Sterling and Sane were absolute top dollar and perhaps even overpriced at the time. Young, inconsistent and unproven. We were mocked in some quarters.
I still think we let Sane go far too cheaply. Hazard went to Madrid for 100m in similar circumstances
Jesus hasn’t kicked on, isn’t anywhere near elite and in reality isn’t actually worth that much more than what we paid, though we could probably get a lot more purely down to Brazil caps.
Gundogan was cheap but had 12 months left and was recovering from a brutal knee injury. Didn’t kick a ball for us for several months after signing and sadly has never been the same player as he was beforehand.
Ederson fair enough, love the guy. But he was for a few weeks of a weak pound/Euro possibly the most expensive keeper in history.
Bernardo, again love the man to bits. But 1/1.5 decent seasons out of 3 isn’t conclusive evidence of a bargain, though tbf he has been played out of position by Pep this year.
Hazard had several bad, bad injuries before he signed for Madrid. And he has had more since he went there. In fact he has missed most of the pre-COVID season. And he is considerably older.The entirety of this post is bad, but this is the dumbest part. Hazard is/was a world class player in the very peak of his career. Sane on the other hand just shredded his knee ligaments and hasn't played football for a year. Oh, and there's a fucking worldwide pandemic going on which is depressing transfer values.
Ignoring the Mangala/Nolito in the room....Your argument doesn't make any sense when we have hindsight. What anybody thought about the price we paid for any of them is irrelevant because we now know whether it was worth it or not. Every player I mentioned appreciated in value, some of them two-fold. It doesn't matter if people thought we overpaid for Sterling when we could sell him now for 120m+.
Gundogan was an already mid-20s midfielder who hadn’t quite lived up to his early potential and who had already been passed over by Madrid, Bayern etc as pretty good but not absolute top class- not a young forward (with the ensuing premium) and imo still a potential global superstarSo we let Sane go too cheap but Gundogan was only cheap because he had a year left on his contract and just had a bad knee injury...
Plus Gundo’s injury was his second bad one iircGundogan was an already mid-20s midfielder who hadn’t quite lived up to his early potential and who had already been passed over by Madrid, Bayern etc as pretty good but not absolute top class- not a young forward (with the ensuing premium) and imo still a potential global superstar
Ignoring the Mangala/Nolito in the room....
Agree with that 100%. Fair enough.We pretty much got our money for Nolito and every team has their Mangala. I'll be happy with another Mangala if we sign another KDB, Sterling, Jesus etc.
Smack rat update: dibble have caught them trying another couple of cars round the corner, they’ve been at it all night apparently, coming round in a few minutes for a statement.Agree with that 100%. Fair enough.
While we’ve been arguing this toss I’ve quite literally just come back inside from chasing a couple of smackheads who tried to steal my neighbour’s car from out the front, so I suppose discussing the value for money obtained by a multi-billion pound organisation suddenly doesn’t feel so important in the grand scheme of things!
LMFAO.Begiristain is a mark, a rube. Clubs round Europe laugh in his face and add on 20m Euros.
For all his supposed contacts when has he ever signed a bargain? We paid top dollar for Kev, Mahrez, Walker, Stones etc
Gary fucking Cook was a better negotiator than this chancer
Normally when someone posts what appears to be a load of biased crap, I try to understand where they are coming from to see if there is any logic in that view.Sterling and Sane were absolute top dollar and perhaps even overpriced at the time. Young, inconsistent and unproven. We were mocked in some quarters.
I still think we let Sane go far too cheaply. Hazard went to Madrid for 100m in similar circumstances
Jesus hasn’t kicked on, isn’t anywhere near elite and in reality isn’t actually worth that much more than what we paid, though we could probably get a lot more purely down to Brazil caps.
Gundogan was cheap but had 12 months left and was recovering from a brutal knee injury. Didn’t kick a ball for us for several months after signing and sadly has never been the same player as he was beforehand.
Ederson fair enough, love the guy. But he was for a few weeks of a weak pound/Euro possibly the most expensive keeper in history.
Bernardo, again love the man to bits. But 1/1.5 decent seasons out of 3 isn’t conclusive evidence of a bargain, though tbf he has been played out of position by Pep this year.