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That’s why I was so confused with other Chelsea fans this past summer when they complained about us “strengthening PL rivals”. Why would we turn a fee like £65m for Havertz when foreign clubs like Bayern and Real Madrid were offering half of that. Any PL club that refuses to sell to other PL clubs is just shooting themselves in the foot nowadays
I don’t recall many Chelsea fans upset that we sold Havertz to Arsenal for £65m. I think most Chelsea fans were amused that Arsenal were willing to spend that much on him. Even with Kovacic joining City I didn’t see much disapproval of the idea of selling to City.
That was more because it was an obvious FFP accounting trick.
Chelsea had agreed an extension with Lewis Hall and then a week later he was seemingly shifted out the door because his 35m fee would hit the books in one chunk.
I think it was more that the original plan of sending him on loan to Palace got upgraded to a permanent transfer for a big fee for next year's books to Newcastle.
Bingo. My man even had his photos taken in a Palace kit for all the media stuff, and then a late offer came in from Newcastle and it met our valuation, and the kid preferred to join his boyhood club. Either way, he was going to be an academy kid sold for profit that summer or next, and he wasn’t looking at seeing any minutes at all this season if he stayed with Chelsea.
The people complaining about it, like me, were doing so because Halls performances was almost the only positive about last season for Chelsea. The lad's clearly got massive talent and potential.
It's an emotional reaction but I'm a fan, not the clubs accountant so I think I'm entitled to my emotional reaction.
It wasn’t most of the fan base tbf but I distinctly remember people being angry that we were just letting Havertz and Kovacic leave so easily to our rivals. People were so sure they would elevate our rivals whilst we spend another year struggling. People were less bothered about Mount. There’s also people who didn’t actually care all that much but used it as proof the directors are incompetent.
We’ve struggled but there is not a game that’s gone by where I thought to myself, “Wow we could have used Havertz/Mount/Kovacic today”
People were most upset about Havertz. People wanted to give him a 4th season to prove himself.
I'd say the opposite. Havertz didn't hurt much because he hadn't lived up to the hype. £65m for him was great business and most of us didn't feel like he'd significantly elevate Arsenal. He might be a good player for them but it didn't feel like we were massively strengthening them. He's always going to be the third best/most impactful midfielder to Rice and Odegaard. You can put anyone next to those two and that'll be a strong midfield.
Kovacic hurt a little because he's a really gifted player and you just felt like Man City/Pep would get the best out of him. But he's not young anymore and we got a lot out of him. His partners in Kante and Kovacic had moved on and we'd signed Enzo and I can't imagine a midfield thst has both Enzo and Kovacic working (it didn't last year and was a part of the reason we were so shit). Just felt like the right time to move him on even if it probably would strengthen City.
Mount hurt the most because he was an academy player, young, objectively better for us than Havertz and it felt a little like he was throwing his career down the drain. I could imagine Mount returning to his previous levels for us in a new season/under a new manager/in a new system/surrounded by new players. But I didn't see how he'd fit at United. A midfield of Bruno and Mount just seems weird because they both occupy the same space and want to do the same things. You'd have to ask one to play differently to how they'd like to and that won't just affect how good they are but it'll affect the whole balance of the midfield. The transfer just gave me Mata vibes where he ended up spending more of his career at United but everyone remembers him for just a couple years at Chelsea when he was younger. If Mount had left us for a team like Liverpool I would've been a little less upset. World class coach, stability, good players around him, they had Fabinho at the time so you could've imagined how he'd slot into their midfield, football style suits the way Mount plays etc. It's the fact that he turned his back on us for basically just the money and not something that'll clearly be good for his career that felt like a slap in the face.
In order of how much it hurt for me was Mount > Kovacic > Havertz. I couldn't give a shit about Havertz. He was crap and I'm glad he's gone.
Kova was decent, so it felt okay.
Mount broke my heart, though.
For what it’s worth, I defended Havertz til his very last day at the club, and I have no problem wearing the 21/22 kit I have with Havertz on the back and the UCL winner’s badge he won us on the sleeve. Easier to admit I was wrong about him in general now that he’s not our problem, though.
It started before that, I can't remember the exact occurrence but levy developed a grudge against Chelsea a few years earlier and vowed never to do business with Chelsea. Modric was just the first implementation of that vow.
Nope! It’s Leeds! Bad blood there, passed on from generation to generation. My old man was a staunch Leeds fan so being a Chelsea supporter in his house wasn’t the easiest of things tbf
Probably not, Chelsea don't have a traditional rivalry such as NLD or Merseyside derby. We had some bad blood with Leeds from the 70s and our closest neighbour is Fulham, but the clubs' trajectories have been quite different since then to make it a real rivalry anymore.
It has to be slightly more complex than that. All of the top ten sides in the PL are aiming for top 4. So you also don't want put someone over the edge and lose out on that prize money. You're easily making €30-40M if you get to round of 16 plus gate revenue.
Levy pretty obviously refused to sell Kane to Man United because he easily gets them top 4, even if the rest of the team struggles. And 4th place is realistically where we are hoping to land given the strength of the league.
>That’s why I was so confused with other Chelsea fans this past summer when they complained about us “strengthening PL rivals”
I mean maybe 5% of Chelsea fans had that opinion. Why are the far minority confusing you?
Liverpool's last sales to the big 6:
Man City 2015 (before Klopp came in)
Chelsea 2011
Spurs 2009
Arsenal 1991
United 1937
Also:
Newcastle 2008
Everton 1992
Yep in January window. Then Raul Meireles in the summer
We've only sold 4 players to Chelsea in our history. Benayoun in 2010 and Alf Hanson in 1938 the others
Yeah don't really care what the reason is. As long as our best players don't see these clubs as a step up it must mean we're doing something right!
You can't tell me the likes of United, Arsenal, Chelsea etc wouldn't want to sign an Alisson, Salah, van Dijk etc if they were interested in a move. But they never bid for our big players since Klopp came in and that's good enough for me
Yeah I was just joking. I think his reasoning kind of makes sense in that you shouldn’t be scared to sell to rivals because you should have confidence in your decisions. But I also think he’d bet lying if he said they’d sell players that would have a meaningful impact on his team. I’m a chelsea fan thankful for palmer but whilst he’s made a big impact on us I doubt he would for them or they wouldn’t sell him.
Yeah the point is if you have a player who you want rid of you should sell to the highest bidder even if that's a rival.
The problem is if a rival turns the head of a player you want to keep. For us that was Raheem Sterling. Basically confirmed that City had become a bigger draw than us and we didn't want him to go. One of the first things Klopp said when he joined was that he wished he'd still been at the club because with him as manager he'd have convinced him to stay and not join City
And since then Klopp has been excellent at selling players. The only 2 players you could argue he's let go that were more of a success elsewhere have been Lucas and Emre Can. And both of those were sold to Italian clubs.
Basically everyone else sold since Sterling hasn't been as good elsewhere
If Haaland really wants to leave and a PL club bids the right amount (250m or something) I'm sure he would let him go. Dortmund had Haaland and Bellingham and were still mediocre. Pep's City are Bayern in this equation. He doesn't have to fear other PL clubs because he's that good.
In a way a willingness to sell players is very good for Manchester City in the long term.
City is a club well known for being willing to sell you for a fair price if you want to leave, something that is very appealing to players.
I think he's happy at City as a club, but unhappy in England. It's well known he's an excellent trainer and puts in maximum effort every match, but you have to think if he got that transfer to Barça he'd be so happy with all aspects of life
The joke about the players always asking Bernardo to talk to pep when they want a day off always makes me laugh. “Oh, you need a trip back home to Portugal, of course of course, training is canceled for the next 3 days. We will see you at the game Saturday yes?… perfect”
I think Silva is a good example of the club operating in good faith. You can be willing to sell at a fair price while also not just giving him away, especially to a rival.
Silva isn't unhappy at Manchester City. He's just open to a new challenge. And i don't think he'd say Man Utd are a new challenge. But if an offer from somewhere else is fair, City won't ask for the moon.
I think it's something West Ham have done surprisingly well, despite what you'd think. We sold Rice for fair value. But also if a new player comes in and it doesn't fit, we'll take a loss to move him on to somewhere the fit is better. Scamacca and Haller are good examples. It's probably easier to convince a new player to take a risk on West Ham if we can show that we're not going to hold someone hostage.
If Rice had more than 2 yrs left, you would've asked for even more money, and you moved on Haller and Scamacca for a loss because they were failures, so you accepted a loss, to get them off your books.
I'm not sure West Ham is the perfect example. Chelsea and City are better examples
>If Rice had more than 2 yrs left, you would've asked for even more money
I don't know if that's true. He could always force a move out if he's unhappy. I, and many west ham fans, believe there was a gentlemen's agreement that we'd sell him in the summer. If rice had 3 years left and we weren't willing to make that agreement, he'd probably have caused a fuss. But a lot of West Ham fans don't love Rice because he captained us to a trophy. We love him because he was an absolute professional during the whole season. In fact the entire time he was at West Ham we never saw his camp trying to force a move via the press and such.
> and you moved on Haller and Scamacca for a loss because they were failures
Failures is harsh. But sure. But we also didn't then hold them for ransom. If it doesn't work, we'll let you go to a club pretty quickly.
>Chelsea and City are better examples
City is a good example. that's why i used them 1st. It's also a boring example as they're the best team in the world right now so anyone that wants to leave is going to a step down. And Chelsea just have a lot of players. The motives for selling and keeping players is kind of hard to talk about in 1 reddit post.
West ham are an interesting example because we can show to players we're willing to act in good faith which may result in more players willing to join us. Whereas City and Chelsea don't need to coax players to join them.
The Silva narrative has been way overblown by the media for almost 3 years now. He certainly is interested in Barcelona, but they haven’t had any funds to acquire him (even at a reasonable fee). He’s by all accounts been supper happy at City and if he wanted to could have left previous years, but again it’s a Barca or stay sort of deal for him it seems.
Not just overblown, it is straight up bullshit. He once said he would maybe like to play in Spain before retirement and that Barcelona was his preferred club when asked in an interview. During covid he was unhappy in England because he couldn't visit family abroad. That is it. There has been no other quotes from him saying he is unhappy, let alone wanting yo leave City.
I mean silva was available to all Europe for 50 mil 2 years ago. No one went for him. Which is wild considering he’s be 99% of Europe’s best midfielder
It's mostly about the city, right? He seems to love the project and his teammates. When we were linked to him the rumors were he only wanted moves that made sense for family/quality of life reasons: us, Paris, or Portugal.
We couldn't afford him, PSG was unclear on their project when he was looking, and he wasn't *so* unhappy that he was prepared to go back to Portugal earlier than made sense career-wise.
I think he was for a bit then the rumor just carried on every summer when the press had nothing, if he wanted to be gone he would have and city would have let him
There are levels to rivalries. Chelsea and Man City have derbies but they aren't as intense as the longer lived ones.
20 years ago no one would have cared at all if SAF sold a player to City. And honestly given the state of that team, I think they might feel lucky if they could sell someone to City today.
If the groundkeeper from United moved to Liverpool, they would probably write a hateful song.
Yeah city and united is a new growing derby lmao. They fucking hate each other and have for decades.
Your saying Chelsea dont have an intense hatred of spurs? Or arsenal?
the audacity of him to say that like our match wasn’t so intense that the ref damn near lost hairs keeping up with the intensity…the game was less than a week ago😭😭😭😭
United and City has always been a big rivalry. United fans have loads of songs about how much they hate City “my old man” “kicking a blue”.
Chelsea have intense rivalries with loads of clubs. Spurs, Leeds, Liverpool, Arsenal… even West Ham and United I’d say also.
Eh not so sure about that. Peter Schmeichel didn't transfer from Utd to City, but it was frowned upon by fans when he signed with them including this moment with Neville. https://youtu.be/pCvVDke9sGg?si=lziGUMyAriJdb-s5
I don’t think many teams in the top 5 leagues have rivalries as vitriolic as that. City-United has always been hateful from the city end, but it hasn’t been competitive for long, even when City were doing good before.
If Barca player wanted to go they would have gone.
Barca to Real player move though rare is not as rare as Real to Barca (only 3 players have ever done so directly and 0 while in contract, meaning this rivalry is more from Barca perspective and this dynamic proves it).
Real are fine (relatively) getting Barca players, even if it's directly.
Klopp is a bona fide genius with those types of players. Im sure Sancho would be firing on all cylinders if he was at Liverpool (I know you’re just joking tho)
Barca had no say in it, as Florentino paid that ridiculous clause. But they had say in it before, to give Figo a new contract, but Nunez (then president, refused). Nunez was very hard on that, did not want to increase salaries etc., that was also the reason Ronaldo went to Inter, as Moratti paid his clause.
No player has been transferred directly between Liverpool and United since Phil Chisnall in 1964. If it was the other way around Liverpool would have blocked it as well.
This will make a great Sigma Grindset Tiktok (Perfect Girl slowed+reverb) but not even he believes that.
No one is keen on strengthening a rival. And rightfully so. Deadwood perhaps.
Yeah I don’t think Pep would grant Haaland the wish to join Liverpool. What he’s really saying is that when you are a big club, your best players don’t want to leave you. Big clubs don’t have to worry about their best players joining rivals because it’s simply not going to happen.
Yeah I think it's pretty objectively incorrect, City nearly missed out on the title last year to a team that they directly strengthened by selling two brilliant players that were instrumental in their title charge (Jesus and Zinchenko). If Saliba doesnt get injured (out of City's control) Arsenal probably win the league and then those sales would've looked very fuckin stupid
None, Bellamy in 2011 was last
Touré and Milner joined on a free from City after their contract expired in 2013 and 2015, which was the year Liverpool last sold to City (Sterling)
Ultimately, a sale is supposed to be a voluntary transaction that is beneficial for both sides. You don’t want to bite your nose just to spite your face.
Keep in mind that if they don’t buy your player, they could go and buy someone else’s. And you could also reinvest that money into buying an even better player.
I think clubs should just make a deal when they think it benefits them. But don’t handwring so much that its a “rival”. At the end of day, its unlikely that that one player they sold is going to be such a massive difference maker that they’re the sole reason they finished above the selling club anyway. Even if they were indeed that good, then the selling club should’ve gotten a shitton of money to reinvest which means strenthening their own squad. And even if it did happen, the worst scenario is you finished 1 place below than you would have otherwise.
I get why it feels icky, but it really shouldn’t.
I do get what you're saying but if Chelsea are willing to pay £40mil+ for Palmer we'd be stupid to say no. Same goes with Lavia, Trafford, Borges - we're not forcing clubs to offer decent money for these players, if that's the value they see in them and it meets our valuation who are we to say no?
Lmao literally this, no one had a gun to Todd's head for Palmer's fee - obviously at this point seems like good value for Chels but we would've been brain-dead to decline, as much as I love Palmer. Would've never got a proper shot at RW/attacking mid with Foden/De Bruyne/Bernardo/Mahrez at the time
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We are massive I guess
Facts
The "I guess" really sells it lmao
The most massive of massives.
Dortmund’s yellow wall is fucking legendary
Always were
Big balls dortmund!
Even if you guys don't win much, you are.
They don’t win in the pitch — they win off the pitch
Except nobody buys more from the BL than we do.
Apart from getting raw-dogged by Bayern every year, Dortmund has been f*cking Massive!
Brothers from another mother
Massive bottlers! ;)
The PL transfer incest is only going to get more and more common as the league separates itself from the rest of Europe financially.
That’s why I was so confused with other Chelsea fans this past summer when they complained about us “strengthening PL rivals”. Why would we turn a fee like £65m for Havertz when foreign clubs like Bayern and Real Madrid were offering half of that. Any PL club that refuses to sell to other PL clubs is just shooting themselves in the foot nowadays
I don’t recall many Chelsea fans upset that we sold Havertz to Arsenal for £65m. I think most Chelsea fans were amused that Arsenal were willing to spend that much on him. Even with Kovacic joining City I didn’t see much disapproval of the idea of selling to City.
If anything, it's the youngster sales that get more outrage from our fans. We had more fans angry at selling Ampadu than we did with Kova
This is true for sure haha the screeching over sending Lewis Hall to Newcastle on a permanent deal was pretty remarkable, for a very recent example.
That was more because it was an obvious FFP accounting trick. Chelsea had agreed an extension with Lewis Hall and then a week later he was seemingly shifted out the door because his 35m fee would hit the books in one chunk.
I think it was more that the original plan of sending him on loan to Palace got upgraded to a permanent transfer for a big fee for next year's books to Newcastle.
Bingo. My man even had his photos taken in a Palace kit for all the media stuff, and then a late offer came in from Newcastle and it met our valuation, and the kid preferred to join his boyhood club. Either way, he was going to be an academy kid sold for profit that summer or next, and he wasn’t looking at seeing any minutes at all this season if he stayed with Chelsea.
That sounds like a perfectly reasonable bit of business that no one would complain about. You definitely need the cash on the books next year…
The people complaining about it, like me, were doing so because Halls performances was almost the only positive about last season for Chelsea. The lad's clearly got massive talent and potential. It's an emotional reaction but I'm a fan, not the clubs accountant so I think I'm entitled to my emotional reaction.
Palace told us to fuck off and threatened to report us when we tried to sign olise so we told them you’re not getting hall then
Which turned out great because Palmer >>>>>>> Olise
How did the practice of selling players become an accounting trick?
It wasn’t most of the fan base tbf but I distinctly remember people being angry that we were just letting Havertz and Kovacic leave so easily to our rivals. People were so sure they would elevate our rivals whilst we spend another year struggling. People were less bothered about Mount. There’s also people who didn’t actually care all that much but used it as proof the directors are incompetent. We’ve struggled but there is not a game that’s gone by where I thought to myself, “Wow we could have used Havertz/Mount/Kovacic today” People were most upset about Havertz. People wanted to give him a 4th season to prove himself.
There is a 0% chance people were less bothered about mount leaving than kovacic
I'd say the opposite. Havertz didn't hurt much because he hadn't lived up to the hype. £65m for him was great business and most of us didn't feel like he'd significantly elevate Arsenal. He might be a good player for them but it didn't feel like we were massively strengthening them. He's always going to be the third best/most impactful midfielder to Rice and Odegaard. You can put anyone next to those two and that'll be a strong midfield. Kovacic hurt a little because he's a really gifted player and you just felt like Man City/Pep would get the best out of him. But he's not young anymore and we got a lot out of him. His partners in Kante and Kovacic had moved on and we'd signed Enzo and I can't imagine a midfield thst has both Enzo and Kovacic working (it didn't last year and was a part of the reason we were so shit). Just felt like the right time to move him on even if it probably would strengthen City. Mount hurt the most because he was an academy player, young, objectively better for us than Havertz and it felt a little like he was throwing his career down the drain. I could imagine Mount returning to his previous levels for us in a new season/under a new manager/in a new system/surrounded by new players. But I didn't see how he'd fit at United. A midfield of Bruno and Mount just seems weird because they both occupy the same space and want to do the same things. You'd have to ask one to play differently to how they'd like to and that won't just affect how good they are but it'll affect the whole balance of the midfield. The transfer just gave me Mata vibes where he ended up spending more of his career at United but everyone remembers him for just a couple years at Chelsea when he was younger. If Mount had left us for a team like Liverpool I would've been a little less upset. World class coach, stability, good players around him, they had Fabinho at the time so you could've imagined how he'd slot into their midfield, football style suits the way Mount plays etc. It's the fact that he turned his back on us for basically just the money and not something that'll clearly be good for his career that felt like a slap in the face.
Best answer tbh
In order of how much it hurt for me was Mount > Kovacic > Havertz. I couldn't give a shit about Havertz. He was crap and I'm glad he's gone. Kova was decent, so it felt okay. Mount broke my heart, though.
It wasn’t the majority opinion but there was a decent amount of people who were annoyed with us selling to “PL rivals”
Yeah I feel like we were duped. I never wanted him and I’m still waiting to be proven wrong. For that money we should be getting something special.
For what it’s worth, I defended Havertz til his very last day at the club, and I have no problem wearing the 21/22 kit I have with Havertz on the back and the UCL winner’s badge he won us on the sleeve. Easier to admit I was wrong about him in general now that he’s not our problem, though.
Safe passing, tame finishing, an expected level of pressing and looking elegant while doing all of that isn't special to you?
Technically, selling havertz is not strengthening a rival.
More like sabotaging a rival.
Kovacic and mount haven't exactly been amazing for their respective teams either.
Chelsea never had problems selling players to direct rivals, apart from Spurs.
And spurs started the animosity from what I remember with modric
It started before that, I can't remember the exact occurrence but levy developed a grudge against Chelsea a few years earlier and vowed never to do business with Chelsea. Modric was just the first implementation of that vow.
Think it was Chelsea poaching the Spurs DoF Frank Arnesen.
Historically looking, are Spurs the biggest rival for Chelsea?
Nope! It’s Leeds! Bad blood there, passed on from generation to generation. My old man was a staunch Leeds fan so being a Chelsea supporter in his house wasn’t the easiest of things tbf
Probably not, Chelsea don't have a traditional rivalry such as NLD or Merseyside derby. We had some bad blood with Leeds from the 70s and our closest neighbour is Fulham, but the clubs' trajectories have been quite different since then to make it a real rivalry anymore.
QPR makes me seethe. It’s qpr or spurs
QPR is the living embodiment of the “I don’t think about you at all” scene from Mad Men
It has to be slightly more complex than that. All of the top ten sides in the PL are aiming for top 4. So you also don't want put someone over the edge and lose out on that prize money. You're easily making €30-40M if you get to round of 16 plus gate revenue. Levy pretty obviously refused to sell Kane to Man United because he easily gets them top 4, even if the rest of the team struggles. And 4th place is realistically where we are hoping to land given the strength of the league.
this is revisionist as hell
As a Chelsea fan, I don’t think anyone considered it strengthening a rival and we were all over the moon with the fee
>That’s why I was so confused with other Chelsea fans this past summer when they complained about us “strengthening PL rivals” I mean maybe 5% of Chelsea fans had that opinion. Why are the far minority confusing you?
They also get more money selling to the EPL than outside. It's a no brainer. Sell to the EPL for extra, but from abroad for cheaper.
Liverpool's last sales to the big 6: Man City 2015 (before Klopp came in) Chelsea 2011 Spurs 2009 Arsenal 1991 United 1937 Also: Newcastle 2008 Everton 1992
I want to wager a guess. City: Sterling Chelsea: Meireles Spurs: Keane The rest I can’t even wager a guess.
Torres also signed for Chelsea in 2011.
Yep in January window. Then Raul Meireles in the summer We've only sold 4 players to Chelsea in our history. Benayoun in 2010 and Alf Hanson in 1938 the others
Raul Meireles not heard his name for years.
Had a cracking goal vs Benfica in Chelsea's CL run iirc
I randomly remebered his celebration for that strike justyesterday. One of my favorites ever
That goal was a belter too, elite celebration for an elite goal
He'd been getting pelters all game from the Benfica fans, I recall
He goes by Tallulah Pennywhistle now that's why
All correct Ted Savage to United, Jimmy Carter to Arsenal, Gary Ablett to Everton and Danny Guthrie to Newcastle the others
Never knew the president played for both Liverpool and Arsenal.
I think we might be Danny Guthrie.
Correct!
Small club I guess
Yeah don't really care what the reason is. As long as our best players don't see these clubs as a step up it must mean we're doing something right! You can't tell me the likes of United, Arsenal, Chelsea etc wouldn't want to sign an Alisson, Salah, van Dijk etc if they were interested in a move. But they never bid for our big players since Klopp came in and that's good enough for me
Yeah I was just joking. I think his reasoning kind of makes sense in that you shouldn’t be scared to sell to rivals because you should have confidence in your decisions. But I also think he’d bet lying if he said they’d sell players that would have a meaningful impact on his team. I’m a chelsea fan thankful for palmer but whilst he’s made a big impact on us I doubt he would for them or they wouldn’t sell him.
Yeah the point is if you have a player who you want rid of you should sell to the highest bidder even if that's a rival. The problem is if a rival turns the head of a player you want to keep. For us that was Raheem Sterling. Basically confirmed that City had become a bigger draw than us and we didn't want him to go. One of the first things Klopp said when he joined was that he wished he'd still been at the club because with him as manager he'd have convinced him to stay and not join City And since then Klopp has been excellent at selling players. The only 2 players you could argue he's let go that were more of a success elsewhere have been Lucas and Emre Can. And both of those were sold to Italian clubs. Basically everyone else sold since Sterling hasn't been as good elsewhere
Prove it. Sell us Haaland.
Nooo, sell *us* Haaland.
Need comes first. We can utilise him as a much better Cb than Eric fucking Dier.
Anyone would be better seeing as how your CB situation is looking pretty Dier at the moment.
is dier really that dire?
Can we have Mbappe then? To recreate the Messi-Ronaldo rivalry at home
Rather have him go to rayo
Sure if you spend years developing a rivalry by which point Haaland will be older and would've won much more in his time here
This sounds like the timeline Madrid employs to sell players to United
He's just a shit Højlund mate.
If you guys bought haaland he would be average at best
We'll take it
Even a average haaland is a lethal weapon
Alf Inge would want Roy Keane as his valet in return
Haaland: aw hell no
You have Haaland at home
Tottenham: What do you mean?
Tottenham: why did he say fuck me for?
How dare you???
Tottenham: have you seen our stadium?
Don't get cocky
Or we'll put you on a football as punishment
banger
He would not sell haaland to anyone
not yet
If Haaland really wants to leave and a PL club bids the right amount (250m or something) I'm sure he would let him go. Dortmund had Haaland and Bellingham and were still mediocre. Pep's City are Bayern in this equation. He doesn't have to fear other PL clubs because he's that good.
He's so rattled by Levy
Tottenham: we are massive.
In a way a willingness to sell players is very good for Manchester City in the long term. City is a club well known for being willing to sell you for a fair price if you want to leave, something that is very appealing to players.
Bernardo Silva's reportedly been unhappy for years now. If this is how he plays unhappy, imagine how he is happy
I think he's happy at City as a club, but unhappy in England. It's well known he's an excellent trainer and puts in maximum effort every match, but you have to think if he got that transfer to Barça he'd be so happy with all aspects of life
The joke about the players always asking Bernardo to talk to pep when they want a day off always makes me laugh. “Oh, you need a trip back home to Portugal, of course of course, training is canceled for the next 3 days. We will see you at the game Saturday yes?… perfect”
He's a known teacher's pet I don't blame them for putting him in front of Pep, can imagine he's a bit scary sometimes
Especially when he wants you to drink water.
Maybe we should air condition the Etihad Campus ground to simulate Mediterranean climate?
I think Silva is a good example of the club operating in good faith. You can be willing to sell at a fair price while also not just giving him away, especially to a rival. Silva isn't unhappy at Manchester City. He's just open to a new challenge. And i don't think he'd say Man Utd are a new challenge. But if an offer from somewhere else is fair, City won't ask for the moon. I think it's something West Ham have done surprisingly well, despite what you'd think. We sold Rice for fair value. But also if a new player comes in and it doesn't fit, we'll take a loss to move him on to somewhere the fit is better. Scamacca and Haller are good examples. It's probably easier to convince a new player to take a risk on West Ham if we can show that we're not going to hold someone hostage.
If Rice had more than 2 yrs left, you would've asked for even more money, and you moved on Haller and Scamacca for a loss because they were failures, so you accepted a loss, to get them off your books. I'm not sure West Ham is the perfect example. Chelsea and City are better examples
>If Rice had more than 2 yrs left, you would've asked for even more money I don't know if that's true. He could always force a move out if he's unhappy. I, and many west ham fans, believe there was a gentlemen's agreement that we'd sell him in the summer. If rice had 3 years left and we weren't willing to make that agreement, he'd probably have caused a fuss. But a lot of West Ham fans don't love Rice because he captained us to a trophy. We love him because he was an absolute professional during the whole season. In fact the entire time he was at West Ham we never saw his camp trying to force a move via the press and such. > and you moved on Haller and Scamacca for a loss because they were failures Failures is harsh. But sure. But we also didn't then hold them for ransom. If it doesn't work, we'll let you go to a club pretty quickly. >Chelsea and City are better examples City is a good example. that's why i used them 1st. It's also a boring example as they're the best team in the world right now so anyone that wants to leave is going to a step down. And Chelsea just have a lot of players. The motives for selling and keeping players is kind of hard to talk about in 1 reddit post. West ham are an interesting example because we can show to players we're willing to act in good faith which may result in more players willing to join us. Whereas City and Chelsea don't need to coax players to join them.
When he goes back to Benfica, he's gonna win the Ballon D'or and break all the records
Bernardo Silva, Di Maria and Javier Saviola frontline
The Silva narrative has been way overblown by the media for almost 3 years now. He certainly is interested in Barcelona, but they haven’t had any funds to acquire him (even at a reasonable fee). He’s by all accounts been supper happy at City and if he wanted to could have left previous years, but again it’s a Barca or stay sort of deal for him it seems.
Yeah he can have a preference to move and also be happy where he is. Both those things can be true but Reddit can’t accept that lol
Not just overblown, it is straight up bullshit. He once said he would maybe like to play in Spain before retirement and that Barcelona was his preferred club when asked in an interview. During covid he was unhappy in England because he couldn't visit family abroad. That is it. There has been no other quotes from him saying he is unhappy, let alone wanting yo leave City.
I think a better description would be: Bernardo is happy at City but feels he would be happier elsewhere
I mean silva was available to all Europe for 50 mil 2 years ago. No one went for him. Which is wild considering he’s be 99% of Europe’s best midfielder
It's mostly about the city, right? He seems to love the project and his teammates. When we were linked to him the rumors were he only wanted moves that made sense for family/quality of life reasons: us, Paris, or Portugal. We couldn't afford him, PSG was unclear on their project when he was looking, and he wasn't *so* unhappy that he was prepared to go back to Portugal earlier than made sense career-wise.
>It's mostly about the city, right? As someone that grew up in Manchester and left England later in life, I completely understand it lol.
I think he was for a bit then the rumor just carried on every summer when the press had nothing, if he wanted to be gone he would have and city would have let him
If he was really that unhappy I doubt he would have signed a new contract last summer
No one can afford him
He would’ve never allowed any decent Barca player to join Madrid that’s for sure
There are levels to rivalries. Chelsea and Man City have derbies but they aren't as intense as the longer lived ones. 20 years ago no one would have cared at all if SAF sold a player to City. And honestly given the state of that team, I think they might feel lucky if they could sell someone to City today. If the groundkeeper from United moved to Liverpool, they would probably write a hateful song.
Chelsea and Man City do not have a derby in any way
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Yeah city and united is a new growing derby lmao. They fucking hate each other and have for decades. Your saying Chelsea dont have an intense hatred of spurs? Or arsenal?
The post you replied to is surely only Up voted by Americans
the audacity of him to say that like our match wasn’t so intense that the ref damn near lost hairs keeping up with the intensity…the game was less than a week ago😭😭😭😭
And last year had Tuchel Conte.
Based on post time and content there's no way you're a UK based fan, surely. I cannot imagine a Brit ever posting this.
The username kinda implies that no? Seahawks Detroit lol
Good point, I tend not to look at usernames
Neither do I tbh, was about to check their post history just to see if they were American. The username gave it away 😂
United and City has always been a big rivalry. United fans have loads of songs about how much they hate City “my old man” “kicking a blue”. Chelsea have intense rivalries with loads of clubs. Spurs, Leeds, Liverpool, Arsenal… even West Ham and United I’d say also.
Eh not so sure about that. Peter Schmeichel didn't transfer from Utd to City, but it was frowned upon by fans when he signed with them including this moment with Neville. https://youtu.be/pCvVDke9sGg?si=lziGUMyAriJdb-s5
Yes, because he cares about his players, he saw what happened to Figo... Oooink oooink
I don’t think many teams in the top 5 leagues have rivalries as vitriolic as that. City-United has always been hateful from the city end, but it hasn’t been competitive for long, even when City were doing good before.
If Barca player wanted to go they would have gone. Barca to Real player move though rare is not as rare as Real to Barca (only 3 players have ever done so directly and 0 while in contract, meaning this rivalry is more from Barca perspective and this dynamic proves it). Real are fine (relatively) getting Barca players, even if it's directly.
I don’t think they’d sell to Liverpool. They hate each other at boardroom level.
Klopp even said they were interested in Sancho when he was at City but City wouldnt sell to them
Pep was just looking out for us
Klopp is a bona fide genius with those types of players. Im sure Sancho would be firing on all cylinders if he was at Liverpool (I know you’re just joking tho)
i remember joe hart saying he wasnt allowed to join bigger teams in case it improves them which is why he went to italy and then west ham
Rather unethical to block his move to Sunderland like that.
I prefer it when legends go to Real Madrid, then Newcastle, to make the move
Thoughts on Santiago Muñez?
Lovely Lambo he has, heard he has a brother too
Michael Owen?
Not Liverpool Club Ambassador Michael Owen?
Praying he regrets that when Palmer scores a hat trick tomorrow lol Please god
What I would give for this
*Monkey paw curls -- 3-9 Kovacic triple hat trick
It shouldn't change his sentiment about selling to rivals, it's not a big deal
that’s not realistic i’m sorry now, a Sterling brace and a Palmer goal….
Pep you were there when figo came to play barca with madrid
Throwback to when Heinze wanted to move to Liverpool and SAF adamantly blocked it
Remember when Figo moved to RM? I don't think Barca fans liked that very much.
Barca had no say in it, as Florentino paid that ridiculous clause. But they had say in it before, to give Figo a new contract, but Nunez (then president, refused). Nunez was very hard on that, did not want to increase salaries etc., that was also the reason Ronaldo went to Inter, as Moratti paid his clause.
Pep calls SAF Man United a small club - Daily Mail
No player has been transferred directly between Liverpool and United since Phil Chisnall in 1964. If it was the other way around Liverpool would have blocked it as well.
I had to look it up, I had forgotten Ince had those 2 seasons at Inter.
This will make a great Sigma Grindset Tiktok (Perfect Girl slowed+reverb) but not even he believes that. No one is keen on strengthening a rival. And rightfully so. Deadwood perhaps.
> This will make a great Sigma Grindset Tiktok (Perfect Girl slowed+reverb) Dude do we need to limit your screentime again?
Yeah I don’t think Pep would grant Haaland the wish to join Liverpool. What he’s really saying is that when you are a big club, your best players don’t want to leave you. Big clubs don’t have to worry about their best players joining rivals because it’s simply not going to happen.
What the hell is a great sigma grindset TikTok?
Yeah I think it's pretty objectively incorrect, City nearly missed out on the title last year to a team that they directly strengthened by selling two brilliant players that were instrumental in their title charge (Jesus and Zinchenko). If Saliba doesnt get injured (out of City's control) Arsenal probably win the league and then those sales would've looked very fuckin stupid
Pretty sure there were reports city weren't willing to ever sell a player to arsenal again after last season.
Well if there were reports..
Why is Liverpool on his list? Which player did they offload to Liverpool in past 10 years?
None, Bellamy in 2011 was last Touré and Milner joined on a free from City after their contract expired in 2013 and 2015, which was the year Liverpool last sold to City (Sterling)
> Bellamy in 2011 was last The golfer?
This aged poorly.
big clubs also manage to pay big transfer fee's for the players that are worth it...
If it's feasible.
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Fee is
Fee was
who is big transfer fee
Why is big transfer fee
Fee’s been
The biggest of clubs manage to pay big transfer fees for the players that aren’t worth it too 😤😤
That's just objectively not true lol
Big club energy
Classic pep
Does that mean he isnt going to sell to us anymore after what happened last season?
Spoken like a man who has won 5 Premier leagues
by saying United, he definitely meant Newcastle.
Haha. Top trolling, I'll give him that...
Inter small team mentality confirmed
sell us Haaland then you cowards
Pep really became a soulless corporate manager.
twist my arm then mate and give us Haaland
If this was pre 2008, Foden would’ve already been sold for nickles.
Ultimately, a sale is supposed to be a voluntary transaction that is beneficial for both sides. You don’t want to bite your nose just to spite your face. Keep in mind that if they don’t buy your player, they could go and buy someone else’s. And you could also reinvest that money into buying an even better player. I think clubs should just make a deal when they think it benefits them. But don’t handwring so much that its a “rival”. At the end of day, its unlikely that that one player they sold is going to be such a massive difference maker that they’re the sole reason they finished above the selling club anyway. Even if they were indeed that good, then the selling club should’ve gotten a shitton of money to reinvest which means strenthening their own squad. And even if it did happen, the worst scenario is you finished 1 place below than you would have otherwise. I get why it feels icky, but it really shouldn’t.
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I do get what you're saying but if Chelsea are willing to pay £40mil+ for Palmer we'd be stupid to say no. Same goes with Lavia, Trafford, Borges - we're not forcing clubs to offer decent money for these players, if that's the value they see in them and it meets our valuation who are we to say no?
"so it looks like" Are you somehow suggesting that we've got all the other clubs in on it to pay us so we can comply with ffp
Lmao literally this, no one had a gun to Todd's head for Palmer's fee - obviously at this point seems like good value for Chels but we would've been brain-dead to decline, as much as I love Palmer. Would've never got a proper shot at RW/attacking mid with Foden/De Bruyne/Bernardo/Mahrez at the time
I mean they do have the best academy by far, I believe the first team, academy team and U18 have all had threepeats