He is, in my opinion, one of the few genuine box to box players in the league, in the sense that he is proficient at both ends as well, rather than just having the engine to get up and down. I can understand the reticence to a degree, but I think this is a genuinely smart pick up, especially for the price quoted.
Mario Lemina
- Thread starter RussellWilson
- Start date
He is, in my opinion, one of the few genuine box to box players in the league, in the sense that he is proficient at both ends as well, rather than just having the engine to get up and down. I can understand the reticence to a degree, but I think this is a genuinely smart pick up, especially for the price quoted.
My concerns are similar, but Ole is a United fan naturally and surely he will give a 1000% to do what is needed. However he can't single-handedly change the club hierarchy and put some brain in our owners by force.
You also talked about why such a signing can be risky in a comment above. Your example about the £50 million players can also be used against you, as in our case we bought Fred and Matic for around £92 million and they have seriously flopped. Not sure if we can get even £50 million back for them currently. We will probably lose a bit of money on Lukaku, we wasted so much on the Sanchez signing and basically wrote off an asset in Mkhitaryan, who we still could have sold for £20-£25 million. The club made a loss on Di Maria too. So big signings have huge risk associated with them.
I think if Lemina plays to his actual ability consistently, he is a £50-£60 million player. The problem is getting him to stay fit and motivated, but maybe Ole thinks he can do it and that is why at £15 million it poses very low risk with a potential of very high reward. Look at how Liverpool bought Shaqiri from relegated Stoke. They got him for around £13 million and he is easily worth around double that right now, despite being a squad player only.
Is he better than Herrera who we just let leave on a free?
Nah, he doesn't get in our best 11.
We can only target bit part players from relegation or bottom teams
Did you have any reason to place that bet? Or did you just bet on a random bunch of players?
Wonder how many fans have actually watched him play regularly.
Except he doesn't have relatively little experience, he's played in a champions league final, he's played for Juve and Marseille, and has played for Southampton in the premier league. He's hardly an unknown entity. So where is the high level's of risk exactly?
If he is good why is he available for cheap in this Market from a Epl club?
Most of the criticism for Lemina stems from the fact that he's so cheap and Southampton want to get shot of him. Maybe he'd have been rated higher if his price was made to be known as 50m instead of 18m.
This literally makes no sense. Tottenham & city have spent more than 50m on each and also they’re not proven at all. Only in their respective league. Also, you don’t buy someone for 25m then proceed to put them on 150k a week. It’s much more risky to spend 50m, huge wages on someone who’s not played in the league. Not to mention Lemina has experience at all levels and the price quoted for him has been max £18m.
In case anyone is interested, Southampton fan answered few questions on Lemina
https://www.reddit.com/r/reddevils/comments/cb5l6f/saints_fan_ama_about_mario_lemina/
https://www.reddit.com/r/reddevils/comments/cb5l6f/saints_fan_ama_about_mario_lemina/
You're spot on. Look at liverpool: they combine one of the world's best DMs(Fabinho) with two quick, fast, energetic and disciplined runners who are decent on the ball and strong in duels and 50/50 situations, and then they have Mane, Salah, Firmino up top, two of the world's very best wingbacks in Robertson and Trent Double-Name and the best CB in the world, and arguably the best gk in the world too. Thus proving that if you have 8 of the very best players in the world at their position, you don't need the other 3 to be more than above average, good players
Also he failed at Juve and now Saints want their 3rd choice CM out. But I guess he's good enough for the new Cardiff
Thanks for sharing
Always been a fan
You're spot on. Look at liverpool: they combine one of the world's best DMs(Fabinho) with two quick, fast, energetic and disciplined runners who are decent on the ball and strong in duels and 50/50 situations, and then they have Mane, Salah, Firmino up top, two of the world's very best wingbacks in Robertson and Trent Double-Name and the best CB in the world, and arguably the best gk in the world too. Thus proving that if you have 8 of the very best players in the world at their position, you don't need the other 3 to be more than above average, good players
I think the point he is making is, none of them were best in the world and among the best when Liverpool signed them (maybe except Alisson)
It wasn’t a real bet. No bookmaker would offer those odds on a PL player joining anothe PL club. Happy to be proven wrong - but I don’t imagine the player will be able to produce any evidence.
All of them were much more impressive than anything Lemina has done in his career. Salah was excellent for Roma. So were Keita for Leipzig, van Dijk and Mane for Southampton, Firmino for Hoffenheim and Fabinho for Monaco.
What you're saying isn't wrong. But then again, at 25 he changed club 3 times, the first from OM to juventus was a €500k loan with a €9.5m option to buy(total €10m), then a year after picking up said option juventus sold him to southampton for €17+3m, and now two years later southampton are asking £15m for him
That's 3 clubs he's played for and none valued him highly...
It was just a joke to reflect how unexpected this signing was. I didn’t think anyone would take it seriously. I was initially going to say 100,000/1
He failed at Juve, which is correct, these things happen sometimes a player might not fit the team but look like a world beater somewhere else. Look at Kondogbia for Inter and now at Valencia. Southampton want him out because of his attitude not because he suddenly became a worse player. He won't be the main midfielder at either Arsenal or at United, but he can be a cog in a functional midfield which is what we should be looking at.
This is all metadata, not based on the actual qualities of the player. I could counter this by saying that if the scouts at Arsenal and United think he's good enough, then he's good enough.
Fair enough. Though i'd say Alisson, Van Dijk and Fabinho were. Two of them went for record fees and the other was wanted by half of europe
Actually excited about this. He reminds of Dembele (Spurs) in his style of play. We lack mids who can drive the ball forward and attack the space.
If we manage to get him for 15M and make the most out of him, I'd say it could potentially be up there with the signings of the season.
If we manage to get him for 15M and make the most out of him, I'd say it could potentially be up there with the signings of the season.
He has be failing to reach the expectations set for the past 3 years and at 2 different clubs. His attitude and fitness sucked at Southampton while at Juve he was simply not good enough. Yet we are expected that Southampton's third choice midfielder is good enough for us. Also how many squad players we need?
I agree with that but the general point was something else, at least that's my assumption. OP can clear that up.
Not really. There's usually a direct correlation between a players qualities, the number of times he changes teams and the prices of those moves. Three clubs had him, saw him every day, knew him, and decided he wasn't worth much to them. Two of those scouted him, from the outside, thought he had enough potential to sign him, then barely 2 years in had given up on him and were only interested to make some money -not even much at that- off of him
That should raise a red flag
Now sure, he might work out at his next club. For arsenal with their budget and current options, it makes some sense
For United? Only if they sell one of Matic/Fred/McT/Pereira
He was upset he was injured for 4 months so he wanted to leave? I didn't get that bit..
It's a big interview, he said he wanted to leave after 2 years at Southampton and made it clear last year. That's why he wasn't part of preseason as coach wants the players who will be Southampton players.
The red flag at Marseille was that he had a bad attitude, he thought that he had made it.
It seems it is you who either does not understand the word ‘risk’, or has simply not seen Lemina play.
He’s low-risk not simply because of his low price. He’s low risk due to the combination of his low price and the potential of a very high reward. Lemina has shown the level of whatever midfielders you would have probably preferred us to buy. However, he hasn’t shown it often enough. Therefore, the potential isn’t just some pipe dream - everyone has seen how well he is actually capable of playing. Getting him to do that weekly makes him worth far more than £15m. At least 3, maybe four times that.
The possibility of getting a £60m player, or even more likely - a £30m player, for £15m is low risk.
To make your point, you have created a scenario where we buy Lemina four times instead of once. We shouldn’t exclusively sign players like Lemina of course, but we shouldn’t exclude them either.
Because he is not British.
Deal breaker then. Would gladly pay £50m for someone called Mike Jones.
I don't know a great deal about the player but he looks like his first thought is to go forwards rather than sideways/backwards. Can't be a bad player to have played for Juve, but it's another risk and we need guaranteed first team players...desperately.
It does seem that way. You're not worth your salt as a player unless there's a huge premium on your head.
The next Djemba-Djemba?
Once again though, I'm reading the same comment "the Reds will not submit a bid for the Gabonese international until want-away Paul Pogba’s future has been resolved"
Read exactly the same comments regarding Bruno, Tielemans, Ndombele, etc...
Surely there cannot be any truth to this logic can there..?
Read exactly the same comments regarding Bruno, Tielemans, Ndombele, etc...
Surely there cannot be any truth to this logic can there..?
You clearly don't watch much English football man. The guy has been had injury problems for the majority of the season and didn't play for like four months, hence the low numbers and why he was behind Hojberg and Romeu at times. Also, according to him he had an agreement with the hierarchy that he'd stay for two years and move on. I'm not sure why we didn't go for Tielemans, maybe Ole didn't see him fitting alongside Pogba. It seems like he was contingency plan if Pogba was to leave. I'm hoping if Real or Juve cough up the money that we'd actually go for someone a level above Tielemans. I think it's evident our recruitment has been a shambles since Ed became the chairman but we obviously need players
But we need to start operating more like how Spurs and Liverpool have done in the last few seasons, buying hungry players who fit the way we play and not spending over the odds for prima donnas. I'm not saying Lemina is a world beater but it's soooooo obvious the majority of posters haven't even seen him, the guy is talented and a much better option than Longstaff at half the price.