Jones isn't reliable enough to be 4th or 5th choice. If we had say Koulibaly, Lindelof & Smalling as our first choices... If two of those were injured the chances are Jones would be out at the same time so he absolutely could never be a backup option. Therefore any cost incurred by having Jones on the books is a dead cost.
For backup players we should be looking at players similar to Dalot. No history of being injury prone. Low salary and transfer fee due to age. Huge upside if they perform well, little downside if they don't as they're a backup only. The likes of Tuanzebe, TFM, Dalot etc fit this bill perfectly. Rojo/Jones absolutely do not.
The closest player to Jones I've seen these last few years in Jonny Evans literally left this Summer for £3.5m. The market has changed dramatically for top end players like Erikson and Alderweireld but it hasn't changed drastically at the bottom end where Jones would be marketing himself. Huddersfield, Newcastle, Cardiff, Brighton, Watford etc aren't paying anyone £100k a week and if they were they'd be looking for a player they would see as an absolute game changer (see Palace and Benteke).
Happy for you to let me know who these mediocre, injury prone, mid-table centre backs are that are not only earning £100k a week... But have also been transferred for anything like £40m as I've certainly seen none. Hell I'd accept an example of someone on that salary alone, let alone the ridiculous fee on top.
Terrible comparison. Evans hade a release clause when West Brom got relegated. His estimated market value was around 15m according to Transfermarkt. Which kind of proves my point since he is 4 years older than Jones as well.
I feel I am starting to repeat myself one too many times in this thread but I ill say it again: I dont want us to switch out half of the defensive squad this summer.
It will be expensive as feck and we will have major adaptation issues..
And we wont either.
There is no way that all of Darmian, Valencia, Rojo, Jones and Young leaves in one summer. Neither should they.
One also has to factor in that a player like Bailly maybe wants to leave.
The money needs to be spent elsewhere.
Jones is the obvious candidate to keep around because of his age, homegrown-status, upside if he can stay injury free and relatively cheap wages. For this summer mind you.
I said 100k just for arguments sake btw, I would not be surprised if he signs for a ltb less.
He also seems to want to stay at United which in itself is another argument for giving him a new contract and keeping around for at least a year more.
Also: I would be more negative towards Jones if his injuries were recurring ones. They are not though. Dude has been quite unlucky and you could easily make the argument that he is due some luck now as well.
Im staying out of this thread for a while now.