Philippe Coutinho

[Furious]

Look who talking about agenda merchant

Of course you're an agenda merchant, you're even on the payroll.

Now answer why you were crying about Sokratis' wages and now money doesn't matter?

 

[#254]

Magic

Yeah. He's really intelligent and knows where the goal is. Still, if it's a buy only option I'd want us to add the dough it takes to get Harvetz even if we pay over the odds.

 

[Rex Stone]

No surprises to find @GDeep™ and @Hunta crying in here, joyless bastard *****

@Hunta

 

[DanDare]

Feels like this is another one of these transfers trying to kid ourselves that we're still one of the big boys

If we sign him I hope he's really effective, would he play behind the striker?

 

[HairSprayGooners]

Feels like this is another one of these transfers trying to kid ourselves that we're still one of the big boys

If we sign him I hope he's really effective, would he play behind the striker?

If we play 4231 he'd work well as the central CAM. In a 433 he could work as one of the advanced CM's as long as we have Partey in there as well for the legs. In a 343 he'd work nicely with Auba and Pepe in the front 3 as the wing backs provide the width.

In my opinion anyway. Depends which way Arteta wants to go with it.

 

[14Henry]

What’s that got to do with anything? None of us has paid for any of the transfer fees or wages of our current or previous players, the amount invested still matters.

The more I think about it, the less sense it makes.. You are investing 15-20m in Coutinho, an investment that will be gone in a year.. Let’s say we instead went for Buendia for a similar fee or bit more.. If Buendia flops you can recoup the money, If Coutinho flops you ended up wasting it with nothing in return.. If Buendia is a success you have a great player for several years or you’ll sell him for great profit. If Coutinho is a success you still lose him after a year, so the only way this is beneficial for us is if he can help us get insant results (cl football). Is he good enough for that?

Buendia is just an example, could be any of the other players mentioned in that range or someone they’ve scouted.. Point is short term deals like this just doesn’t seem like a smart idea.

Have to agree with this. Paying 10-20m for a season loan is ridiculous. Plus wages. You either think the signing is worth doing permanently or you look elsewhere.

You want players to come into the club and buy into the project. Not just to come because they arent wanted at Barca and Bayern.

 

[Goonger]

Have to agree with this. Paying 10-20m for a season loan is ridiculous. Plus wages. You either think the signing is worth doing permanently or you look elsewhere.

You want players to come into the club and buy into the project. Not just to come because they arent wanted at Barca and Bayern.

Like Ceballos & Real? Can't it be a mix of both anyway?

 

[Sebastes]

Why does including wages make sense for a loan when we never include it in permanent transfers. If the cost for Coutinho would be around EUR 19.75m the we need to talk about Pepe as an asset that costs EUR 110m over five years and Aubameyang one that costs 110m over four years. All excluding agent fee’s.

Winds me up, this

 

[Camron]

Why does including wages make sense for a loan when we never include it in permanent transfers. If the cost for Coutinho would be around EUR 19.75m the we need to talk about Pepe as an asset that costs EUR 110m over five years and Aubameyang one that costs 110m over four years. All excluding agent fee’s.

Winds me up, this

That's the objective.

 

[14Henry]

Like Ceballos & Real? Can't it be a mix of both anyway?

With younger players yes. But if a team is loaning a 28 year old who was one of their biggest signings it's clear Barca dont rate him, that Bayern havent seen enough to warrant paying anything substantial for and now Barcas only way to get some money back is hoping someone over pays on a loan deal and covers his wages.

I dont see the point dropping 20m (fee and wages) on him when we could actually sign someone like Buendia for a little more. Hes only 23, PL proven and has probably another level or 2 to go up.

To pay all that money for Coutinho and maybe he get injured for 3 months when are we getting any return for our "investment"?

 

[HairSprayGooners]

With younger players yes. But if a team is loaning a 28 year old who was one of their biggest signings it's clear Barca dont rate him, that Bayern havent seen enough to warrant paying anything substantial for and now Barcas only way to get some money back is hoping someone over pays on a loan deal and covers his wages.

Barca don't rate him, doesn't make him a poor player. If Ousmane Dembele was coming here you'd probably be all over it, but Barca don't rate him either.

Bayern haven't seen enough to warrant spending £70M+ and rightly so. He isn't worth that. Remember Barca spent 140-160M on this guy, ridiculous amount of money.

In todays market Coutinho is a £40-50M player, just because he hasn't had Neymar esque seasons doesn't mean he's not worth a 15M loan fee with option to buy for a reason.

We came 8th if Coutinho want's to come you sign him.

 

[14Henry]

Barca don't rate him, doesn't make him a poor player. If Ousmane Dembele was coming here you'd probably be all over it, but Barca don't rate him either.

Bayern haven't seen enough to warrant spending £70M+ and rightly so. He isn't worth that. Remember Barca spent 140-160M on this guy, ridiculous amount of money.

In todays market Coutinho is a £40-50M player, just because he hasn't had Neymar esque seasons doesn't mean he's not worth a 15M loan fee with option to buy for a reason.

We came 8th if Coutinho want's to come you sign him.

Na not for me. This is a club that needs to build something relatively long term 3-5 years and I dont think spending 15m plus on Coutinho for 9 months of football is worth it. One injury pisses your money away.

Would he make our team better yes. But for me we have wasted so much money with short term thinking and opportunist signings over the last 5 years I think it's better to go another direction.

 

[blrgooner]

I don`t understand people saying no to Coutinho. He is way better than what we have and way better than other creative players we can attempt to get with a restricted budget. He can definitely play for us in multiple positions and has technical abilities which will help us keep the ball in the midfield. This will ensure that we can get players like Auba and Pepe involved closer to the opposition goals(at least against midtable teams).

Of course he is not good enough for Barca. That fact is completely irrelevent because we have only one player in our squad who is good enough for Barca though and thats Auba.

 

[Rex Stone]

Barca don't rate him, doesn't make him a poor player. If Ousmane Dembele was coming here you'd probably be all over it, but Barca don't rate him either.

Bayern haven't seen enough to warrant spending £70M+ and rightly so. He isn't worth that. Remember Barca spent 140-160M on this guy, ridiculous amount of money.

In todays market Coutinho is a £40-50M player, just because he hasn't had Neymar esque seasons doesn't mean he's not worth a 15M loan fee with option to buy for a reason.

We came 8th if Coutinho want's to come you sign him.

Tbf they do rate Dembele, he’s just constantly injured. It’s telling that they’ve shut down any attempt to sign him in the last few years.

Far superior player even with his problems.

 

[Hunta]

No surprises to find @GDeep™ and @Hunta crying in here, joyless bastard *****

 

[Hunta]

@Hunta

Jordi Lamanga having a pop.

Like Isaac Cuenca talking up to Xavi and Iniesta ffs.

 

[HairSprayGooners]

Na not for me. This is a club that needs to build something relatively long term 3-5 years and I dont think spending 15m plus on Coutinho for 9 months of football is worth it. One injury pisses your money away.

Would he make our team better yes. But for me we have wasted so much money with short term thinking and opportunist signings over the last 5 years I think it's better to go another direction.

Look at the bigger picture though. Coutinho is 28, a loan with option to buy set at say 30-40M, for me, is very fair and could be part of the rebuild for a few years if it works out. What if we sign Buendia for £20M and it doesn't work? Stuck with another player that failed here. Coutinho? £15M loan, if it doesn't work you don't buy him. Pretty simple.

By 2022 we'll have £50M off the wage bill and that's not including other sales such as Holding and Torreira etc. So in the long haul wages aren't an issue plus Coutinho could take a wage cut to be here.

 

[Sebastes]

That's the objective.

Yeah, I guess what really triggers me is that there are “fans” who actually don’t even have an opinion and just go about whining or trying to be right about something they obv know very little about. I guess they are sometimes right, but rarely.

 

[14Henry]

I don`t understand people saying no to Coutinho. He is way better than what we have and way better than other creative players we can attempt to get with a restricted budget. He can definitely play for us in multiple positions and has technical abilities which will help us keep the ball in the midfield. This will ensure that we can get players like Auba and Pepe involved closer to the opposition goals(at least against midtable teams).

Of course he is not good enough for Barca. That fact is completely irrelevent because we have only one player in our squad who is good enough for Barca though and thats Auba.

We arent saying straight up no. We are saying no under particular circumstances.

Firstly we need a CB and a CM with defensive awareness first. Quality. Not 15-20m bargain basement. Ready made players to walk straight into the first team.

After that if the club have a few quid left and want to take a chance on Coutinho and the arrangement and deal is reasonable no problem.

What we dont want is paying 10m fee and 150k a week wages for a player who will be with us for 9 months. Who probably wont buy into everything Arteta says as he sees this as temporary.

You also have to factor in that if Ceballos stays on loan with no obligation to buy the middle of our team wont be here in 12 months so again we are going to have the same problems 1 year from now needing new players in those positions.

Lastly to get the best out of Coutinho you have to play 4 2 3 1 with him occupying the number 10ish role. Coutinho is not a wide player.

Which means you need 2 defensive minding midfielders to let the front 4 do their thing.

 

[HairSprayGooners]

We arent saying straight up no. We are saying no under particular circumstances.

Firstly we need a CB and a CM with defensive awareness first. Quality. Not 15-20m bargain basement. Ready made players to walk straight into the first team.

After that if the club have a few quid left and want to take a chance on Coutinho and the arrangement and deal is reasonable no problem.

What we dont want is paying 10m fee and 150k a week wages for a player who will be with us for 9 months. Who probably wont buy into everything Arteta says as he sees this as temporary.

You also have to factor in that if Ceballos stays on loan with no obligation to buy the middle of our team wont be here in 12 months so again we are going to have the same problems 1 year from now needing new players in those positions.

That's better than spending 20-30M on players that may or may not work who could flop.