Zenith wrote:A wise man would;
-
Tell Mourinho and United to f**k off and sell to City for £20m- Pass on Mkhi, who at age 29 is yet to show he can be consistent in England
- Use the £65m we've made from sales (this season alone) to bring in Malcom (£45m) and Aubameyang (£60m)
Our 2017-18 net spend would still only be £40m. Over £30m less than Everton's ffs.
You don't want to end up having to replace all three of Aubameyang, Özil, Alexis and Mkhi within a space of 2-3 years.
Alexis
→ negligible resale value in comparison to what he is worth
Özil
→ no resale value should he decide not to extend
Aubameyang, Mkhitaryan
→ both turn 30 in 2019, resale value will drop as their 3-year-contract would also enter its last year
Therefore go for a proven striker in Aubameyang and an elite talent like Malcom who still has 10 years left to become even better than he already is.
While I agree, I reckon the disagreement between City and Arsenal stems from Alexis' wage demands. In the summer, Bayern were ready to pay £40-45m but wouldn't pay Alexis higher than what Muller and Lewandowski were getting. Then, City and Alexis/Arsenal agreed on a deal on deadline day worth probably £250k a week. Since then I don't know what changed but Alexis' wage demands went higher up - as Alexis and his agent realized that City wouldn't have to stump out £60m for him anymore.
In all of this, United barged in with a staggering offer. There's no way City would make Alexis probably the second highest paid footballer in European football.
The only way we could stop Alexis from joining United is to refuse to sell him. How wise would that be? Barring an injury, Alexis is sure to join one of City or United (most likely United because of wages) in the summer regardless.
As long as we get Aubameyang, I'm okay with the Alexis-Mkhi swap. Condition:
as long as we get Auba.
As for Malcom, yes, we shouldn't let such a talent slip. I believe Bordeaux are asking for £35-40m. We could easily afford that. Worst case scenario, we could loan him back to Bordeaux until the end of the season, or use Iwobi as part of a makeweight.
We're terrible at identifying and recruiting young talents these days. If Malcom is really the next superstar, we could be looking at 4 years of world-class football at Arsenal before Real/Barca buy him for what'd probably be the highest rate at that time.