themselves tried up front as well he really would probably find himself getting his game time in the u23 for us

And I'm not sure thats the right move for him... or infact us considering mcneil, hughill and a bunch of other forwards already in our system so spending 16m on him just seems unlikely for us

Spurs could probably do with a striker as could west ham or a bunch of other teams in Europe where he would probably get a decent amount of game time in the first team squad
Cavani looks good enough to give you 10 games until the end of the season between injuries. Martial has both feet out the door. Ronaldo is 37 and he might not even hang around without champions league qualification, which is by no means certain.

I'm not even going to consider any of the academy strikers, considering only three made it as regular first team players this decade.

We spent 40M combined on Pellestri and Amad not so long ago, despite competition in those places. If the player is rated by the scouts, he'll be signed barring any higher competition.
 

RUCK4444

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Looks decent in the YouTube clips but who doesn’t on YouTube.

The keepers look dodgy as feck in those clips as well though. Tonnes of near post goals and shots going straight over their heads where PL keepers will defend the near post as priority and tend to stay upright which would mean those goals over their heads in the clips would be saved.

I always critique the keepers for potential signings from lesser leagues. Not saying he’s not talented and not taking the goals well, he does seem a decent finisher.
 

troylocker

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Are we due for another multi million pound donation to Dortmund already?
I was'nt aware this was an annual event.
Do you think 65M £ to Dortmund for Haaland is overpriced compared to 20M for this guy (6 months older) directly from Argentina?
If we have a chane of signing Haaland he is the obvious 1st choice, as he is for every top club in the world.

Looks decent in the YouTube clips but who doesn’t on YouTube.

The keepers look dodgy as feck in those clips as well though. Tonnes of near post goals and shots going straight over their heads where PL keepers will defend the near post as priority and tend to stay upright which would mean those goals over their heads in the clips would be saved.

I always critique the keepers for potential signings from lesser leagues. Not saying he’s not talented and not taking the goals well, he does seem a decent finisher.
Agreed. If we must gamble I would much rather we spent 30-40M on someone like Darwin Nunes from Benfica. 7 months older, bigger, stronger and still a gamble. 3 goals against Barca and Bayern in the CL this season and 18 goals in 1380 minutes this season. Could be just a hot streak too, but at least it is against much tougher opponents.
 

jesperjaap

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Do you think 65M £ to Dortmund for Haaland is overpriced compared to 20M for this guy (6 months older) directly from Argentina?
If we have a chane of signing Haaland he is the obvious 1st choice, as he is for every top club in the world.


Agreed. If we must gamble I would much rather we spent 30-40M on someone like Darwin Nunes from Benfica. 7 months older, bigger, stronger and still a gamble. 3 goals against Barca and Bayern in the CL this season and 18 goals in 1380 minutes this season. Could be just a hot streak too, but at least it is against much tougher opponents.
The Haaland comparison regardless of chances of signing him doesnt really add up though, you have to add in the wages/agent fees etc on top of that fee which are bound to be astromical. I cant see how many can say we should or shouldnt sign ALvarez as lets face it, virtually everyone is only saying that from a youtube video, he does fit the kind of profile we should be looking at cosiderign likely exits though as maybe Nunes does too, again seen little of him bar cl highlights but I would expect with what they paid for him the fee would definately be north of £40m and that kind of fee shouldnt I wouldnt suggest is one to equate to a gamble.
 

SAFMUTD

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Again, the Argentinian league is ranked 18 in the world, below the Championship, The Danish league, Austrian Bundesliga, the Swiss league, MLS, the Ukrainian League etc.
I don't know where you got the rankings from, I agree the Argentinian league is below the Championship and maybe at the same level as the others. It's hard to judge since there's no competition between them or anything objetive that we can use to measure them. I think one parameter we could use is players going from those leagues and making it at top leagues?

But one thing is certain, the Argentinian league is not below the MLS. Anyone claiming that clearly hasn't watched both leagues. I'm Mexican, I see the Concachampions (something like the North America champions league), and Mexican teams always win it. MLS teams are no where near the quality, they have 2-3 veterans that used to play in Europe and that's about it.

The MLS is not even a top 3 league in America, the Brazilian, Argentinian and Mexican league are easily above it.
 

troylocker

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The Haaland comparison regardless of chances of signing him doesnt really add up though, you have to add in the wages/agent fees etc on top of that fee which are bound to be astromical. I cant see how many can say we should or shouldnt sign ALvarez as lets face it, virtually everyone is only saying that from a youtube video, he does fit the kind of profile we should be looking at cosiderign likely exits though as maybe Nunes does too, again seen little of him bar cl highlights but I would expect with what they paid for him the fee would definately be north of £40m and that kind of fee shouldnt I wouldnt suggest is one to equate to a gamble.
The Haaland comment was just a reply to the guy claiming that bying Haaland would being another donation to Dortmund...

I guess I agree with most of the rest.
For Alvarez: If you consider his numbers and the quality of the competitions he has played in, he has a lot to prove before he should be considered by a major club.
 

troylocker

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I don't know where you got the rankings from, I agree the Argentinian league is below the Championship and maybe at the same level as the others. It's hard to judge since there's no competition between them or anything objetive that we can use to measure them. I think one parameter we could use is players going from those leagues and making it at top leagues?

But one thing is certain, the Argentinian league is not below the MLS. Anyone claiming that clearly hasn't watched both leagues. I'm Mexican, I see the Concachampions (something like the North America champions league), and Mexican teams always win it. MLS teams are no where near the quality, they have 2-3 veterans that used to play in Europe and that's about it.

The MLS is not even a top 3 league in America, the Brazilian, Argentinian and Mexican league are easily above it.
The rankings comes from globalfootballrankings.com
They have your league at 9th and MLS at 14th.

The challenge with the Argentinian league is that there is such a huge difference between the top teams and the rest (majority) and that there is 26 teams in the top flight. If they decreased the number of teams and made it more competitive they would probably climb in ratings like this, but right now it means that teams like River Plate plays a lot of cannon fodder in a season.
 

SAFMUTD

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The rankings comes from globalfootballrankings.com
They have your league at 9th and MLS at 14th.
Thanks! It would be interesting to know how do they measure the leagues, I'm not exaggerating when I say I don't think you'll find a serious pundit or analyst that claims MLS is better than the Argentinian league. Most agree the Argentinian is the second best league only behind the Brazilian. While the MLS is not even close to top 3 conversation.

The challenge with the Argentinian league is that there is such a huge difference between the top teams and the rest (majority) and that there is 26 teams in the top flight. If they decreased the number of teams and made it more competitive they would probably climb in ratings like this, but right now it means that teams like River Plate plays a lot of cannon fodder in a season.
Doesn't that happen in almost every league just at their own scale? I mean compare City's to Norwich's squad, Bayern's to Greuther Furth's, Madrid's to Cadiz's.

I think the premier league maybe be the one with the closer level between the teams due to the money distribution scheme. In all other leagues there's always the top 2-3 rich teams and a lot of average/poor ones.
 

PoTMS

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Why doesn't one of the journos just ask Rangnick at the press conference straight up if we're interested or not so this thread can die a firey death.
 

jesperjaap

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The Haaland comment was just a reply to the guy claiming that bying Haaland would being another donation to Dortmund...

I guess I agree with most of the rest.
For Alvarez: If you consider his numbers and the quality of the competitions he has played in, he has a lot to prove before he should be considered by a major club.
As great as he is, personally I am not excited by Haaland just as he had the chance to come here, personality fdoesnt come across well to me, the agent, my percieved lack of loyalty from him to a club etc etc....but mainly as I just dotn see him coming here.

And though I agree about ALvarez, that is down to the scouts of course. But he does have international appearances and a decent amount of football behind him. Its a bit different to the huge amount paid for Amad who hasnt even played. It is of course a gamble, which is what the scouts are for. But we often bemoan our failure of catching players early to buy just when they are breakign through (Haaland and Belloingham to obvious examples). We end up paying a huge fee for them like we would have to now, or we buy pplayes very young like Hannibal/Pellestri/Diallo who will take a fair time to develop.

As mentioend know little of Alvarez, but he does fit the right kind of profile of player and price seems to be about £17m, Aguero was about £11m (prob similar fee in those days if not higher) when Ateltico bought him. These are the kind of deals we should be doing in my opinion no throwing cfrazy money at yougnsters not even played like Amad/Martial. But we just havent got them right for a while Depay and James never looke dthe right fit for me. Shaw did but again he was a big purchase at the time as was Bissaka. Pellestri really is the only signing similar we have done for years, but again less established in his homeland than Alvarez at least appears to be.

I am all for the signings and would have thought appointing Ragnick for manager and is future role, maybe a direction we are lookign to head in
 

troylocker

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Thanks! It would be interesting to know how do they measure the leagues, I'm not exaggerating when I say I don't think you'll find a serious pundit or analyst that claims MLS is better than the Argentinian league. Most agree the Argentinian is the second best league only behind the Brazilian. While the MLS is not even close to top 3 conversation.


Doesn't that happen in almost every league just at their own scale? I mean compare City's to Norwich's squad, Bayern's to Greuther Furth's, Madrid's to Cadiz's.

I think the premier league maybe be the one with the closer level between the teams due to the money distribution scheme. In all other leagues there's always the top 2-3 rich teams and a lot of average/poor ones.
The best 2-3 teams in Argentina are probably better than the best teams in the MLS, but this ranking calculates league rankings based on the average quality of all the teams in the league. Imagine what it would do the quality of the European leagues if they added 6-8 teams to every top flight.
 

SAFMUTD

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The best 2-3 teams in Argentina are probably better than the best teams in the MLS, but this ranking calculates league rankings based on the average quality of all the teams in the league. Imagine what it would do the quality of the European leagues if they added 6-8 teams to every top flight.
It makes sense, since the way of grading the leagues it's always facing the top teams of each one. It's hard to say who's weaker, but seriously watch a MLS game some day. You'll be impressed about the lack of defending, like the bundesliga but worse.

The Americans have gone for the full entertainment lots of goals no defending approach. They have a wage cap that allows them only 3 players that can earn over a certain amount, those 3 player are always attackers. The defenses are dreadful, you'd see 34-35 year old European strikers toying with them. I don't see them as a serious league in all honesty, they seem determined to giving a show first rather than playing proper football.

It may be due to football (soccer) not being a primary sport there and they want to make it attractive by having loads of goals, maybe once they have a proper fan base they will evolve and change their approach.

Anyway I've deviated the thread long enough, back to Alvarez I'm from the idea that we should always be looking for south American talent, they're cheaper than the Europeans and with their wages being so low in comparison to the ones on the premier league we could offer them a low risk deal in which we could ship them out easily if they don't work.
 

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Still hard for me to see the sense in that transfer, beyond just an opportunity to sign a young talent. Rangnick was crystal clear that Cavani is staying so there are four players (Ronaldo, Cavani, Greenwood, Rashford) that are clearly best suited for the two striker roles in his system. Neither Greenwood or Rashford is a very good fit for the attacking midfielder roles even if played there sometime and soon with Pogba you'll have three players actually suited for those positions anyway in Bruno, Pogba, and Sancho. So I don't see how Alvarez would get any minutes. And even if you lose Cavani in the summer he is probably best replaced with a similar classic #9 player, as you already have a bunch of players that are sort of versatile forwards that aren't really true 9s.

I think United's name is being used to drum up interest and then he will end up signing for a smaller club.
 

troylocker

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As great as he is, personally I am not excited by Haaland just as he had the chance to come here, personality fdoesnt come across well to me, the agent, my percieved lack of loyalty from him to a club etc etc....but mainly as I just dotn see him coming here.

And though I agree about ALvarez, that is down to the scouts of course. But he does have international appearances and a decent amount of football behind him. Its a bit different to the huge amount paid for Amad who hasnt even played. It is of course a gamble, which is what the scouts are for. But we often bemoan our failure of catching players early to buy just when they are breakign through (Haaland and Belloingham to obvious examples). We end up paying a huge fee for them like we would have to now, or we buy pplayes very young like Hannibal/Pellestri/Diallo who will take a fair time to develop.

As mentioend know little of Alvarez, but he does fit the right kind of profile of player and price seems to be about £17m, Aguero was about £11m (prob similar fee in those days if not higher) when Ateltico bought him. These are the kind of deals we should be doing in my opinion no throwing cfrazy money at yougnsters not even played like Amad/Martial. But we just havent got them right for a while Depay and James never looke dthe right fit for me. Shaw did but again he was a big purchase at the time as was Bissaka. Pellestri really is the only signing similar we have done for years, but again less established in his homeland than Alvarez at least appears to be.

I am all for the signings and would have thought appointing Ragnick for manager and is future role, maybe a direction we are lookign to head in
You're absolutely allowed to have your own opinon on Haaland of course. Personally I think he will break every goalscoring out there for his next club and I would like it if it was here. I think you have to explain this loyalty thing to me, because we live in a world were players move from club to club until they find their level and/or is happy. Clubs make money on this most of the time as well, and this is a transferthread where we are discussing buying young players from their current clubs for money....I guess you would only demand loyalty from your best players? When it comes to Haaland, Dortmund knew excactly what would happen when they signed him on that contract. They knew they were buying him for 2,5 years of service with a fixed economic return.
The only thing Alvarez and Aguero have in common is that they are both Argentinians. Aguero moved to Athletico 1 month after his 18th birthday, Alvarez turns 22 this month. Aguero had 74 goals and 43 assists for Athletico Madrid and was a regular starter for Argentina when he was Alvarez' age. Alvarez has 36 club goals to his name in a league weaker than the Championship and a few minutes for Argentina. What profile does he fit? He is a 170cm tall, south American with no experience at the top level.
 

jesperjaap

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You're absolutely allowed to have your own opinon on Haaland of course. Personally I think he will break every goalscoring out there for his next club and I would like it if it was here. I think you have to explain this loyalty thing to me, because we live in a world were players move from club to club until they find their level and/or is happy. Clubs make money on this most of the time as well, and this is a transferthread where we are discussing buying young players from their current clubs for money....I guess you would only demand loyalty from your best players? When it comes to Haaland, Dortmund knew excactly what would happen when they signed him on that contract. They knew they were buying him for 2,5 years of service with a fixed economic return.
The only thing Alvarez and Aguero have in common is that they are both Argentinians. Aguero moved to Athletico 1 month after his 18th birthday, Alvarez turns 22 this month. Aguero had 74 goals and 43 assists for Athletico Madrid and was a regular starter for Argentina when he was Alvarez' age. Alvarez has 36 club goals to his name in a league weaker than the Championship and a few minutes for Argentina. What profile does he fit? He is a 170cm tall, south American with no experience at the top level.
The point I made comparing Alvarez to Aguero was that Atletico paid a fee for a player who had 50odd games (yes 3 years earlier and over 3 seasons not 1) for his club in the very same league Alvarez is in, unlike Alvarez (3years younger of course) he hadnt even played for his country. I am not comparing the ability, knew nothing of Alvarez unti lthe links, I was aware of Aguero when he went to Madrid as he was gettign heavily linked with Liverpool at the time and did already look phenomenal.....youre comparing Alvarez and his games played to the Ageuro Manchester City signed later, from Madrid which is totally irrelevant.

I like propbably 99.9% people on here have no idea if Alvarez is actually any good, point Im making is he is the type of profile of player I would like us to sign, a seemingly talented player, doing well with games behind them on the custp of breaking through, not youth players hav eto step up over a couple of seasons who havent played or big fees for players that arent that good.

Of course Haaland is going to score goals and is a phenomenal striker and yes Im sur epeople can use the case of Ronaldo who always wanted to play for Madrid when he initiall arrived here, but I just dont see Haaland wanting to be here above other clubs or having love for the club if he did came......Genuinely think its all irrelevant anyway as certain he ends up in Spain
 

Bondi77

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Do you think 65M £ to Dortmund for Haaland is overpriced compared to 20M for this guy (6 months older) directly from Argentina?
If we have a chane of signing Haaland he is the obvious 1st choice, as he is for every top club in the world.


Agreed. If we must gamble I would much rather we spent 30-40M on someone like Darwin Nunes from Benfica. 7 months older, bigger, stronger and still a gamble. 3 goals against Barca and Bayern in the CL this season and 18 goals in 1380 minutes this season. Could be just a hot streak too, but at least it is against much tougher opponents.
If you think Dortmund are going to sell him for 65mil then you need to get off the gear and think clearly!
 

SAFMUTD

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Well, that is his release clause, so yes they have to accept all 65M£ bids from June
65M for Dortmund, but you'd be a fool to think thats all he'll cost. At least 120M between agent fees and signing bonuses.
 
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