Liam Delap | £30m release clause?

Brightonian said:
I keep seeing this opinion but I don't buy it. If we were to sell him for £30m - which would only be breaking even on his reported cost and only if you ignore inflation - he'd become our fourth biggest sale ever, beaten only by Di Maria, Lukaku and Ronaldo. Not sure he's going to be that sort of player, particularly in the scenario where he's not worked out and we're looking to sell him.
Click to expand...

Depends on his wages I would imagine. What's prevented us from recouping higher fees recently has often been the wages players are stuck on here. They either run deals down or we sell cheap to offset wages.
 
romufc said:
So the poster thinks that in a decade Haaland is the only WC striker?
Click to expand...
I mentioned Haaland, becuase imo, he's the only striker in the current era(2020s) and maybe Lewa who I forgot. Who's as good as those I mentioned.
 
JBG said:
I mentioned Haaland, becuase imo, he's the only striker in the current era(2020s) and maybe Lewa who I forgot. Who's as good as those I mentioned.
Click to expand...

Haaland and Lewa yes. What about Kane? Suarez? Aguero? Ronaldo and Benzema both played into the 20s, as did Zlatan. Mbappe is very highly thought of, even if he plays more off the left. Isak is already on a par with a couple of those names in my opinion, and will finish his career on a higher standing than he is now. Gyokeres, Lautaro Martinez and Alvarez all have a long way to go before hanging up their boots as well.

I agreed with the initial point, even if I think a couple of the big names from back then may have struggled agains the hyper analysis and athletic demands of todays game. Remember this was an era from which Matthew Le Tissier is considered a great (rightly so) while covering around a half a kilometre of pitch per 90 minutes.

But the original point was not about the entirety of the decade. It was that at any given time during the 90s there were 45 world class strikers in Europe. That's not true and never was.
 
Castia said:
If it wasn’t for the low fee release clause I doubt we would have any interest. Spending yet more money on a unproven striker what could go wrong? we’re gonna end up with 150m worth of strikers with about 10 goals between the lot of them
Click to expand...
Yeah you would think so, then I remembered that Wilcox is having a significant say as worked with him at City academy
 
diarm said:
Whatever way they determine it, I think you'd struggle to sell 15 of those names being world class at the time.

Same goes for 93/94 (42 game season):

Cole - 34
Shearer - 31
Le Tissier - 25
Sutton - 25
Wright - 23
Beardsley - 21
Bright - 19
Cantona - 18
Holdsworth - 17
Wallace - 17
Cottee - 16
Ferdinand - 16
Click to expand...

Tbf that 15 world class strikers thing is obviously bollocks but if we just said "would walk into a top 4 team in this year's Prem"...I'll even ignore Forest (Chris Wood is Tesco Value Chris Sutton), I'm saying 7 of those names there.
 
TwoSheds said:
Tbf that 15 world class strikers thing is obviously bollocks but if we just said "would walk into a top 4 team in this year's Prem"...I'll even ignore Forest (Chris Wood is Tesco Value Chris Sutton), I'm saying 7 of those names there.
Click to expand...

I'll give you 6.

Le Tissier wasn't a striker and I'm honestly not sure he makes it out of an academy in the modern game. The guy had a wand of a foot but all the athleticism of a traffic cone.

Was Beardsley a striker?
 
diarm said:
I'll give you 6.

Le Tissier wasn't a striker and I'm honestly not sure he makes it out of an academy in the modern game. The guy had a wand of a foot but all the athleticism of a traffic cone.

Was Beardsley a striker?
Click to expand...

Le Tissier was a no.10 who scored 20-odd goals, I don't care where you play him, he's better than almost all the nondescript no.10s around now. De Bruyne has less talent but runs more.

And yes Beardsley was a striker, though more in the Cantona mould than say Cole or Shearer.
 
TwoSheds said:
Le Tissier was a no.10 who scored 20-odd goals, I don't care where you play him, he's better than almost all the nondescript no.10s around now. De Bruyne has less talent but runs more.

And yes Beardsley was a striker, though more in the Cantona mould than say Cole or Shearer.
Click to expand...

I don't think there's a place for those gifted magicians in the 10 role that we loved in the 90s anymore.

You can't be a maverick who strolls about and pings the ball into the top corner from 25 yards twice a week, because unless you can run 15km a game, maintaining a minimum percentage press effectiveness average and be able to recite the favoured escape pass of your opposition fullbacks in each of 13 different zones on the pitch, you won't get picked on a Saturday afternoon to show it.

The game is a hell of a lot poorer for it.

Le Tissier, Bergkamp, Zola, Riquelme, Totti, Baggio, even Cantona - all players who would've had half the magic bate out of them by analysts and unimaginative coaches.
 
ayushreddevil9 said:
But no familiarity with the league
Click to expand...
league familiarity is often overstated

grealish had spent all his life in england before his move to city, yet we all know he just hasn't worked out

it is true that we have seen many flops like sancho, haller, werner etc, but there are also haaland, firminho, kdb, son and etc

personally think that he is a very good alternative at a potentially fair price
 
ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg said:
How much do you think we have to spend?

Even if money was no object, who is this RVP type striker?

The two best clubs in the PL this season, in Arsenal and Liverpool can’t find a decent no 9.
Click to expand...
I don't believe in the PSR or amortization mathematics that is prevalent on the internet. We'll have decent money available to make signings, which we can enhance with the right sales. I have been critical of INEOS on almost everything they have done so far but one thing they did relatively well was in terms of outgoings last summer. They were able to raise a decent sum and I have no doubt we can do better this time with the players we want to sell and a bit of luck.

Like everyone else I also want 4-5 right signings to boost the team and the manager; however, I am happy to wait and won't mind if we made only two or three by spending decent sums on a striker, a GK and a midfielder. This is a long-term project and we should be patient enough to wait if there is right progress being made. E.g. I won't mind us dropping 100m+ on Isak if we can convince him to move here even at the expense of one or two more signings. Adding another middling striker and expecting him to turn into gold is not the correct approach. Either it has to be a top man for top dollar or someone with a huge potential upside.

Regarding Cunha, he is not cheap already and I am sure we can find a better #10 or some young ingenue with huge potential for that sum who is better with the ball at their feet and has excellent work rate. As a team we need to be able to keep the ball better in order to become a outfit that is ready to challenge 2-3 seasons down the line. Simply adding "Goals" is not going to turn us into a contender.
 
Last edited:
Garcia + [energetic + good ball carrying CM] + [a quick wing back with same skill set as shaw without injuries] + Cunha + Delap would be a nice summer.
 
JBG said:
Off the top of my head, Klinsmann, Suker, A.Cole, Yorke, Shearer, Kluivert, R9, Romario, Baggio(if we class him as CF), Batistuta, Stoichkov, Crespo, Salas, Zamorano, Weah. Probably can go on, but these are CFs that are better than most CFs in today's game. Maybe only Haaland is up there with these.
Click to expand...
Papin
 
Castia said:
His goal record at the top level?

In fact his record period is flakey at best his championship stats are awful
Click to expand...
He's a young striker that has played a season in the PL and scored a decent amount of goals, for a relegated team, and he's 30m quid. He's about as proven as you can get for the price and type of signing he is.
 
Aren’t we going down the same road again with Delap ? We need a more experienced proven striker
Mbeumo is going into the final year of his deal this summer so they'll be under pressure to sell, Mateta will have 2 years left so no pressure on them to sell. I think we'd have to cough up a lot of money to get Mateta.

I reckon you could probably get Mbeumo for around £40m he's a very good player and I think he's good enough to play either in the central role or as a number 10.

Osimhen is a tricky one because he's not the first player to fall out with the Napoli owner. It sounds like they agreed a contract with a release clause expecting there to be loads of buyers but the fee was just set to high. It's reported to be 130m euros which no one is going to pay and he's now going into the last 12 months so Napoli have to sell.

For me he's the one who ticks every box as close to a guarantee as you can get which is why he'll be the most expensive options in terms of transfer fee and wages.
 
RedC said:
He's a young striker that has played a season in the PL and scored a decent amount of goals, for a relegated team, and he's 30m quid. He's about as proven as you can get for the price and type of signing he is.
Click to expand...

Another prospect is not the profile of striker we need we need real quality and goals
 
diarm said:
Rooney was a 10-15 league goals a season man for most of his career with us. So were Cantona, Hughes, Cole and Solkjaer.

Strikers who score 20-25 goals a season are as rare as hens teeth - in the PL era, only Van Nistelrooy did it consistently for us. What we need is a centre forward who can form the focal point of a functioning attack. If he can do that and his 10-15 goals make up part of a 35-40 goal 3 man attack, that's absolutely ok.

The best United attack of my lifetime, between 2006 and 2009, had Rooney scoring 14, 12 and 12 in three seasons, Ronaldo scoring 17, 31 and 18 and then a combination of Solskjaer, Saha, Tevez and Berbatov scoring 8, 19 and 14.
Click to expand...
This is a point people seem to miss. Didn't Rooney only score more than 15 in 2 seasons? It's the combination of the attack that we need to get firing. 12-15 goals every season by our striker would suffice as long as the other components are also pulling their weight. If our front 3 score 10-15 each that's almost as many as we've scored as a team this year. A 20-30 goal striker would be brilliant, but it's highly likely we aren't getting one. Delap, if he's who we get in the end, would do a lot better than Hojlund. Especially with Cunha, Amad and Bruno around him. He'd also do a better job of providing for each of them given his hold up ability and ability to play as a target man better than any striker currently at our club.
 
JBG said:
Off the top of my head, Klinsmann, Suker, A.Cole, Yorke, Shearer, Kluivert, R9, Romario, Baggio(if we class him as CF), Batistuta, Stoichkov, Crespo, Salas, Zamorano, Weah. Probably can go on, but these are CFs that are better than most CFs in today's game. Maybe only Haaland is up there with these.
Click to expand...
Van Basten, Bergkamp, Mancini, Vialli, Ravanelli, Sanchez, Raul, Inzaghi, Vieri, Del Piero, Totti, Papin, Bierhoff and a certain Frenchman called Cantona are all other world class strikers from the 90’s and I definitely agree that strikers were better then and now everyone wants to be a inverted winger.
 
I don’t care what anyone says, a 22 year old who has done nothing in the game yet waiting to see if a club gets CL football before agreeing to join is a red flag.

Could understand if they were 26 or 28 but you just arrived here and are heading back to the Championship, a bit of humility rather than entitlement would be the better way to go about it...
 
Rolaholic said:
I don’t care what anyone says, a 22 year old who has done nothing in the game yet waiting to see if a club gets CL football before agreeing to join is a red flag.

Could understand if they were 26 or 28 but you just arrived here and are heading back to the Championship, a bit of humility rather than entitlement would be the better way to go about it...
Click to expand...
If he's got options and some will be in European competitions next year it seems a perfectly reasonable thing for him to be taking in to account.
 
Rolaholic said:
I don’t care what anyone says, a 22 year old who has done nothing in the game yet waiting to see if a club gets CL football before agreeing to join is a red flag.

Could understand if they were 26 or 28 but you just arrived here and are heading back to the Championship, a bit of humility rather than entitlement would be the better way to go about it...
Click to expand...
Agreed. The final two or three games of a season shouldn't dictate which club you join. You either believe in the 'project' or you don't. Besides, it's one year. Who is to say that you'll be back in the Champions League the following year?
 
Remember the geese said:
Agreed. The final two or three games of a season shouldn't dictate which club you join. You either believe in the 'project' or you don't. Besides, it's one year. Who is to say that you'll be back in the Champions League the following year?
Click to expand...
Exactly.

Might sound top reddish but we need players who are committed to the vision and want to join irregardless of being in a competition they themselves have no pedigree in and haven’t ever played a single minute in and one that isn't always guaranteed the following year.
 
Rolaholic said:
I don’t care what anyone says, a 22 year old who has done nothing in the game yet waiting to see if a club gets CL football before agreeing to join is a red flag.

Could understand if they were 26 or 28 but you just arrived here and are heading back to the Championship, a bit of humility rather than entitlement would be the better way to go about it...
Click to expand...

I thought the same thing but it likely has to be attributed to the world cup. The worst thing Delap can do is join a club that's too competitive, it's not a question of being good enough but a team like City for instance will still buy established players despite having current ones preoccupying the same position.

Newcastle is a risk with Isak in front and Chelsea perhaps a safer option but they are active every window. Spurs / United level is a great choice for him objectively. A well established striker on the other hand would be foolish to join if United don't win the Europa league.
 
Rolaholic said:
Exactly.

Might sound top reddish but we need players who are committed to the vision and want to join irregardless of being in a competition they themselves have no pedigree in and haven’t ever played a single minute in and one that isn't always guaranteed the following year.
Click to expand...
Absolutely. Look at Cunha for instance. The amusing thing is that Delap isn't good enough for us anyway. He'd be fine as a deputy to someone like Gyökeres, but as the starting number 9 for Manchester United? Major doubts for me.
 
Remember the geese said:
He'd be fine as a deputy to someone like Gyökeres, but as the starting number 9 for Manchester United? Major doubts for me.
Click to expand...

This is overrated now anyway.... we need to stop looking at names and what not... understand our position and target players based on that.

Delap has scored PL goals, proven PL player, Gyokeres was playing in the championship 2 seasons ago... I bet you would have said the same thing about him then?
 
davidmichael said:
Van Basten, Bergkamp, Mancini, Vialli, Ravanelli, Sanchez, Raul, Inzaghi, Vieri, Del Piero, Totti, Papin, Bierhoff and a certain Frenchman called Cantona are all other world class strikers from the 90’s and I definitely agree that strikers were better then and now everyone wants to be a inverted winger.
Click to expand...
This was exactly my point, there are almost endless options of elite strikers around that time.

Also just to add my thoughts on the rumours for Delap. I'd rather we dig up any kind of money we can find and buy Osimhen or Gyokeres instead or even J.David on a free instead.
 
Last edited:
I can't get excited about the idea of signing this guy. 12 goals, so what? Relegated sides often have someone who scores a few. Doesn't mean they're good enough to play for top clubs.

Would we have signed Grant Holt? Robert Earnshaw? That Morris guy from Luton last season? Insert your own example here.

And it seems we're not grand enough for him anyway. An Ipswich player. We absolutely do not want to be signing players who only want to come here if all their preferred options aren't available.
 
romufc said:
This is overrated now anyway.... we need to stop looking at names and what not... understand our position and target players based on that.

Delap has scored PL goals, proven PL player, Gyokeres was playing in the championship 2 seasons ago... I bet you would have said the same thing about him then?
Click to expand...
Of course I'd have said the same thing about Gyökeres. Gyökeres however, has since gone on to prove a lot more. Delap has not yet proven to be good enough to be a starter for a club of our aspirations. Like I said, I'd be fine with him as our second choice striker.
 
Rolaholic said:
I don’t care what anyone says, a 22 year old who has done nothing in the game yet waiting to see if a club gets CL football before agreeing to join is a red flag.

Could understand if they were 26 or 28 but you just arrived here and are heading back to the Championship, a bit of humility rather than entitlement would be the better way to go about it...
Click to expand...
It sounded a bit weird to me too. Liam Delap who was playing in the Championship a season back, scored only 12 goals this season in the PL and is back to the championship again want CL football as a priority. Okay.
 
TwoSheds said:
Le Tissier was a no.10 who scored 20-odd goals, I don't care where you play him, he's better than almost all the nondescript no.10s around now. De Bruyne has less talent but runs more.

And yes Beardsley was a striker, though more in the Cantona mould than say Cole or Shearer.
Click to expand...

One of the best players I've ever seen play for Hartlepool. Even in his twilight he was class. Miles ahead of every other player on the pitch.
 
JBG said:
This was exactly my point, there are almost endless options of elite strikers around that time.

Also just to add my thoughts on the rumours for Delap. I'd rather we dig up any kind of money we can find and buy Osimhen or Gyokeres instead or even J.David on a free instead.
Click to expand...
If we had the money I’d be happy with bringing Delap in as back up to one of Osimhen or Gyokeres and move Hojlund on if someone will pay the money that would see us break even on Hojlund but unfortunately we don’t.

In an ideal world we’d sign Gyokeres, Cunha, a keeper, a right wing back and a midfielder but without a Europa win we’re not in an ideal world so I’d bring De Gea back on a free who’s looked amazing at Fiorentina and blow our whole budget on Cunha and one of Osimhen or Gyokeres then promote from the academy with players like Kukonki, Fredricksen, Kone, Mantato, the Fletcher’s and Biancheri.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.