It would have been reported if there was anyone else after him.
Lewis Hall
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Ok, then he goes to whoever pays up unless he forces the issue, and we end up with someone else.
Its not a big issue.
Buying or developing, then keeping and building a complementary team around your world class talents with nous, graft and grit and enough ability to get the ball to your big players is the most important part of squad building.
Hall would be great though.
Come on now, it's clear that his poor form was the major factor in this. If he was £70m this summer after the season he had then he'd have probably been £100m if he'd had a season like the previous one. I highly doubt we'd have been in for him at that price...
Exactly. Once they had set their squad with good sensible signings, they added two players to finish the job.
Look at the age profile of our squad. In a year or two we will only need one or two players per summer which means we can afford to go big on a player if we believe they can be a difference maker.
Well firstly that's an assumption on your part. Secondly, it could be argued that it doesn't show great resilience and character, which may also have reduced his value.
I would expect all of those factors influenced his price. It would be weird if they didn’t.
And you’re also making assumptions about knowing precisely what did and didn’t affect his transfer fee.
I highly doubt that Brighton held out last summer hoping to sell the player for £30m less the following summer...
Not sure there's any evidence to that in the way Brighton behave, looking at teh Van Hecke transfer.
We also enquired extremely late in the window last season. This season, they have also signed a new deep lying midfielder.
Again, you or I do not know exactly what factors have contributed to the fee. You’re just making assumptions.
Next summer, we wont be the only club interested. If he performs well, you can bet on a couple of foreign and PL top clubs being interested. I hope we start now with the search and have a list for the summer, instead of losing weeks on one target
I mean I don't think it's a particularly wild assumption!
Simple question for you - in the context of this summer's market, what do you think his value would have been had he performed exactly the same last season as he had done the season before?
If Baleba had been brilliant last season he would've been over 100m this year and we would've had to walk away
I have no idea, but more than we paid, I would think.
you reckon?!
If he only wanted to come here, other clubs most likely enquired and were told not to bother.
£30 million less? Where you plucking that figure from?
Brighton never had the opportunity to sell him for £100 million. We can't just use made up numbers to say we got a deal.
do you know that for a fact?
The whole point is that we only want players that really want to come here though.
Do you think M Fernandes is delighted that he picked bottom of the table Spurs over us?
We are clearly very confident that he wants to come here and a deal can be done next summer at a sensible price.
That's what they asked for last summer as far as I remember?
It’s just quite tedious, to be honest. If anyone suggests any other scenario that isn’t a terrible reflection on the club, it’s shouted down as naive and virtually impossible. It seems it’s far more acceptable to go with the worst possible hypothesis for virtually everything the club does, on here, right now.
For all we know, Brighton made an agreement with the player last season that he could go a year later if a certain fee came in. We all have no idea. But the prevailing narrative is that it’s just because the player has been rubbish, and the club gets zero credit for the signing.
BTW my point was not that 'we got a deal', just that we paid significantly less for him than we would have done if he'd had another great season.
do you know that for a fact?
No, but based on how the transfer played out I'd say its far more likely than no other club being interested. Chelsea almost certainly would have been interested. They love signing Brighton players and seemingly enquired about every CDM under the sun this summer.
I'm not saying we should pay up whatever. I'm saying making unattainable players like Anderson and Hall our priority for months while knowing we will never ever pay what they are valued at is asinine.
I would have had zero complaints if we just identified a player in our budget range and just got that player. I have no problems with Tielesman over Fernandes.
Instead we chase after pipe dreams and say "we're keeping our power dry for Hall next year" knowing that he is not realistic.
Newcastle will value him at 80M next year. We will go in with a bid of 60M. Someone like City/Chelsea will swoop in, and we'll claim "Only want players that want us, gonna walk away".
If it's not realistic why would the club put it out there and not just move on?
You seem to have PTSD from conversations that I have not been any part of. My comments on Baleba in this thread have only been made today and are completely in the context of the potential Lewis Hall transfer.
The idea that we'll just be able to do with Lewis Hall what we've done with Baleba makes zero sense to me, and certainly isn't a reliable strategy. If we won't pay more than £50m this season then we surely are not thinking 'ah it's OK, we'll sign him for £40m next season'? That only worked with Baleba because he had a poor season. Sure, there's a chance that could happen with Hall, but it will only happen if there is a perfect storm of him having a stinker of a season, making it clear that he wants to leave, and no other clubs with bigger chequebooks sniffing around.
That much is true and if Lewis Hall was their top man, you could argue they should have got him first. Arsenal managed to get Guimaraes off them, Barcelona managed to get Gordon and Spurs picked up Tonali, granted it was crazy money. If we had gone in for Hall earlier, it could have been done.
You ommitted this line from the same Athletic article:
"After selling Anthony Gordon, Tonali and Guimaraes, Newcastle would not countenance losing another key player, given rising fan sentiment, nor did they need to financially. Had United tried earlier, things may have been different, but at that stage they were still manoeuvring through midfielders."
Source
So, this very much could have and should have been done earlier in the window. Why did we wait until 3 weeks before the deadline to contact Newcastle again? Complete negligence.
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Because it wasn't a priority and the fees were probably stupid too.
Why would signing a LB not be a priority? We have one senior LB who gets injured pretty much every year + may have lost a yard or two of pace anyway based on the first 2 games.
It was probably priority after midfielder reconstruction
It seems we only had a certain amount of money to spend, and we weren't sure if it would stretch enough to sign Hall as well as the midfielders we needed. Especially once our potential sales fell through, with Ugarte's injury and Rashford not going to Barca.
I think most people agreed before the season ended that our priority went three midfielders, then leftback, then a striker. Which also seems to be how the club approached the window. I was ok with not getting the striker (although obviously it would have been great), but not being able to get the LB does worry me a lot.
Couldn’t afford him this summer so let’s buy him next summer when he is more expensive.
93 pages and we never even made a bid, or at least a vaguely realistic one
Apparently according to some posters Newcastle are going to give us a good deal, they must really like us and want us to do well. They will also be no other big clubs who want him as he has told them not to contact him as we are the only club for him
Very much likely we'll offer Shaw a new contract on reduced wages. Shaw's reputation is not at his all time high to say the least so I doubt he'll get many offers. It'll be a Maguire like situation.
Yeah agreed
I feel if we were going to get him it would’ve been this summer.
By next summer I could see several big clubs looking at him - just from the prem I think you’ll have Liverpool, Chelsea, Tottenham. Then I could see Bayern & Madrid.
That’ll create a bidding war where we walk away imo.
By next summer I could see several big clubs looking at him - just from the prem I think you’ll have Liverpool, Chelsea, Tottenham. Then I could see Bayern & Madrid.
That’ll create a bidding war where we walk away imo.
Hope he has a dreadful season so we have a shot at him next year at a discount because sure as hell we aren’t paying full price. Otherwise we will have to stick to Shaw until 2028 while we try to identify an alternative.
Makes 0 sense to me. The club have somehow convinced some fans that you can only fix one area of a team at a time. We should have done both. Limited budget? Fine, don’t buy Santos and buy Hall instead. Either way they made the wrong call and I really, really hope it doesn’t come back to bit us in the butt. It likely will though.