Man Utd interested in Witsel? | Fergie rumoured to have watched him v Chelsea

Arruda said:
Official as well, 40 million euros. So Zenit just spent close to 90 million euros in two players from the Portuguese league.

Well, at least it's good for the Portuguese balance of trade.
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Holy crap, I just had a look at Benfica's outgoing transfers in recent years:

Coentrao €30m
Di Maria €36m
Luiz €25m
Garcia €20m
Witsel €40m
Ramires €22m

€173m for six players who cost less than €30m when signed I think. Wow.

And Porto:

Hulk €55m
Pereira €10m
Guarin €11m
Falcao €47m
Meireles €13m
Bruno Alves €22m
Cissokho €16m
Lopez €24m
Lucho Gonzalez €19m

€217m for 9 players.

So a total of €390m for 15 players from Portugal in three years. Once again, holy crap.
 
Amazing, isn't it? Specially when you consider that none of them is setting the world a light, apart from Falcao.
 
Arruda said:
Amazing, isn't it? Specially when you consider that none of them is setting the world a light, apart from Falcao.
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Indeed. Di Maria has done well for Madrid but he wasn't worth €36m when they signed him, Coentrao isn't even close to being a €30m player and Luiz is hardly a €25m defenders. Lopez, Gonzalez and Alves were overpriced as well.

Portuguese clubs probably rely heavily on that money, don't they? I don't think TV rights will bring much money in the league, attendances must be high but do they generate big income?
 
Sarni said:
Indeed. Di Maria has done well for Madrid but he wasn't worth €36m when they signed him, Coentrao isn't even close to being a €30m player and Luiz is hardly a €25m defenders. Lopez, Gonzalez and Alves were overpriced as well.

Portuguese clubs probably rely heavily on that money, don't they? I don't think TV rights will bring much money in the league, attendances must be high but do they generate big income?
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We are completely dependent on this money. Our TV rights are about €20m per season. Match-day income is low as well, commercial income not much either.

It's a dangerous situation to be on, if we have a couple of bad seasons transfer wise we may be in deep trouble. That said, it's the only way to remain competitive Europe wise. Such a small country, yet we're one of the top 10 teams in Europe in the past decade.

If you're really interested this article is a nice read about the way our club is managed, despite being 2 years old. Long, but interesting IMO.

http://swissramble.blogspot.pt/2010/12/portos-buy-low-sell-high-strategy.html

It's summed up in this table though. Look how we would be losing about €30m per season (half our turnover) if it weren't for player sales.

3%2BPorto%2BProfit.jpg
 
decorativeed said:
But he's been looking good since 2008 when he, Defour and Fellaini played so well against Everton and Liverpool in the UEFA Cup and all the way up until last year when he was available very cheaply. Surely if we wanted him, we'd have stumped up £8m in 2011, rather than wait for him to sign a contract with a 40m Euro release clause?

It was never going to happen.
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At the time we were far less in need of a CM than we are now and sometimes it pays to see if a player can hold consistency with the form that initially impresses as a youngster, although not buying him last year suggests he was a peripheral choice, however after this summer there is very little left to choose from.
 
Devil may care said:
At the time we were far less in need of a CM than we are now and sometimes it pays to see if a player can hold consistency with the form that initially impresses as a youngster, although not buying him last year suggests he was a peripheral choice, however after this summer there is very little left to choose from.
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We were even more in need of a CM in 2011 than we are right now because we didn't have Scholes and we weren't sure how good Cleverley was going to be. Scholes has come back since and Cleverley has done reasonably well for us.
 
Sarni said:
We were even more in need of a CM in 2011 than we are right now because we didn't have Scholes and we weren't sure how good Cleverley was going to be. Scholes has come back since and Cleverley has done reasonably well for us.
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That's true, he hadn't played outside of Belgium then though had he?
 
Sarni said:
Holy crap, I just had a look at Benfica's outgoing transfers in recent years:

Coentrao €30m
Di Maria €36m
Luiz €25m
Garcia €20m
Witsel €40m
Ramires €22m

€173m for six players who cost less than €30m when signed I think. Wow.

And Porto:

Hulk €55m
Pereira €10m
Guarin €11m
Falcao €47m
Meireles €13m
Bruno Alves €22m
Cissokho €16m
Lopez €24m
Lucho Gonzalez €19m

€217m for 9 players.

So a total of €390m for 15 players from Portugal in three years. Once again, holy crap.
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Insane
 
Plenty of non-EU players will go through Portugal first as thy would have no hope of getting a work permit to play in the Premiership.
 
Devil may care said:
That's true, he hadn't played outside of Belgium then though had he?
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It's not important. Smalling had only played two games for Fulham before we bought him and Hernandez didn't play outside Mexico. Then you have players like Diouf, Bebe and Manucho who were brought from even weaker leagues than Belgium. Witsel had numerous good performances in Europe and NT.
 
The Belgian league seems like a good place to develop though. Most of the players who have been touted as class players from there have shown that same potential in the clubs they have now signed for.
 
Successful said:
Feel sorry for a lot of kids these days who have to suffer with these shit clubs that only happen to sit on a lot of money and take the stars away from the highlights. To them it's normal that a world class player can play in just about anywhere in the world in their prime - not saying that Witsel is a world class act but there are lots of examples at present.

Honestly I don't understand these players. By this you said goodbye to becoming a known name in the history of football. It's like becoming a vice president of a fecking toilet cleaning job. The worst part is the fans though. You can see kids with the PSG logo as they comment on articles like the one I read today about Ronaldo leaving Madrid. They are loving the idea of him playing there just because they need to see transfers - these constant fecking transfers. feck off and die in agony you piece of shit.
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take it easy man :lol:
 
I wonder if Ronaldo's fee when he joined Madrid has any effect on the fees on players coming from Portugal now.
 
Suedesi said:
I don't know what the feck people see in Moutinho
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He's a good creative midfielder and he's available, not many of them around. He'll likely cost €25m+ when he finally moves to a stronger club, mind you they paid €11m to bring him in the first place so he wasn't exactly cheap for a club like Porto.

I just realised they paid €5.5m initially for 50% of Hulk rights and then €13.5m for another 35% two years later so he cost them €19m. They received 85% of the €40m fee that Zenit paid so €34m. While that it's still a huge profit, I thought he cost something like €4m and moved for €50m which would have been three times more than real profit.

For Falcao they paid €4m initially and then €6.8m in comission to extend his contract. They sold him for €40m that could and probably have raised to €47m.
 
That's incorrect Sarni, we received €40m for the 85%, with Zenit paying all other expenses. They ended up paying almost €60m in total (the other 15% for the fund that owned it, the agent commissions, FIFA solidarity fund, etc), which makes it the 6th highest transfer ever if I'm not mistaken.

On top of that I think Hulk received a 10 million signing bonus. Zenit may well have spent more than 100 million euros yesterday.
 
Kid Cunto said:
I wonder if Ronaldo's fee when he joined Madrid has any effect on the fees on players coming from Portugal now.
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Unlikely, the fees started growing after Porto won the Champions League, and the coming of Sugar Daddies to football.

Porto%2BTransfers%2Bv2.jpg
 
Sarni said:
He's a good creative midfielder and he's available, not many of them around. He'll likely cost €25m+ when he finally moves to a stronger club, mind you they paid €11m to bring him in the first place so he wasn't exactly cheap for a club like Porto.
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Don't quite see it. He's not that good. I'd rather shop in Spain or Italy with those figures in mind.
 
Arruda said:
That's incorrect Sarni, we received €40m for the 85%, with Zenit paying all other expenses. They ended up paying almost €60m in total (the other 15% for the fund that owned it, the agent commissions, FIFA solidarity fund, etc), which makes it the 6th highest transfer ever if I'm not mistaken.

On top of that I think Hulk received a 10 million signing bonus. Zenit may well have spent more than 100 million euros yesterday.
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Oh, I see. Then it's a tidy profit of €20m+ for you.

Hulk will earn good money there but I still think he was unlucky that a stronger club didn't come in for him. Then again there's not much difference between playing for Zenit and for example PSG - both play in decent but not great leagues, both pay very good money, both have good squads and both are located in beautiful cities where you'll enjoy your life with this kind of money.
 
Suedesi said:
Don't quite see it. He's not that good. I'd rather shop in Spain or Italy with those figures in mind.
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Italian players don't like to leave the country and top clubs tend to buy all the big talent.

As for Spain, I don't see many midfielders outside top 2 that would be at Moutinho's level. Mind you I've not watched much of that league and when you see Swansea pick Michu for €2m then you have to wonder how big talent you can get over there for decent money.
 
Sarni said:
It's not important. Smalling had only played two games for Fulham before we bought him and Hernandez didn't play outside Mexico. Then you have players like Diouf, Bebe and Manucho who were brought from even weaker leagues than Belgium. Witsel had numerous good performances in Europe and NT.
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Can't argue with that at all, I dunno, just can't understand our complete lack of interest in CM's.
 
24 million for Van Persie


-------------------------
15 million for Jack Rodwell
15 million for Jordan Henderson
35 million for Andy Carroll
40 million for Axel Witsel




I know which I'd rather!
 
NoLogo said:
Pretty insane but the 52 mio. for Hulk is just as ludicrous.

It's no wonder we have such a hard time getting a decent midfielder if the likes of Witsel cost 40 mio.
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not saying Hulk's fee is justified, but atleast he's a somewhat proven star, at the very least he did have a great carreer at Porto, and although the fee really was too high it doesn't take away the fact that he's a monster and definitely worth the majority of that fee, while I'd honestly stop at 20 m for Witsel if I'd even go that far.
In conclusion, both are overpriced but Hulk was a much better deal in terms of what they're getting.


And the Witsel transfer doesn't mean shit regarding our failure to sign a decent midfielder. The likes of Cabaye, Tiote, Arteta, Michu, etc. all went cheap (well, cheap football-wise) not to mention several other players who play in either La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1 and even Eredivisie.
There's lots of talent, and very few (or none) of them went or will go for nearly as much cash as Witsel or Martinez, this really isn't an issue. The issue is Fergie's stubborness and belief that our midfield is somehow not inferior to those of other top clubs.
 
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