Forget what we paid for him. The issue is how much is he worth today as a player - taking into account his abilities, his form, and the remaining time on his contract. Would Everton pay 6-8m for Jelavic if he was playing, for example, for Stoke? No way! So why do you think other teams will pay that much for him? Maybe we would pay 3m - which makes the current bid understandable.
Consider Andy Carroll. Should Liverpool have held out for 35m from West Ham? What about Aidan McGeady? Should Spartak hold out for 9.5m? Of course not! You win some and you lose some. Just like it's a big mistake to hold on to losing stocks in the hope their price will bounce back, it's a big mistake to expect the value of some players to return to what you paid for them.
The real question to ask is: Can we get more from Jelavic than we can get from another player we could buy for 3m? If not, sell and buy.
I'm surprised a loan move hasn't been discussed, the guy obviously has talent but for whatever reason he's just not performing the same. Unless his first stint was a massive fluke?
The way i see it we look strong all over the park now after selling two players, one of which was never going to cement a first team place. After letting go of Hitzlsperger and mucha and neville retiring, we needed cover desperately. At first, the mad dash for 3 wigan players made that desperation look transparent. But when you look at the squad and where everyone can play, we are in a stronger position than a lot of teams in terms of quality:
Keepers: Howard, Joel, Springthorpe
Springthorpe probably wont get a game but Joel and Howard give us 2 strong keepers for the season, necessary in my opinion to create the competition needed to maintain top end performances. Joel's age also gives us a future prospect of some potential, whilst Howard is still holding his own at the tail end of his career.
Defensively this season, I think we're going to be fine. I don't see the whole expanisve style means shipping goals ethos being applied here. Everton had one of the best defensive records last season and you don't just forget how to defend overnight. Alcaraz will prove important in terms of depth, and Stones coming through means we don't have to stress too much about the possibility of selling Heitinga. Distin isn't getting any younger but by the looks of things he can handle it for at least another season. Keeping Baines meanswe still have europes best left back.
The emergence of Ross Barkley has been like a new signing anyway, Martinez faith in his maturity paying dividends so far, but the most important player we acquired was Barry IMO. He has experience that Gibson and Osman simply don't, and his all round game will add a calmness and assurance to our game. In Mccarthy, we've signed the much touted replacement for Fellaini, for a similar fee for when we took Fellaini from Liege. The key difference being Mccarthy has worked with Martinez for a few years, there is an understanding there, and he also has Premier League experience. All round he is better than Fellaini when he first arrived, and I think he will progress quicker. We could still do with selling naismith and buying a left sided winger but overall we have a stronger midfield now without Fellaini than we did with him.
Strikers: Jelavic, Kone, Lukaku, Vellios
Vellios was our young player of the year in his breakthrough season and I think he will benefit from seeing another young player in Lukaku taking his chance. I think Vellios might see a handful of games and get himself one or two goals. Obviously Jelavic is lacking in confidence but we know he is a first time finisher and a poacher. If he starts scoring again, I don't think he'll stop. But just in case, we have Kone, who notched 11 last season and again, if he can find form, will be another striker who could bag us more than we bargained for. Finally, Lukaku's 17 last season was an indication that he, like Benteke, deserves to be a first choice striker. the fact that Chelsea bought Samuel Eto'o for a year means I think mourinho didn't trust Lukaku under the pressure that is now on Chelsea to win the big prizes. He scored 17 fo West Brom, but that's West Brom. Chelsea will be expected to win the league and having also signed Atsu and Schurrle and having a plethora of attacking midfielders, I can easily see why they plumped to loan him out again. luckily, we were perfectly posied as we are a step above West brom in terms of quality and expectation, and I imagine he'll start every game he's fit enough to play in. Lukaku will bring us much needed goals and to swap that for Victor makes it even sweeter.
Overall, when you look at our squad, we're maybe only one or two away from actually having a squad that can compete at the very highest level.
Barry is a free agent at the end of this year, which means we could simply sign him straight up if he has a good season for us, the option to resign Delofeu seems plausible and so we'll only really lose Lukaku at the end fo this season. However, dependent on Chelsea and our success this season, we might even be able to prize him off them if we're clever.
I'm extremely happy with the signings, and I honestly think ourselves, Liverpool and Chelsea have done the best business of the window. Tottenham's massive spending offset by bale wont backfire, but it could take too long to settle the team down for them to reap the rewards this season. Arsenal have signed a fantastic player in Ozil, but not solved the defensive problems, Man City have bought well but have a new manager who I feel will do better in the champs league than the league, and Man U under Moyes are an absolute joke, but the players there should not be written off.
The top 7 this year will be Chelsea, Man City, Tottenham, Everton, Arsenal, Liverpool and Man United, but the order is so far up in the air, I don't think we'll have an idea of where people will end up until at least February. If we can maintain our solid if uninspiring start and utilise our new look squad properly, I see no reason why we can't be in the mix.and rightfully, given that all the loan players could just leave and not return at the end of this spell, we need to maximise their input and use it to get as much from this season as we can.
A trophy would gaurantee us Europa League next season, whilst a consistent season could easily see us pushing for 4th.
After all that, it would be interesting to see if Martinez still thinks the transfer window should have shut a month ago
I would go for mirallas but everytime I put a player on my shirt something happens, I had Rooney, next season we sold him, arteta, we then sold him, and a few years ago jags when he missed quite a bit cause he was injured so I swore I would never have a name on a shirt ever again
I really don't see how this is indicative of the club being poorly run.
I think it's an indication that retail staff don't work well late at night or early in the morning. Any, absolutely any, comment that implies otherwise is taking the absolute piss.
Hoof_It_Nev got a reaction from Mogsy in Which player name would you have on your shirt?
