Summer Silly Season Transfer Thread 2024

[Twig]

I really don't understand all the negativity about signing Berger for £20m + adds.  He's been stand out player for Sheff Utd when they finished 9th in the Prem (remember that?) and again when they were relegated & the same at Burnley. His stats are very good, he's a big powerful athlete, he has bags of international experience and is only 26. Plus he's rumoured to have been on Marco's radar in the past.
Seems a great signing to me. From the way some people talk you'd think we were Real Madrid or whatever.

[Twig]

Earlier in the window Utd were being told 30m Berge...Now were getting to the business end,  we've signed him later in the window for 20m with potential addons. Do that on multiple deals and you end up in significantly better position financially and able to put that money to use in various ways whilst avoiding ffp issues. The point about risk is saying you could push through deals like that earlier and pay the additional money...or evidently prices do tend to drop later in the window.

If their starting price was £30m in June I'm pretty sure they'd have accepted the £25m we're now paying back then. This deal has happened because we failed to sign Andre or McTominay, not because the asking price has come down.

In any case the bigger picture is, if we want to save money, why are we consistently going for established PL players aged 26-32, which is literally the most expensive (and lowest long-term upside/value) strategy imaginable?

That whole narrative doesn't stack up.

Anyway I'll leave it there before someone complains this thread is exclusively for Fabrizio Romano tweets.

But we're not paying £25m are we? We are paying £20m and the add ons will only be triggered by various success criteria.

[Super Mick]

I really don't understand all the negativity about signing Berger for £20m + adds.  He's been stand out player for Sheff Utd when they finished 9th in the Prem (remember that?) and again when they were relegated & the same at Burnley. His stats are very good, he's a big powerful athlete, he has bags of international experience and is only 26. Plus he's rumoured to have been on Marco's radar in the past.
Seems a great signing to me. From the way some people talk you'd think we were Real Madrid or whatever.

Real Madrid wish they were Fulham!

[General]

I really don't understand all the negativity about signing Berger for £20m + adds.  He's been stand out player for Sheff Utd when they finished 9th in the Prem (remember that?) and again when they were relegated & the same at Burnley. His stats are very good, he's a big powerful athlete, he has bags of international experience and is only 26. Plus he's rumoured to have been on Marco's radar in the past.
Seems a great signing to me. From the way some people talk you'd think we were Real Madrid or whatever.

Berge played 14 games the season Sheff Utd finished 9th (and no I didn't remember that as we were deeply entrenched in the championship at the time), but I googled it.

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/sander-berge/leistungsdaten/spieler/333014/plus/0?saison=2019

in those 14 games he played the full 90 just 5 times, Burnley's record in those games were 6 wins, 3 draws and 5 losses

[jayffc]

Earlier in the window Utd were being told 30m Berge...Now were getting to the business end,  we've signed him later in the window for 20m with potential addons. Do that on multiple deals and you end up in significantly better position financially and able to put that money to use in various ways whilst avoiding ffp issues. The point about risk is saying you could push through deals like that earlier and pay the additional money...or evidently prices do tend to drop later in the window.

If their starting price was £30m in June I'm pretty sure they'd have accepted the £25m we're now paying back then. This deal has happened because we failed to sign Andre or McTominay, not because the asking price has come down.

In any case the bigger picture is, if we want to save money, why are we consistently going for established PL players aged 26-32, which is literally the most expensive (and lowest long-term upside/value) strategy imaginable?

That whole narrative doesn't stack up.

Anyway I'll leave it there before someone complains this thread is exclusively for Fabrizio Romano tweets.

But we're not paying £25m are we? We are paying £20m and the add ons will only be triggered by various success criteria.

Indeed. They rejected an up-front bid of 20 from Utd and reportedly told them they wanted a deal worth 30m. That's all the info we have. Who knows what addons may have been in discussion or what else was spoken on.

Either way. It's also cheaper than what we've been told to pay for Scott (and I prefer Berge frankly much as I'd have been up for Scott had he wanted to come)...the player didn't seemingly appear all in on the project here either so on we go. We offered more money for Andre (£25m) they didn't go for it reportedly asking for £35m. that's deemed a risk too far at this stage (although feck knows if we'll go back into him) Marco and the board have been astute often in the last few years so if they look at those options and think this one makes the most sense with other transfers still to bring in, fair enough.

All I give a toss about ultimately now is the result...So over to Berge and Marco to show why he was brought in and why he's been on our target list for a while now.

[Bryanthebroom]

Remember seeing a documentary on Sheff Utd and Berge being shown around on his first day there etc. Seemed like a really nice guy/character too so very happy with the signing.

[jayffc]

I really don't understand all the negativity about signing Berger for £20m + adds.  He's been stand out player for Sheff Utd when they finished 9th in the Prem (remember that?) and again when they were relegated & the same at Burnley. His stats are very good, he's a big powerful athlete, he has bags of international experience and is only 26. Plus he's rumoured to have been on Marco's radar in the past.
Seems a great signing to me. From the way some people talk you'd think we were Real Madrid or whatever.

Berge played 14 games the season Sheff Utd finished 9th (and no I didn't remember that as we were deeply entrenched in the championship at the time), but I googled it.

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/sander-berge/leistungsdaten/spieler/333014/plus/0?saison=2019

in those 14 games he played the full 90 just 5 times, Burnley's record in those games were 6 wins, 3 draws and 5 losses

...for full context thats because he signed for them in January from Genk. Vast majority of those games he was a starter and played at least around 65mins or more.

[Roberty]

True, we could have signed Berge last year, but as we still had JP would he have come to us knowing that he would alway be second choice ?

We didn't get an offer for JP until the end of the window.

[Arthur]

The thing that gets me a bit bitter about Berge is that we are essentially paying £10 million more for him than he was available for last season and he hasn't really improved since.

Agreed, it just shows this entire narrative about it being shrewd to wait for the end of window and negotiate every deal to death is a load of tosh.

People rave about the "success" rate of our signings in the last couple of years but it's not hard when you're just buying established PL players.

I think he'll do a good job for us but the deal comes with zero upside. When we look back on Berge's career in a decade's time, you can guarantee the fee we paid for him will be his career high. Think that applies to 80% of our recent transfers and all the other 27-30 year old PL players we're linked with.

I don't see that the fee Burnley paid for Berge a year ago has any bearing as to whether it is shrewder to wait until late in the window to do business. If we'd been offered £20M for Muniz last summer, it's almost certain, in my opinion, we would have accepted it. This year, that figure isn't enough - be it early or late in the window.

Moreover, the upside to the Berge deal (as with any player) is, to my mind, more important than what his fee will be when he departs: will we be a better team with him in it and how much more so? Buying a player whose best seasons of his career are likely to be with you, yet who will ultimately be sold at a loss, isn't a bad thing per se. It depends upon how well the player does and the size of the eventual loss.

[Jim©]

our transfer strategy and any execution thereof look non-existent/woeful.

Sorry but a back 5 that included Leno (£4m) Tosin (£1.9m), Tete (£4m), Bassey (£18m) and Robinson (£1.8m) probably blows your theory out of the water. Even more so when you put into context Kilman £40m, Nathan Collins £27m etc etc etc

[FFC1987]

our transfer strategy and any execution thereof look non-existent/woeful.

Sorry but a back 4 that included Leno (£4m) Tosin (£1.9m), Tete (£4m), Bassey (£18m) and Robinson (£1.8m) probably blows your theory out of the water. Even more so when you put into context Kilman £40m, Nathan Collins £27m etc etc etc

Even looking at Berge for £20m.....Skipp went for £25+m supposedly.....so perhaps it is good value.

[jayffc]

The thing that gets me a bit bitter about Berge is that we are essentially paying £10 million more for him than he was available for last season and he hasn't really improved since.

Agreed, it just shows this entire narrative about it being shrewd to wait for the end of window and negotiate every deal to death is a load of tosh.

People rave about the "success" rate of our signings in the last couple of years but it's not hard when you're just buying established PL players.

I think he'll do a good job for us but the deal comes with zero upside. When we look back on Berge's career in a decade's time, you can guarantee the fee we paid for him will be his career high. Think that applies to 80% of our recent transfers and all the other 27-30 year old PL players we're linked with.

I don't see that the fee Burnley paid for Berge a year ago has any bearing as to whether it is shrewder to wait until late in the window to do business. If we'd been offered £20M for Muniz last summer, it's almost certain, in my opinion, we would have accepted it. This year, that figure isn't enough - be it early or late in the window.

Moreover, the upside to the Berge deal (as with any player) is, to my mind, more important than what his fee will be when he departs: will we be a better team with him in it and how much more so? Buying a player whose best seasons of his career are likely to be with you, yet who will ultimately be sold at a loss, isn't a bad thing per se. It depends upon how well the player does and the size of the eventual loss.

We also aren't just buying established prem players.
As well as the prem players we signed - we also brought in lots of players who weren't established in the prem including Cuenca, Palhinha, Muniz, Tete,Tosin,Robinson Bassey, Ballo Toure, Solomon, Lukic, Kurzawa, Andersen, Areola all who contributed well in their time here (bar perhaps Kurzuwa and too early to say on cuenca but signs good so far) - then you get into further arguments about Anguissa and that window and wether he was good for us (I think he was but under poor management) and of course the likes of Lookman who had some experience here but weren't established prem players. Another good player wasted under SP.

Now accept that we're not massively signing players from small world leagues all the time, but so far signing a mixture of these + prem experience has worked well enough to keep us in the league so no complaints here or attempts to undermine the success rate of signings.

Also no idea how one can guarantee the Berge deal comes with "zero upside". The points been made before but it's not only about profit on sales, how he performs here is a significant part of the upside...
One can predict that we might not get a major return on him, perhaps, but were in a market where this is the going rate for players like this. Oliver Skipp is younger but has been mostly rubbish and even he's gone for the same amount.

We signed Palhinha aged 26 (the exact same as Berge)  and he had plenty upside having sold him 2 years later so it's not out the question for a 26 year old to have upside if they perform well...all depends how well they do and how long they stick around for. And the upside again as you say is just as much about performing well and keeping us in the league and hopefully challenging higher, that's worth a lot of money in itself. We have other signings where we can reasonably hope to make significant profit if we so wanted to in the future (Robinson, ESR, Muniz, Bassey, Andreas, Stansfield? and some others)

[General]

our transfer strategy and any execution thereof look non-existent/woeful.

Sorry but a back 4 that included Leno (£4m) Tosin (£1.9m), Tete (£4m), Bassey (£18m) and Robinson (£1.8m) probably blows your theory out of the water. Even more so when you put into context Kilman £40m, Nathan Collins £27m etc etc etc

Think we've now officialy paid the full additional sum for Leno, so closer to £10m now? with add-ons.

[Beamer]

I have seen quite a bit of Berge and he is a gifted player but will need to massively up his work rate and involvement in the less glamorous side of the game if he is going to make an impact with us.
Tends to cruise around the pitch and come alive when there is a chance that something may be on but not noticeably keen on chasing back and getting back to cover.
Hopeful that MS will soon straighten him out.

[jayffc]

our transfer strategy and any execution thereof look non-existent/woeful.

Sorry but a back 4 that included Leno (£4m) Tosin (£1.9m), Tete (£4m), Bassey (£18m) and Robinson (£1.8m) probably blows your theory out of the water. Even more so when you put into context Kilman £40m, Nathan Collins £27m etc etc etc

Think we've now officialy paid the full additional sum for Leno, so closer to £10m now? with add-ons.

We signed him in a deal worth "up to 8m"
So still an absolute bargain even if that were the case and we hit all those markers but only paid them because he's been that good for us and helped establish us as a mid prem team.

[Somerset Fulham]

What is it with Arsenal and keepers?!

https://twitter.com/FabrizioRomano/status/1825642832369168767

[Super Mick]

Is our backup GK strong enough?

[Bassey the warrior]

I have seen quite a bit of Berge and he is a gifted player but will need to massively up his work rate and involvement in the less glamorous side of the game if he is going to make an impact with us.
Tends to cruise around the pitch and come alive when there is a chance that something may be on but not noticeably keen on chasing back and getting back to cover.
Hopeful that MS will soon straighten him out.

Flashes of Anguissa when he joined in that case, I trust Silva to straighten him out. ESR will also need to work on his defensive contribution.

[SerbianLad]

What is it with Arsenal and keepers?!

https://twitter.com/FabrizioRomano/status/1825642832369168767

Doesn't Chelsea have even more? Like 7 or 8? We should maybe try and get a goalkeeper from Chelsea or Arsenal on deadline day, as Benda didn't seem convincing in the limited time he got to play for us so far. An injury or suspension for Leno could be a huge problem potentially.

[Kingjay81]

I couldn't give a monkeys if in 5 years time we got nothing for Iwobi, ESR, Berge, Castagne but they had significant contributions in helping us continue to cement premier league status, cashing in the TV money and reinvesting in more established premier league players.

Of course it would be nice to buy the odd gem along the way. Who's to say that we won't sell Bassey or Cuenca, ESR or even Stansfield for £50m each in the next few years.