Ali Dia
Full Member
Yes, agreed, a loan or permanent move with a buyback option could make a lot of sense for all parties.
As for Hojland and us, a strike force of a 20 year old with 9 Serie A goals and Martial (for 15-20 games per season) is not what we need to have confidence in launching a title challenge.
I'm certainly excited about bringing in Hojland or someone of his profile who could become a great striker, but it's just unlikely that he's going to push us over the top next season.
That said, if he develops well, this could move could set up our squad up for a title challenge in the next 2-3 seasons, so long as we use that time to develop or buy strong cover/long-term replacements for Varane and Casemiro.
This would make for an interesting next few seasons
This is surely the name of the game for us for the next few seasons. Keep knocking on the door and developing players, improving our reputation for waste and mismanagement, cleaning up the squad, selling better and getting the wage bill under control. Even if we get bought by Qatar I’d hate for us to go out and buy Mbappe Gvardiol and so on and just start smashing it. I’d much rather see us steadily pick up some players who can grow as a unit together over a few seasons and slowly turn ourselves back into a self sustaining club with cutting edge scouting, coaching, analytics and youth development in a state of the art stadium and training facility. After that if we are managed well there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be competitive for generations to come.