Apart from the obvious English tax, Chelsea are actually willing sellers in the Kovacic deal but extremely reluctant sellers in the Mount deal.
Mateo Kovacic
- Thread starter VancouverUtdFan
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Are you not deluding yourself that this practice is still going on (whether it ever did or not is under investigation, as you know)?
There really is no need for City do that. Their revenue figures are so high at the moment that there is zero reward in covering up 20m or so surreptitiously when they are being watched like hawks by those who would look to take them down.
The fact is that they’ve been working on this transfe since February and have exploited an unusual situation at Chelsea to sign a very good player at a below market value price.
Other such players are still out there. Get on with identifying them and sign them up.
Good business from City. I’m sure Pep will get a tune out of him for 2 or 3 years.
I might be wrong, but I can only guess that Pep wants Kovacic as cover for Rodri.
Other than the keeper and CB’s, he normally rotates key players so that they have no more than 28 or 30 EPL appearances per season.
This season has been different, with Rodri (36 league games) and one or two others, exceeding this number of EPL games.
I previously wondered if moving Stones into midfield, was partly motivated by the need to take some of the defensive load off Rodri.
Other than the keeper and CB’s, he normally rotates key players so that they have no more than 28 or 30 EPL appearances per season.
This season has been different, with Rodri (36 league games) and one or two others, exceeding this number of EPL games.
I previously wondered if moving Stones into midfield, was partly motivated by the need to take some of the defensive load off Rodri.
Kova is injury prone, almost 30, and someone the club was fine with selling. Mount has the usual English tax, is nearly 6 years younger than Kova, and is a player the club actually want to hold onto ideally.
Are you suggesting Chelsea are hiding transfer profits while being under FFP scrutiny?
Five years?!
Feels like he just joined Chelsea two years ago. Where has all the time gone?
So you are saying Haaland's fees and wages are same as being reported, no under the table dealing?
The market has remain inflated for over 10 years back. Countinho was sold for £105 million rising to £142 million and Hazard was sold for a similar fee.
Some clubs seem to be able to sell at an enormous profit. Chelsea seem to masters of that.
Salah, De Bryne, Gilmour, Jorginho, Cuadrado, Morata, Bakayoko, Werner, Batshuayi, Luiz et al all say hi.
They are far from masters of getting value for a transfer, other than a very select few.
Seems really really cheap again for player who's consistently been in trophy winning sides and only just turned 29. All above board I'm sure!
I would trust the SNP accountants more than I trust Manchester (two salaries) City. If Kovacic is a £30million player, then Mount is just abour £40m. If i was in charge of transfers at OT, I would walk away from that one. For any City fans reading this, Mancini admitted to getting two salaries and City declared one.
Sorry if you've explained this already, but what's the reason behind this? I'd have thought Kovasic was a better player on the whole so I'm surprised by the differences in valuation between him and Mount. I get that Mount is younger and English, but in what other way does he warrant a higher fee?
Wages are one thing, but if City were to declare a lesser transfer fee, the selling club would have to be complicit. Care to explain how that makes any sense for Chelsea in this case, seeing how they mudded their transfer balance to the tune of £600m last summer?
Mount s ability to score goals,making assists , press nonstop and most importantly since hazard left he was the only player for Chelsea who give 20+ goals and assists.
We feel if he stays he will be more valuable to us than your offer that's the difference.
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Cheers. Thanks for the reply. Would he be part of your first XI next season?
I said masters of "selling", not masters of the getting value for players.
Salah and De Brunye are exceptions that happened long back. Luiz was sold for a huge (over-priced) fee. The rest were poor signings - nothing to do with how good/bad their selling was.
If you calculate the net spend of all clubs in the last 20 years, United, City and probably even Arsenal and Liverpool have outspent Chelsea. That's crazy. (Ignoring Boehly's mad window)
Read my post.
City are being investigated for possible rules infractions up to 2017. There's no suggestion that they have broken any rules since then.
I've no idea what Haaland is on or how his remuneration is structured but to do anything illegal under the current circumstances would be totally crass and whatever you may think about City's owners and executives they certainly ain't stupid.
You may want to derail this thread to make the same argument that's been made ad nauseum on others but the fact remains that they have no reason to distort the purchase price of Mateo Kovacic. Their revenue from last season is huge so they can spend more or less what they like without fear of sanction.
Kovacic feels like a smart enough signing, in the sense that he’ll fit into the squad and play his part for a few years. Hopefully becomes a regular. Not every signing needs to be world class - Akanji has taught me that. I do still think there’s a chance somebody comes in for Phillips and we go for another CM.
My attention turns to Gvardiol from here. Given the new approach across the back 4 this year, and how suited he seems to that at such a young age, I’d really like to see him join. I think that’ll then see Laporte leave.
My attention turns to Gvardiol from here. Given the new approach across the back 4 this year, and how suited he seems to that at such a young age, I’d really like to see him join. I think that’ll then see Laporte leave.
I get the part that they don't want to sell Mount but now that they don't have a choice, does it still count as reluctant sellers?
Pep has a magic wand and Kovacic is his type of player. He'll do well at City.
Almost certainly yes. Poch specifically asked to keep him.
Intriguing. I guess the coaches definitely rate him.
I’ve mostly seen him operate further up the pitch. Does he drop deeper and create from there as well? What would you say his best position is?
And the fact that Kovacic is 29 and Mount is 24. Fair few reasons in the valuation differences.
Yeah right, they know United usual cave
You don't think getting £12M for Jorginho 6 months from the end of his contract who weren't going to renew anyway is a good deal for Chelsea?
We literally sold Morata to Atleti for nearly £60M. We sold Luiz £50M and bought him back 2-3 years later for half the price.
Fair point on the rest though. We have bought some absolute duds over the years that we have struggled mightily to shift.
Are you asking me why Chelsea are reluctant sellers in the Kovacic deal? Well I think it's just a general feeling that a relationship had run it's course. He needs a new challenge while we're I guess in transition (which sounds wild to say after spending so much) so there was a feeling that neither party had any interest in renewing his contract.
Yeah that's true as well.
Good job net spend means little then.
Some clubs seem to be able to sell at an enormous profit. Chelsea seem to masters of that.
thats what you stated, which I have shown isn't often the case.
Luiz fee to Chelsea was a bit of an outlier in respect to Chelsea both paying a fee for him and giving Matic away for a season to reduce the original transfer fee, which makes it hard to quantify the exact profit from it.
Gvardiol being able to play LB is brilliant fit for Peps new system, you'll have your defence fixed for years to come, lucky feckers
Replacement for Gundogan… don’t think he’s better though.
I've been all over the Mount thread banging on about how when Chelsea were at our best, Mount was routinely dropping deeper to create. His long passing is excellent, and when Tuchel's Chelsea were at their best it was when Mount dropped deeper into midfield to link play to runners further forward, whether that was Werner, James, Chilwell, or Havertz. Defensively as well, our shape under Tuchel was a 5-3-2 with Mount dropping into midfield for the most part - and often he was deeper than Kante given Kante's penchant for vertical pressing (see the CL semi 2nd leg vs Real Madrid in 20/21 and the CL final that year for examples of this).
I'm of the opinion that Mount has been poorly utilised at Chelsea by and large - I think he's clearly an 8 in a 3 man midfield, but to some extent he's cursed with being more or less competent at many different things and so therefore deprioritised in terms of how the team is built. Personally I would be over the fecking moon if we went into next year with a 3 man midfield of Enzo / Caicedo / Mount - but sadly that seems unlikely at this point.
He's not. Still a tidy player, mind.
If it wasn't for our need to replenish the midfield with younger faces I could've seen us making this move. Kovacic would've ticked a lot of boxes for what we need from a midfield signing this summer. Moreso than City really.
Would be great deal of business for ManCity. Even if it is going to be though to replace Gundogan.
This just shows you that you can get quality for that price and even less instead of paying £100m for average to poor players.
This just shows you that you can get quality for that price and even less instead of paying £100m for average to poor players.
Exactly. I thought he’s more what we need than Mount is… manager doesn’t think so though. 30m on a quality midfielder would have been good business even if he is 29.
We already did two of those "quality" additions last summer, Casemiro & Eriksen. Both sort term and quality, now we need some younger and longer-term additions beside them.
Drinkwater as well, terrible business.
Eriksen is slow though and doesn’t have the dribbling and carrying like Kovacic. Mount is replacing him for the long term.
Exactly that's why we are looking at Mount not Kovacic, who we would need to replace in a few years again.
So will city but they’re going for experience and someone they know will help them with instant success. We didn’t think about that when signing Casemiro, although he’s world class and has a few years left in him he’ll still need replacing as will Eriksen.
Yeah. They cheated for a long time as they got to the top of the game. They don’t need to do it now. They won’t be doing it now. They will never be punished and it’ll fade to black.