LoveCity said:Damocles said:Bad decision. Will definitely cost us Rekik, potentially cost us Denayer.
Youth system in action here. 20 year old homegrown defender gone, 35 year old Argentinian defender in.
But I bet the gym is lovely.
Or we could sack off Boyata, put Denayer/Rekik in that spot, and give him a bigger % of games than Boyata is getting. Not saying it'll happen but it could do. Demichelis will be one year older so it'd be reasonable for him to play fewer games if we had a #4 they trust.
Denayer and Rekik are both first teamers at Champions League clubs who dominate their leagues. Telling them that they are coming back to be number 4 and 5 will result in Rekik definitely leaving, and Denayer requiring many more games than we give our number 4. I don't know why people think that we have some God given right to watch great players sit on our bench when we aren't offering them comparative compensation
Celtic would take Denayer tomorrow, make him a first teamer and give him a better deal than he's on here. I imagine they aren't the only ones and he could move to bigger clubs who would offer similar without telling him he's the fourth choice centre back who might get 10-15 games next year. Rekik has almost definitely gone after this signing, no way he's coming back. He didn't want to go out on loan last year if talk was correct and with his contract situation I can only see one solution there.
Basically this is yet another indication to our young players that our increased youth policy is smoke, mirrors and splashing money rather than any firm commitment. We would much rather buy/keep people in their mid thirties than play somebody in their late teens/early twenties.
I'll remind everybody again that the last player to successfully graduate from the City Academy to regular first team squad member was Daniel Sturridge in 2008. That's 7 years ago. The "they aren't ready yet" excuse should be gone after 7 years you would have thought.