Ivan Rakitić

SwedishFish said:
No thank you, past his best and he seems to be a real bellend judging from his comments about gay people.
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yeah i can't imagine United would want to take him on after that outburst. Evra said they have kind of disowned him since his outburst about PSG and Raketic's statement was a lot less open to interpretation. Given how Israel Folau's comments have been taken on twitter and how highly united prize social media engagement this seems like an unlikely move and a potential PR disaster.

Also he doesn't fit in with Solskjaer's desire for a young core of players.

All told we should avoid like the plague
 
Rozay said:
The ageism continues.

I’ve read about 5 times in this thread that ‘he’d be better than all our midfielders but he’s too old’. Why is the ‘but’ so important? The fact that he’d be the best (bar Pogba) is a pretty strong case for signing a player.
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Sure, let’s let players live off their name and make bucketloads of wages while destroying our wage structure.


...wasn’t Matic supposed to be better than most our midfielders, how about Schweinsteiger? Wasn’t Alexis supposed to be better than all our attackers? :boring:
 
So we didn't renew Ander and now we will pay 30m+ and probably higher wages than Ander for a player who will turn 32 in the next season.

Very nice.
 
Ole’s Wheel said:
Sure, let’s let players live off their name and make bucketloads of wages while destroying our wage structure.


...wasn’t Matic supposed to be better than most our midfielders, how about Schweinsteiger? Wasn’t Alexis supposed to be better than all our attackers? :boring:
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So are you saying that Rakitic is NOT actually better than all of our midfielders (bar Pogba), only his reputation suggests that he is?

The argument about wages is academic as we have not begun to discuss numbers, nor have I proposed any salary.

And Matic our best defensive midfielder. Immediately. Not in 5 years when he ‘reaches his peak’. He isn’t anymore, hence us looking to replace him. That was always the plan, he wasn’t being signed for 10 years. And Sanchez has just turned 29 a few weeks before we signed him. There was nothing wrong at all with signing him at that age, and the fact that he has failed is on him.

I can give you Robin Van Persie, Teddy Sheringham, Edwin Van Der Saar as counter arguments. I repeat, if you want to only sign 19 year olds you will fall short. Half of them won’t make it, and the half that do, will demand to leave when they do, on the basis that half their team is filled with the half that don’t, and won’t win shite.
 
RedStarUnited said:
So we didn't renew Ander and now we will pay 30m+ and probably higher wages than Ander for a player who will turn 32 in the next season.

Very nice.
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Is the fact that he’s a much better player than Ander Herrera totally irrelevant?
 
Danny Roberts said:
I wasn't joking. OK, maybe £10m was a slight exaggeration but using Matic as an example illustrates my point - Matic was a waste of money. I think if we're gonna take a risk the price has to be right and they won't sell at anywhere near the price I think we should pay. Maybe £15m.
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As I said. Rakitic is twice the player Matic is. Roughly same age and probably cheaper. No brainer. Were paying £15m for Daniel James ffs. Your wumming and I'm not falling for it
 
Pace Abuser said:
Yay another player coming to lose his legs on our pitch for obscene wages.
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A good point crudely and sarcastically made!

Brilliant player and if we could get him for a very low fee then maybe, but not bought as a final solution to our midfield problems. If we could get him as well as Rice and Neves that would be fine but we don't need another ageing star on massive wages.
 
I cannot believe everyone is saying 31 is too old. Fernandinho is still a force for man city at the age of 34.
 
I really hope this is not true. This will be a wrong move for so many reasons. He is 31 and is already declining. The reported fee of 55m euros is preposterous and he will also want a huge contract. He won't be able to handle the pace of EPL at this age. There are so many good options out there at a much younger age and cheaper cost as well.
 
I'll be honest, I don't think he's been that good for a while now and he's only going to continue going downward. He wouldn't be a good signing, people are taking his name into account too much again instead of him as an actual player, thinking along those lines lead us to Schweinsteiger/Matic et al.
 
AltiUn said:
I'll be honest, I don't think he's been that good for a while now and he's only going to continue going downward. He wouldn't be a good signing, people are taking his name into account too much again instead of him as an actual player, thinking along those lines lead us to Schweinsteiger/Matic et al.
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Our midfield currently is Fred, Matic, Mctominay, Pereira and Pogba.. Rakitic would be our best midfielder by a country mile. Hes 31 not 35. The fee would be around £30m if reports are true. That peanuts for a midfielder that'll give us 2 years minimum.

A loan fee these days is around £15m per season. At that price hes a bargain!!!
 
Suvvernmanc said:
Our midfield currently is Fred, Matic, Mctominay, Pereira and Pogba.. Rakitic would be our best midfielder by a country mile. Hes 31 not 35. The fee would be around £30m if reports are true. That peanuts for a midfielder that'll give us 2 years minimum.

A loan fee these days is around £15m per season. At that price hes a bargain!!!
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He wouldn't be out best midfielder. For all the flak he gets, Pogba on his day would be far and away our best midfielder especially considering the current incarnation of Rakitic. I don't like the idea that just because he's better than what we currently have then we should go for him, what we have is awful and there's plenty of players out there who would make improve us and offer us a lot more years of service than Rakitic.

Also, there's no guarantee we'd get two years minimum at all. We've been burned by transfers like this in the past, like I said, he's not as good as he used to be and he's not going to have a late career surge. I'd be disappointed if we signed him.

I surely can't be the only one who thinks £15m for a season-long loan is anything but a bargain, right? Plus, it actually says we're willing to go above £30m.
 
I'm not bothered by his age, we could still get three good seasons out of him. Just don't overpay on him.
I'd be more worried that he's only available because he's not the player he was. If he was still performing close to what he has been capable of, I don't think Barca would be willing to sell.
 
Waste of money on a 31 years old with no resale value and probably won't last more than 2 seasons in the competitive english league. Why not Bruno Fernandes instead ?
 
Reiver said:
I'm not bothered by his age, we could still get three good seasons out of him. Just don't overpay on him.
I'd be more worried that he's only available because he's not the player he was. If he was still performing close to what he has been capable of, I don't think Barca would be willing to sell.
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Is De Jong the same type of player?
 
Devils11 said:
Waste of money on a 31 years old with no resale value and probably won't last more than 2 seasons in the competitive english league. Why not Bruno Fernandes instead ?
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Why the hell should we be worrying about resale value?? We are bringing in what looks like a few young players. You need to get the balance right between youth and experience, our experience is young jones smalling matic - not good enough. He would be a great signing and leader for the kids coming in
 
ive watched barca alot and he is largely anonymous, one of those luxury players who is elegant on the ball but does little. He was better in with xavi and iniesta a few years back but then i'd look good alongside them two
 
berbasloth4 said:
Why the hell should we be worrying about resale value?? We are bringing in what looks like a few young players. You need to get the balance right between youth and experience, our experience is young jones smalling matic - not good enough. He would be a great signing and leader for the kids coming in
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Exactly, fans always go on about resale value when we couldn't give half our players away for free.
Feck resale we need better players full stop.
 
Don't see the point in buying castoffs from any of our big euro rivals. The only reason they would come here is because they aren't wanted elsewhere and for the cash. This is a pointless strategy as we have learnt to our peril.
 
RedCoffee said:
Don't see the point in buying castoffs from any of our big euro rivals. The only reason they would come here is because they aren't wanted elsewhere and for the cash. This is a pointless strategy as we have learnt to our peril.
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Are we a Barcelona rival. Historically yes. Now no chance, we are more likely a rival to Valencia and Sevilla and thats me being generous. They would probably take him if they could afford him.
 
AltiUn said:
He wouldn't be out best midfielder. For all the flak he gets, Pogba on his day would be far and away our best midfielder especially considering the current incarnation of Rakitic. I don't like the idea that just because he's better than what we currently have then we should go for him, what we have is awful and there's plenty of players out there who would make improve us and offer us a lot more years of service than Rakitic.

Also, there's no guarantee we'd get two years minimum at all. We've been burned by transfers like this in the past, like I said, he's not as good as he used to be and he's not going to have a late career surge. I'd be disappointed if we signed him.

I surely can't be the only one who thinks £15m for a season-long loan is anything but a bargain, right? Plus, it actually says we're willing to go above £30m.
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Pogba on his day? When was his last good day? City away last season? 10 ish games after Jose got sacked? Pogba needs better players around him to give him the free role he craves. Hes got Matic and Mctominay at the moment. For France hes got Kante and Matuidi. Same thing for Juve.

Rakitic has been playing in nearly every game for Barcelona because hes pivotal to their possession game. He played a worldy tournament for Croatia in the summer too so beg to differ on him being a dud this season, hes not been his usual world class self for barca but is still 100% better than Pogba.

It is fairly difficult to compare Pogba and Rakitic though as they are such different types of midfielders. Rakitic alongside a #6 destroyer or a possession type midfielder is where the best of Rakitic comes out. I get that we dont have that at the moment, and him coming in would only please me if we replaced Matic with a Neves or Ndidi type player.

I said I thought Rakitic would gives us a minimum of 2 years. This implies he could well give us more. Most reports are that Barca want €55m (£48m) but we want It down to around £30m. I'm saying it would be a good deal at that figure and I stand by that.

The underrating of Rakitic on here when we were 6th place this season, and we have the worst midfield for a very long time.

We need a couple of midfielders and if we keep Pogba, bring in a Matic replacement and get Rakitic in, from a tactical point of view, we could keep possession much better and have creativity from more than just 1 midfield player.
 
Looks like he is starting to decline and that’s why he’s for sale.

Don’t think we should be buying players we will have to start replacing 1-2 years later, we have enough players to replace already.
 
GBBQ said:
yeah i can't imagine United would want to take him on after that outburst. Evra said they have kind of disowned him since his outburst about PSG and Raketic's statement was a lot less open to interpretation. Given how Israel Folau's comments have been taken on twitter and how highly united prize social media engagement this seems like an unlikely move and a potential PR disaster.

Also he doesn't fit in with Solskjaer's desire for a young core of players.

All told we should avoid like the plague
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The comments he made was back in 2012 when he played for Sevilla. I find it strange that they are only re-surfacing now again when Barca are looking rid of him. I also find it strange that Barca are some sort of moral crusaders who would be outraged by his comments, they'd no issue buying Suarez after his Evra comments. In fairness to Rakitic in 2014 he claimed his comments were a misunderstanding "I'm open to sharing a dressing room with anyone who is a good person and a good player, and sexual orientation is not important to me". Whether his original statement was taken out of context, whether his subsequent clarification is genuine, I don't know, but it's a risky business digging out old quotes footballers made
 
Adam-Utd said:
He’s done a interview recently saying he wants to stay at Barca.

Personally I think this is just agent noise.
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His last words and they appeared in today's paper in Croatia.

Translation:

'I have 3 more years of contract here in Barcelona and this is the place where I want to be, where I am happy and my family is happy'
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I actually do think that Barca would like to sell as they need money for De Ligt and Griezmann, but he is now more than 8 years in Spain and well settled with his family (wife is from Sevilla and 2 daughters also born and raised in Spain). If anything I can see him going back to Sevilla or some other Spanish club for the last contract.

But, most of all, I don't think it is best idea to sign a 31-year old who probably wouldn't want to be here and won't see it as a major challenge, instead coming because Barcelona pushed him out and we put a lot of money. Roy Keane said in his book to never sign a player who will see your club as a step down in his career. Couldn't agree more with that.

There are certainly better options out there.
 
Jim Beam said:
His last words and they appeared in today's paper in Croatia.

Translation:



I actually do think that Barca would like to sell as they need money for De Ligt and Griezmann, but he is now more than 8 years in Spain and well settled with his family (wife is from Sevilla and 2 daughters also born and raised in Spain). If anything I can see him going back to Sevilla or some other Spanish club for the last contract.

But, most of all, I don't think it is best idea to sign a 31-year old who probably wouldn't want to be here and won't see it as a major challenge, instead coming because Barcelona pushed him out and we put a lot of money. Roy Keane said in his book to never sign a player who will see your club as a step down in his career. Couldn't agree more with that.

There are certainly better options out there.
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Exactly. Same reason why I wouldn't sign Bale either.

Signing players like this (Schweinsteiger/Di Maria etc) are exactly the type we've made mistakes with before. We should have got Rakitic at Sevilla, but now that's gone.

Unless we can sign him for extremely cheap and he proves he'd love to play for us, i'd rather go for people like Longstaff/Partey etc.
 
I would have taken him back when he moved from Sevilla, but he is not what we need and I do not believe his heart would be in it if we did buy him. We need players who want to be here and are ready to fight and scrap to get us back to the top. Excellent player, wrong timing I'm afraid.
 
Is this supposed change is transfer strategy not to go youthful and energetic? Rakitic is a good player but suggested cost is way over the odds, plus I dont want to line Barcelona's pockets.

This is the biggest problem with our club, there is no set in stone ethos or transfer policy with long term thinking behind it. The way Ole talks he wants a team that can grow together in to something special, going for a player you will likely have to replace in 2 years isn't exactly backing up this claim. However i do agree you need some experience in the side and preferably known winners but for this position id rather go for some one younger to counter Matic & Mata who's best days are behind them.
 
hardly wrong timing, he is a model professional. You need to realise we aren't on par with Barcelona now we have to climb back to that. He would be a perfect signing the way he works would be inspirational to those around him.
 
Jim Beam said:
His last words and they appeared in today's paper in Croatia.

Translation:



I actually do think that Barca would like to sell as they need money for De Ligt and Griezmann, but he is now more than 8 years in Spain and well settled with his family (wife is from Sevilla and 2 daughters also born and raised in Spain). If anything I can see him going back to Sevilla or some other Spanish club for the last contract.

But, most of all, I don't think it is best idea to sign a 31-year old who probably wouldn't want to be here and won't see it as a major challenge, instead coming because Barcelona pushed him out and we put a lot of money. Roy Keane said in his book to never sign a player who will see your club as a step down in his career. Couldn't agree more with that.

There are certainly better options out there.
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Good post Jim.
 
Honestly not bothered by the age, he has been very average whenever I've seen him play, which is not a lot btw.
 
berbasloth4 said:
Why the hell should we be worrying about resale value?? We are bringing in what looks like a few young players. You need to get the balance right between youth and experience, our experience is young jones smalling matic - not good enough. He would be a great signing and leader for the kids coming in
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How are you so certain he will be a great signing? So what happen if he doesn't adapt to our league ? Remember Bastian Schweinsteiger ? There is none more experienced than him.... Germany Captain, World Cup winner.

I don't mind buying Rakitic, but there is certainly better options out there.
 
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I'd rather we went for someone like Tielemans. He'd be a similar price according to what I've seen and would probably actually want to come here.
 
berbasloth4 said:
Why the hell should we be worrying about resale value?? We are bringing in what looks like a few young players. You need to get the balance right between youth and experience, our experience is young jones smalling matic - not good enough. He would be a great signing and leader for the kids coming in
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Because if they flop you better have someone willing to buy them. This must be a thing at man united olny because it seems the other elite clubs do care
 
flappyjay said:
Because if they flop you better have someone willing to buy them. This must be a thing at man united olny because it seems the other elite clubs do care
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sure if you bring in a younger player on which would most likely be on a longer contract and they flop then your stuck with one for longer..
 
berbasloth4 said:
sure if you bring in a younger player on which would most likely be on a longer contract and they flop then your stuck with one for longer..
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Their easier to sell off and recoup a good amount of what you spent. See Memphis and Schneiderlin.
 
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