Summer Transfer Window 2017/18 - Rumours & Signings

Even in those 3 years Suarez's fee would be more than Lukaku's today. Without wanting to confuse certain people any more, you also need to look at a players age when valuing them too. Even at the same price, Suarez at 27 would be more expensive than a player who's just 24 years old. If for example you assume that any player would be past their best at around 33 years old, you're getting just 6 years out of Suarez compared to 9 years from Lukaku.

And no, Suarez wasn't running down his contract. He literally signed a new contract 6 months earlier.
 
Lukaku will be the 6th(?) signing by Mourinho at Utd and 4 of them will have been Raiola clients. It won't be anything like the Pogba deal but Utd have surely paid him a decent wedge to convince Lukaku to choose them over Chelsea. All the talk from the back end of last season was that Lukaku was set on a return to Chelsea and even when there were links to Utd, I personally always doubted them as I couldn't see Lukaku working with Mourinho after the lack of opportunities he got at Chelsea. It doesn't appear that Chelsea have had pulled out of the race so why the change of heart from Lukaku?
 
Robbo said:
I immediately thought Raiola. I assumed he was off to Chelsea for something like £100m so to get him for £75m seems good. Having said that, I'm sure there will be plenty of other expenses, but of all the available strikers he's probably the best. Maybe Morata would have been better, but it's a much bigger risk.

Not sure the deal is quite done yet though...
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Back page of tomorrow's Times is saying it's a £100m deal - possibly £75m rising to £100m? There's clearly a Railoa thing going on but then again, when you earn £40-50m from a transfer involving one club you're likely to do them favours in the future too.
Loki said:
Be interesting to see if Jose does go for another forward or starts with RL, Martial and Rashford as his three out and out number 9's. Would not be surprised if Zlatan comes back on a short-term deal once he is fit.
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If he can I'm sure he will do. I wouldn't be remotely surprised if Martial is sold but even if he stays, neither he or Rashford are Mourinho centre forwards and I'm sure he'd be far more comfortable playing them (Rashford at least) wide and having another striker as an alternative/cover for Lukaku.

I'm sure that in an ideal world you'd sign both a goalscoring wide player and another centre forward. As I said before, Lukaku will replace the goals Zlatan scored but Utd's problem wasn't a lack of goals from their centre forward but a lack of goals from midfield. If the stories are true and you do sign Matic or another DM, there's going to be an even greater burden on your wide players because however you line them up (in a 3 or 2 holding with Pogba as a number 10), Matic, Herrera and Pogba aren't going to score many goals.
 
majestyk said:
Lukaku couldn't get get a game under Mourinho at Chelsea, even though it was plainly obvious he was a natural shoe-in for a fading Drogba.
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Not entirely accurate. Drogba left Chelsea in 2012 and Mourinho actually brought him back the summer he sold Lukaku - they also signed Costa that summer though so it was more a battle for being 2nd choice. It was the season before that which was more damning - Lukaku was loaned out to Everton (having just had a very decent season with WBA) with Mourinho preferring Eto, Ba and Torres.
 
If you do indeed sign Matic (or another) and have him and Herrera in the side, there's an emphasis on Pogba to score more but I can't see him scoring the 15+ goals you'd like him to score from an advanced midfield role. It's just not part of his game - he likes to get on the ball and play rather than break into the box. I'm not sure who it was but I think someone on here said a midfield 3 of Matic, Herrera and Pogba was very well balanced but I disagree. It lacks goals. As a 3 you wouldn't be confident in betting that they'd score more than 15 goals between them.

For most managers, I think as soon as you sign a proper DM, Herrera would become a problem. He done well last season but his role was half defensive, half getting on the ball but as soon as you have Matic doing the defensive work and already have Pogba getting on the ball he's almost surplus to requirements. Mourinho won't mind having that little extra defensive cover by having Herrera alongside a Matic though but with Pogba not being a prolific goalscorer (as above he's not likely to score the 20 odd goals a Lampard did anyway) you really need your wide players scoring 30 odd goals between them.

You'd hope that Miki would score a few more than last season but you need at least another scoring decent numbers too. Despite the fact that I'm sure Mourinho will play him there, Rashford didn't look nearly as effective playing wide as he did centrally and there's question marks over the future of Martial and to an extent Mata (last season felt like a marriage of convenience than Mourinho wanting him).
 
Woodward's success has coincided with most Utd's signings coming from a pool of players represented by one particular agent. It will be interesting to know how much Utd have paid Raiola over the last year or so.
 
FrankJH said:
The money in the EPL is so gigantic, does it really matter?
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Of course it does. Everything is relative though and you have to look at how much he's been paid compared to what Utd can afford to pay - for instance if he's been paid £20m you might say that's ok but £200m wouldn't.

How much Raiola's earned was just a side point. The main point of my post was questioning how well Woodward's actually done in his job at negotiating these deals. I don't think it's too harsh to say that anyone of us could have offered Everton £75-90m for Lukaku and offer Raiola £x to persuade him to join Utd over Chelsea.

edit: Assuming tonight's stories are true and Chelsea have indeed matched Utd's offer but are refusing to pay Raiola what he's asking for, it will be interesting to see how this plays out. Again assuming it's true that Lukaku wanted to join Chelsea over Utd, it will be interesting to see just how influential agents are.
 
FrankJH said:
As long as its not coming out of an owner's (or family' s) pocket book - no it really doesnt matter in the slightest.
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Frank, you really do confuse the life out of me sometimes. Every penny the club spends is, effectively, coming out of their pocket. You really think a club run like Utd has been over these years aren't conscious of every single penny that gets spent? The Glazers are only willing to spend now because Utd's seat at the top of the table has come under threat. All those years when Taggart had Utd in the top few positions spending was kept well and truly under control.

They were happy to pay the reported £16m to Raiola for Pogba because they thought it was worth it - they wouldn't have paid 3 times that though and they wouldn't have paid that sort of amount when signing an inferior player either. So yes, it does matter.

cm1179 said:
lukaku's going to go to chelsea
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I wouldn't bet on it. These agents have a funny way of getting what they want and if Chelsea aren't going to pay up then you can guarantee that Raiola will be doing everything possible to push Lukaku to Utd.
 
FrankJH said:
It still comes out of that clubs turnover / earnings - not Glazers own private accounts (which would be illegala / FFP etc) , thats what Im talking about

As long as THE CLUB can afford to pay those fees - they are a business, and it should be able to choose whether they spend that £16m or whatever on an agent fee for the next hot player / or failure - or on new stands, or whatever else.
It shouldnt be up to anyone else apart from the board / family / owner.
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Jesus Frank. Again, you confuse the life out of me. It's so difficult to have a debate with you on things, you come out with the most random stuff.

You said how much a club pays an agent doesn't matter. You then said it doesn't matter unless it comes out of the owners pockets. Both points are nonsense. Man Utd have been run like a ruthless business for years and the Glazers count every single penny - they're only spending now because they need to re-establish Utd at the top of the table to protect their income. They still won't want to spend any more than they absolutely have to so again, yes it does matter.

And where the **** did I say it wasn't the board or owners decision? :confused:
 
If searching since the forum changes was easier I'd dig up the chat when Rooney signed this contract. I got slaughtered for saying it was madness and there was no way he'd age well.
 
The total value of the Lukaku deal (to Utd) is being reported as £100m. £75m up front with a further £15m in add-ons (easily attainable add-ons supposedly) plus Rooney, who's being valued at £10m. Who are they trying to kid with that Rooney value. I suspect he's being valued at that both to allow Everton to say they got their £100m valuation, so that Utd aren't being seen as having to give Rooney away but it's also beneficial to Everton in the short-term from a FFP point of view to record a larger profit on the sale of Lukaku.
 
Any pay-off Utd give Rooney won't be the add-ons Utd are to pay Everton. It's possible that the £10m valuation on Rooney is what Utd are paying him to leave (with Everton picking up the remaining £100k per week or so). A £15m pay off seems ott - that's effectively his entire wage for the last year of his deal. They may as well keep him if they're going to be paying his wages in full.
 
This Neves transfer reminds me a lot of Tevez and Mascherano signing for West Ham. Tevez and Masch ended up at West Ham because nobody was prepared sign them straight out of South America for the huge fees their owners were demanding. By sending them to West Ham it was almost a demonstration of their ability and proof that they could cut it in Europe. It worked too as both players got their moves and for the big money their owners wanted.

Neves has been touted about and linked with huge money moves to a top side for the past couple of years but nobody was willing to pay up for him. Sending him to Wolves works for everyone - Wolves get a top prospect for a relatively small fee, Neves is put in the shop window and Mendes has a chance of making a killing from a possible big money deal in a year or so's time.
 
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