Speculation The hysterical and annoying, but traditional, totally unfounded summer 2021 rumours thread

[Graz]

The club know what they are doing.

We choose if and when to sell a player. We only do it if we think it's the right thing for the development of the team.

Maddison is injury prone, inconsistent, and a problematic player to manage. The fact that he is open to the move tells me plenty about him on its own.

If we can raise enough to strengthen by replacing him and adding quality, e.g. Coutinho, Berardi and a CB, we should absolutely do it.

Maybe we believe that selling him will pull us further away from Arsenal.

Yes, I had a similar thought of would I sell Maddison if it got us Coutinho and Berardi in return.

It's a tough one. Coutinho would of course only be a loan though.

I think Maddison is a fantastic player. He's a bit inconsistent still but his injuries haven't helped with that. If those injury problems are something that will continue then yes cashing in for £60m to strengthen elsewhere would be worth doing.

But if that's the case, surely Arsenal would or will be aware of that too?

I get where you're coming from, but he's also only 24. If his injuries are sorted, he will only get better and more consistent.

We can't keep selling top players and expecting to improve. At some point that won't pay off. See Southampton.

Like I say, if we're selling to a team truly above us it's different. But don't sell to a team we need to get better than.

 

[City Fan]

They spent £73m on Pepe. **** selling him to them for £60m.

 

[pork pie fox]

It wouldn’t surprise me if a couple of the American owners of “Big 6” clubs spent a reasonable amount in the summer. They might see it as a way of trying to buy a bit of forgiveness from their fans.

Might not end up far from the truth?

 

[popillius]

The fact that a journalist has written that he is open to the move wirhout any real evidence or insight at all tells me absolutely nothing about him on its own but it does tell me that I'll believe anything that's written down.

Fixed it for you.

 

[popillius]

No one should be happy about selling Maddison. He's a fantastic player. Break the £70m barrier and I'll suck it up at least but I definitely won't be happy that we will, without any shadow of a doubt, have strengthened Arsenal, just as Kante massively strengthened Chelsea and just as Maguire massively strengthened Manchester United (despite some of the drivel spouted on here about him).

 

[Robin127]

...We can't keep selling top players and expecting to improve. At some point that won't pay off. See Southampton...

The Southampton situation is a bit more complicated than that. Two big things happened there that affected them considerably. Firstly their owner died, he was a huge football fan and had built the club up from their days in League One, he was succeeded by his daughter who had no real interest in the club. This led to their really forward thinking chairman, Nicola Cortese, to leave and their whole football and business model changed.

 

[big_mac4824]

The four Arsenal players quoted in the Sun are hardly inspiring, we should be telling them the price is 70 million in cash no part payment.

If Arsenal are serious they will find the readies I suspect they do not have a pot to piss in at the moment.

 

[Biffa Bacon]

No one should be happy about selling Maddison. He's a fantastic player. Break the £70m barrier and I'll suck it up at least but I definitely won't be happy that we will, without any shadow of a doubt, have strengthened Arsenal, just as Kante massively strengthened Chelsea and just as Maguire massively strengthened Manchester United (despite some of the drivel spouted on here about him).

The facts are he is a good player who seems to have a few injury niggles and to be good around the squad but nobody outside of the club really knows the full situation, if there are underlying reasons for BR to think that the money is a better option he may well be sold but Arsenal trying to talk down the price and throw in some players they don't want isn't really the model Leicester have been working. His argument with the Sun means that he'll feature in stings and bad press on a fairly regular basis.

 

[londonfox]

No one should be happy about selling Maddison. He's a fantastic player. Break the £70m barrier and I'll suck it up at least but I definitely won't be happy that we will, without any shadow of a doubt, have strengthened Arsenal, just as Kante massively strengthened Chelsea and just as Maguire massively strengthened Manchester United (despite some of the drivel spouted on here about him).

He is potentially a fantastic player. But the majority of the time he performs well below that level.

 

[DillyDing22]

No one should be happy about selling Maddison. He's a fantastic player. Break the £70m barrier and I'll suck it up at least but I definitely won't be happy that we will, without any shadow of a doubt, have strengthened Arsenal, just as Kante massively strengthened Chelsea and just as Maguire massively strengthened Manchester United (despite some of the drivel spouted on here about him).

I disagree. For me there is a clear ‘world class’ quality difference between Maddison and Kante/Maguire.
Maddison is a great player, but he is no way near the elite level of leading a side to greatness. I’m also in agreement that we can strengthen and pull away from teams like Arsenal (even if they have Maddison), if we use the money wisely which I trust we will do.

 

[M17TT C]

Without Maddison or a direct replacement for him ready to play straight away, we will probably be one of the least creative teams in the league with Barnes being the only player who can really spark something from nothing.

Just imagine starting the first game of the season with Perez in the 10 role and Albrighton wide right?

We'd have absolutely no chance of top 4 with a regular team with those 2 and probably struggle for top 8.

We need to keep Maddison and sign a quality right winger if we want to remain competitive at the top this year.

 

[big_mac4824]

I disagree. For me there is a clear ‘world class’ quality difference between Maddison and Kante/Maguire.
Maddison is a great player, but he is no way near the elite level of leading a side to greatness. I’m also in agreement that we can strengthen and pull away from teams like Arsenal (even if they have Maddison), if we use the money wisely which I trust we will do.

He is not there yet he has all the potential of becoming a class act for the club and his country, BR has a knack of getting the best out of players.
I think we should be keeping him unless they offer 80 million plus, there is always the worry we sell and it comes back to bite us in the arse.

 

[popillius]

I disagree. For me there is a clear ‘world class’ quality difference between Maddison and Kante/Maguire.
Maddison is a great player, but he is no way near the elite level of leading a side to greatness. I’m also in agreement that we can strengthen and pull away from teams like Arsenal (even if they have Maddison), if we use the money wisely which I trust we will do.

I didn't say that he was near their level. I said he would strengthen Arsenal massively. He would. There is no doubt about that whatsoever.

He is somewhat of a pantomime villain at times with some folk here. Let's be clear, he's a grade A dickhead most of the time off the pitch but he's fantastic on it. His stats are part of the evidence for this. All this talk about him being crap for most of the season is utter scrotum cheese.

 

[popillius]

He is potentially a fantastic player. But the majority of the time he performs well below that level.

Except, that's simply not true. At all.

 

[Brown Nose]

Without Maddison or a direct replacement for him ready to play straight away, we will probably be one of the least creative teams in the league with Barnes being the only player who can really spark something from nothing.

Just imagine starting the first game of the season with Perez in the 10 role and Albrighton wide right?

We'd have absolutely no chance of top 4 with a regular team with those 2 and probably struggle for top 8.

We need to keep Maddison and sign a quality right winger if we want to remain competitive at the top this year.

We were without Maddison for a lot of last season, and Barnes too. And we were one of the highest scoring teams in the league.

Albrighton had as many assists as Maddison in fewer minutes.

If there is something we really need to do better this year it's defending.

Aside from that, selling Maddison would enable us to sign at least two new creative players. Which we would of course do.

I don't care much whether we keep him or sell him. We'll be fine either way. If we do sell him, it will be because BR wants to.

 

[jb5000]

Looks like Grealish is going to Manchester for £100m. While I don't think Maddison is as good, he's much better than the comparative price of £60m

 

[Brown Nose]

Looks like Grealish is going to Manchester for £100m. While I don't think Maddison is as good, he's much better than the comparative price of £60m

Maddison is to Grealish what Lambrini is to a River Valley Chardonnay.

 

[Miles Away]

Maddison is to Grealish what Lambrini is to a River Valley Chardonnay.

I disagree with that. But mainly because I think Grealish is a wee bit overrated.

There’s not a huge amount of difference between the players.

All said, I’m with BN, the club will have a plan either way.

 

[Payne74]

If we do sell Maddison then I hope its soon so we can sign a replacement in this transfer window, as it would help the teams around us gain an advantage if we waited for next summer

 

[pork pie fox]

A lot of binary type chat in here, as normal.