GK is not a position you need to need to spend alot of money at, especially for average - above average shot stoppers.
I’ll wait to see his performance level but I feel we’ve paid too much for someone who isn’t really top top level. Perin was my first choice and after that I would have preferred to wait out until favourable market conditions.
De Gea and Neuer went for around €25 million. Courtois, Ter Stegen and Oblak for around €15-20 million. Those transfers are a time ago and we also have to deal with inflation, but €20-25 million for a keeper is not cheap. Alisson, Trapp and Karius, keepers who went more recently to their new clubs, went for under or around €10 million. If Alisson and Oblak are going to move again they might go for big money, but that wouldn’t make Leno cheap.
Do feel we got our fingers Bernd on this deal though…
Thank you… Thank you…
I’m here all week…
Yeah first deal I am not really thrilled about… well actually I wasn’t thrilled with Papa either, but I can see that more and the price for a CB in his prime isn’t horrible - and he has the Sven connection. Lichty and Torreira seem very astute buys… I just hope they know something about Leno that gives cause to believe he can rise up with us and the coaching, otherwise it seems pointless… frankly I would have rather we spent all our remaining money on winger and saved GK for next year, trying our luck with Cech and Martinez and/or Ospina.
I meant how much do they worth now.
They were cheap, as you said, when the market was not as crazy as now.
as @LordBendtner said, Leno is constantly on the German NT, he is no crap.
He may have a bad season or two, but the talent and potential are still there.
26 for a keeper, is like a 21,22 year-old outfielder.
You have a few players that went cheap, could not really reflect the craziness of the current market and reality.
25mil in the current market, is peanut.
I would say, 25mil for Leno is the market price, not high, not low… just around the market price.
If
I think it’s a good gamble. The reality is that we won’t be signing Alisson or Oblak or Donnarumma, given our current stature as a club. So a player like Leno who arguably has similar natural talent but needs to correct deficiencies in his game is a good punt. And he’ll be better than Cech regardless.
What if the signings are merely problem areas to sort out next season?
This notion that keepers have another development trajectory than other outfield players is such garbage. All the keepers who we consider as great went to their clubs when they were 24 years old or younger. Just because van der Sar and Lehmann went to United and Arsenal when they were old doesn’t change that.
That’s why I mentioned keepers who went more recently. They went for fees a lot lower than €20-25 million. There is a good chance Alisson and Oblak might go for well over 50+ million. But that doesn’t make Leno cheap. Leno is left at home for the reserve keeper of PSG. On first glance that seems like quite important, but it doesn’t speak to his advantage either.
You mean Sokratis and Lichtsteiner? For both those guys we have younger players in Bellerin and Mavropanos who at least deserve the benefit of the doubt for one more year. If they don’t cut it we can look further.
Lichesteiner imo will be debuchy mark 2 never trusted and horribly useless when given a chance. Meaning we are still looking for a back up rb next season.
If mustafi isn’t good enough then I don’t see what the point of Sokratis is.
Leno from the reports I’ve seen is the only person with two arms and two legs to let in my more goals than his expected average.
I don’t really see what these signings solve at all. Other then being bodies for us to scream abuse at when it turns out they are all average as fuck.
They ‘solve’ squad depth since we have no back up for Bellerin and Koscielny is out until november. I would have like to have seen Arsenal go about this in other way too, but I guess I understand they want to give Bellerin, Mavropanos and/or Holding/Chambers chances to prove there worth under a new manager.
What to make of Leno I’m not sure either. The comments placed by others here and elsewhere are not promising at all.
Aha. You dislike the signing of Lichtsteiner himself. I’m not too bothered if we need to add another back up right back next season tbh.
Well you could be right, but he’s been far from never trusted and horribly useless at Juventus. Plus he’s free, so even if we are looking for that backup right back next season we’ve not exactly lost out. If the rumours about our restrictive budget are true then it’s quite the opposite of losing out, getting him in for free actually works to our advantage.
The way I see it is that we have a new manager with a lot more tactical nous in a defensive sense than Wenger had, so I’m more willing to give someone like Sokratis a chance than I would be if Wenger was still manager and we signed him. For what it’s worth I tend to agree with your sentiment on him though, it doesn’t strike me as a great buy at all. But I’m willing to give basically everything a new chance at the start of this new era.
Yeah I am 1,000% for the “all in” or relatively cheap approach to buying right now. We don’t have the funds to sort out all our deficiencies… so I like pouncing on a starlet like Torreira for a bit more, but still smart and then going cheap on our depth options like Lichty. It makes very little sense to buy a potential starting RB when we have Bellerin right now unless we are thinking of shipping Bellerin out, and then we still have depth issue.
We aren’t big enough squad to have multiple players in those types of positions that are bang-on starters.
So get Torreira, brilliant winger, top defender (or let it ride)… let it ride at GK and other positions… then next summer go get defender depending on what our pile of youngsters do and get proper top GK. If Leno comes, we better hope he is better than it appears.
We just don’t have the budget this season to splash out on one position to be fair. We already made two huge signings last sesson. I’d rather us buy a few good level players at a lower price and be more shrewd than neglect certain positions.
Nope… if you have a chance (budget available) to get the oldies like Buffon, or 32-year old Neuer… you go get them. Age is not much a factor for a keeper.
I am not saying Leno is Buffon or Neuer, but 26 year-old is still young for a keeper.
Oliver Kahn wasn’t the starting keeper for Bayern till the age of 25, and not even a starter for Germany till 29, 30 year old.
How does this change the point? So we have 4(!) examples now. Like it is not usual for outfield players to move to bigger clubs at/around 25 if they break through at smaller clubs. Victor Valdes btw couldn’t so it. The fact that a goalkeepers development is different is one of the biggest clichés/myths or whatever in football.
26 is young and a good age for an outfield player too.
If 26 is still young and a good age, then what the problem is?
You think 25mil is expensive (not a small price), but what can we/you do?
You take it or leave it.
We can play Cech and Ospina for “another” year and the price of a Leno’s caliber will go higher for another year.
If there is another keeper with similar abilities/age with a cheaper price, yes, then there is a concern.
If the market is like that way, there is nothing we can do.
For 25mil, I will take him immediately.
Not only because I think the price is right, but also if we wait for another year, what if there isn’t any keeper in the market that fits our bill and requirement, and we have to overpay a so-and-so one??
No way.
If Leno fits our requirement then so do 306 other GKs
If what @Phoebica is right we can find a keeper of similar level for a lower fee. Btw Leverkusen already signed his replacement so there is no need to immediately give them what they want, if Napoli want to pay 20/25 million for him they should. I’m not convinced.of this is a pull-the-trigger kind of deal.