Paying $131 million for a defensive midfielder makes no sense. Massive contractual obligations for a decade—botching the Ziyech transfer—this doesn’t end well.

The whole thing smells and raises suspicions that nefarious interests are involved. Sorry mate.

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Link to tweet

Hopefully he’s not the new crazy expensive James Rodríguez.

Sorry to say I saw this coming. What a mess. Good luck

fees they are paying us are certainly not huge at all, nothing like what the Chinese were paying years ago before they internally clamped down.

The only 2 players we have sold to the Saudis (I will say so far, as hopefully they take the poison that is Lukaku off our hands, who is arguably the worst transfer in EPL history, a massive mistake by the old Roman regime that I TRULY lost my shit over) who was purchased by Boehly and Co are Koulibaly and Auba. Last summer we paid (stupidly, I had a right proper fit, not on the fee, but in terms as footballing play, I thought he was rinsed, and his style of play was a bad match for the EPL). We paid £33.5m or so for a transfer fee, and the Saudis are buying him for around £20m. We paid 10m quid for Aubameyang, and he is being sold for around £5m. Hardly some massive pile of monies involved there.


you also conveniently left out the next 2 paragraphs, especially the first one



(to address the 2nd paragraph, perception is spin, especially as it is coming from rivals like the bloviating partisan Gary Neville from Man U, who also tossed the toys from the pram last year at our signing players to long term contracts to lower the year over year FFP impact via amortisation)

Saudi is a stakeholder but how much it pulls Boehly’s strings is still unclear. Last season’s manic spending episode is too convenient. He may suffer from bipolar disorder or he may be a straw man, but that wasn’t rational.

or all the other players the Saudis are buying from other clubs.

The prices for the players we sold to them were all at much lower figures than we paid, and total up to a low sum.

So far its been (assuming all these go through):

Kante £0 (left on a free, as we didn't renew, we paid £32m in 2016, long before the club was sold, and it was a steal, he was the best DMF on the planet for years)

Koulibaly £19.5m (we paid £33m for him last summer)

Ziyech £8.5m (we paid £34m for him 3 years ago, before the clubs was sold)

Mendy £16m (we paid £22m for him) 3 years

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Total we sold the four for: £44m (versus £121m in transfer fees paid over the years)

£44m is chump change for 4 players today, and all 4 of those players are globally famous, so add star power for the Saudis, at least in reputation.

We are also trying to sell Aubameyang, but will ger little, maybe £4 or £5m. We paid £10m for him last summer, and he was a bust.

The Saudis are not doing massive deals with us, nor are they remotely in any postion of direct ownership.

That would be clubs like Newcastle, who if you are so concerned about the Saudis, you should be truly in a lather over.