Fred(Signed for United)

[capiloton]

just sign him in.
Fred can't play in UCL anymore, but he can play in the league,
while dinho play for UCL.
i'm more worried about dinho position.
about his physical size, if Makelele and Kante are succesful in this league,
why not Fred with much better technical abilities.
his athleticism is the key, just like dinho.

 

[MrDaveyHavoc]

It doesn't really matter if Neymar was a one off, as that money filters down into the market you see inflation because subsequent deals are benchmarked off of the knock on effects. If Salah wants out of Liverpool this summer they aren't selling unless they get close to Dembele or Countinho money, because thats where the market has been set for top attackers entering their prime. Last summer maybe he goes for Higuain money instead, which itself was a knock on of the Pogba money. Similarly if a top defender moves, now its all relative to what VVD went for. Thats how market inflation works.

It only works that way if teams actually have the money. So far all of the highly inflated transfers have involved PSG's money. If they and other top clubs keep injecting that kind of cash for top players, the market will continue to grow. But if the top 5-6 teams in the world refuse to pay the Coutinho price for a top attacker (whether because they don't have it in the budget or simply don't want to) then who is going to? Maybe that means transfers slow for a period until everyone adjusts. Maybe there's no adjustment necessary because there's still money flowing into the game. I'm not prepared to go with the latter until we see multiple teams paying these prices at the top end without accompanying sales rather than all of the money coming solely from PSG.

If the Sheikh comes to my neighborhood tomorrow and buys the house next door for a billion, that doesn't make my house worth a billion . That makes the Sheikh a guy who got a bad deal and me a guy who needs to find another billionaire to get that kind of pricing or be left with selling to normal folks who will offer previous market value.

Check out a real world example. Some idiot paid 66 million dollars for this monstrosity:

https://www.thepinnaclelist.com/pro...tate-172-bliss-canyon-rd-bradbury-california/

He tried to sell it for 80. It sold for 24. It was a garish over-improvement on the area and had no comps and nobody else was rich enough or willing to pay even the construction costs much less retail value. We'll soon see if Neymar is the Bradbury Estate of footballers or if this is just the new normal. I don't count out the possibility of the latter- we just need more time to know.

 

[g180aj]

It's not a foreign place. It's just a place. The existing HG quota allows us to choose whoever we want, foreign or otherwise for remaining squad places.

You might want to check again, the 8 places are split into 4 club trained and 4 association trained meaning one player will have to use one of the 17 free spaces and we only have 1 of them left.

 

[Cityfan]

That is the most pedantic post I have ever read. If we sign Evans we have to use a foreign spot. Full stop.

Not if we use Sterling in part exchange or even as a direct swap.

 

[geoff clipp]

That is the most pedantic post I have ever read. If we sign Evans we have to use a foreign spot. Full stop.

Im not being pedantic, I'm trying to understand. Why is it a foreign spot? The HG and association requirements are only minimum. We don't have to to fill up the remaining spots with foreign players just for the sake of it. If Evans is seen as the best option for that final place in the squad, HG or otherwise, then what does it matter? If we got Fred and wanted to add him to our squad then we can drop any one out to make way, regardless of nationality right?

 

[Jalfraag]

Im not being pedantic, I'm trying to understand. Why is it a foreign spot? The HG and association requirements are only minimum. We don't have to to fill up the remaining spots with foreign players just for the sake of it. If Evans is seen as the best option for that final place in the squad, HG or otherwise, then what does it matter? If we got Fred and wanted to add him to our squad then we can drop any one out to make way, regardless of nationality right?

They are 17 free places in the squad but due to the higher prices for homegrown players, they are referred to as foreign.
It doesn't usually make sense to sacrifice a cheaper foreign player for a homegrown one.

 

[geoff clipp]

They are 17 free places in the squad but due to the higher prices for homegrown players, they are referred to as foreign.
It doesn't usually make sense to sacrifice a cheaper foreign player for a homegrown one.

I understand all of that, but at the same time there's no need to get / fixated on maxing out the foreign quota just because we can. In the case of Evans, I think he's only being pursued cos he's seen as a good value option in the first place (we'll have to see what the eventual price is before we can judge though obvs)

Sterling, Stones, Walker, Delph all make up our association trained quota at the moment. I don't look at those and say "I wish we could bin them off and get foreigners instead".

Just keep seeing people saying Evans would be specifically taking a foreign spot when in fact it's just a spot left in our squad available to the best candidate for the job. Mangala, Kompany and Toure are taking up "foreign spots" too and they've offered next to nothing this season. I'd worry more about them.

I know this has gone wildly off topic by the way. So umm, yeah, I hope we get Fred.

 

[Ajm1985]

According to the MEN, the Telegraph are apparently stating that Shaktar's President is flying over for discussion about Fred

 

[nmc]

According to the MEN, the Telegraph are apparently stating that Shaktar's President is flying over for discussion about Fred

Good sign if they are coming to us.

 

[adrianr]

It is a thing and will continue to be a thing because transfer fees aren't plucked out of thin air, they're benchmarked against other completed deals. When Neymar moves for more than double the prior record that inflation cascades down to the rest of the market, as illustrated by Countinho, Dembele, and VVD. You're either competing for the best, most in demand, players or you aren't, and the next Countinho, Dembele, or VVD aren't going to go for less than the last unless a fundamental shift occurs. The market is the market.

They can benchmark them against the Neymar deal all they like, but still takes two to tango. Neymar money isn't filtering down to everyone and clubs still have a finite amount of money they can spend. PSG have a lot more money to spend than most, so they can pay 250m for one player. That doesn't mean that if Real want to sell Ronaldo and say "We're slapping a price of 250m on him because that's what Neymar went for", that anyone would or even could afford it. As you say the market is the market, and a large force in that market is both how much clubs have to spend and now FFP compliance. PSG spending a lot does not drive the market up unless the market can sustain it.