08-28-2020, 04:46 PM
(08-28-2020, 04:12 PM)Tom Joad Wrote: That's a really good point about Lukaku and probably the first sign of the writing on the wall. Mourinho wanted him off the books as he didn't buy him, we needed a striker, and the player's value was only ever going to go up. We missed the obvious chance of turning a profit and signed 2nd rate instead. Now, I don't know if Diangana will make it at the highest level, I don't know if West Ham would sell and I don't know if he'd get a better offer elsewhere. I am certain though, we'd be very unlikely to lose money on him and we desperately need numbers for the first 11.
The issue with that logic is that we don’t know if his value will go up, and we don’t know if the market will deflate.
Lukaku had just scored 18 PL goals, and was clearly a quality player... we didn’t want to take the risk when he would have stayed, and Chelsea would have sold if they could recoup the £12m or so they’d paid. The market was also on an upward spiral with average players suddenly costing millions of pounds.
As it stands only clubs at the very top table have any money, and if Diangana doesn’t become a top PL player we’d be unlikely to sell him for more than £10-20m. If we could get him for £5-6m, we wouldn’t lose, as he’s proven himself to be an excellent Championship player, but he’s unproven in the PL, and the money WHU want makes it too risky.