Official: Higuain joins Napoli

This is about winning trophies... not about counting your pennies at the end. That why Bayern paid what it paid for Martinez last year. Barca paid 57 mil for Neymar. Is he worth 57 mil? every penny if they take the trophy. Madrid is looking to pay 100 mil for Bale and if it bring La Decima, it's very well spent. You also have PSG paying 63 for Cavani because they wanted an elite scorer other than Ibra because that's what got them into trouble last year: Ibra-dependence.

Higuain has benched Aguero let alone Tevez on NT. Which player do you think gives you a better chance of winning trophies? Easy choice for me.

Please don't use transfer prices alone to rate players

'You get what you pay for' is not always true

Age, contract length, if the club wants to sell a player etc etc all play massive parts in the prices

And we couldn't justify blowing nearly all of our budget on ONE player, especially when that player has shown very little in the CL

If Higuain came, he'd be competing for Llorentes spot and yeah he'd probably take it from him

Tev wouldn't have came in

Ogbonna may not have came in

So all in all we'd be looking like the exact same team as last season + Higuain and a benched Llorente

And nearly 40M shorter to show for it

To me, and to the Juventus B.O.D that didn't look like a sensible investment. Which is what i'm saying.

You can have your player V player comparisons but i'd take Tev + Ogbonna + a starting XI Llorente for the CL over Higuain and Llorente as back up, partnered with Vucinic or Matri.


For 20-25M he'd have been a great addition

If we sold Vucinic and offered 30M it would have been ok

For nearly 40M. No, I don't feel like we missed out at all.

Most people agreed that Llorente and Higuain wouldn't have been a particularly good partnership. And I tend to agree. Although it's just an opinion we can't be sure for either way.

sportsczy wrote:This is about winning trophies... not about counting your pennies at the end.  That why Bayern paid what it paid for Martinez last year.  Barca paid 57 mil for Neymar.  Is he worth 57 mil?  every penny if they take the trophy.  Madrid is looking to pay 100 mil for Bale and if it bring La Decima, it's very well spent.  You also have PSG paying 63 for Cavani because they wanted an elite scorer other than Ibra because that's what got them into trouble last year:  Ibra-dependence.

Higuain has benched Aguero let alone Tevez on NT.  Which player do you think gives you a better chance of winning trophies?  Easy choice for me.

We're trying to be a self sufficient club

We don't have a 120M budget every summer.

So we have to actually manage our budget. So you have to look at Higuain coming in

OR Tev, Llorente (Who gets a better chance of getting into the team) and Ogbonna

Like I said we're not infinitely rich. So it's not a football manager decision or 'Which player is better' it's more of an Either/or situation. And Juventus went with the right one in my opinion.

PSG spent because PSG can.Afterall they've made crazy 200m sponsorship deals and can surpass FFP without even breaking a sweat.
We're not at that level nor at Bayern's level for that matter.Financially for the moment,Tevez was a good move and it was a practical decision as well.
I care about the long term future over immediate results which is what is the board's policy too.

And despite not spending as much as other rich clubs do we've still put forward a competitive team and i am happy about that fact.

Yeah exactly

Let's put it simply

We had a budget of around 50-55M

We could either

A) Blow most of it on Higuain, who would probably displace Llorente

B) Get a top class, young CB for depth which will help in Europe
Get an experienced striker on the cheap AND accomodate Llorente

We chose B

Now if we had some dodgy sponsorship deal our options would be different


We could just buy the player who we thought was better, even if it is for nearly 4x the price and STILL get the likes of Ogbonna.

We're not in that situation, this is what people must understand.

Is Tevez-Llorente better than Vucinic-Higuain?  Do you really need Ogbonna???  

Personally, a consistent scorer is a must for me.  You can get away without one if you have very good scoring wingers or AM... but Juve have neither.

We'll see.  Everything depends if Tevez is on form.  Llorente cannot and never was a player than can carry an attack.  He's going to need plenty of help.

But Juve have improved.  Improved enough?  Up for debate.

Bayern were in the exact same situation as Juve are some 8-9 years ago.
They were great financially but not exactly at the level of Real or Barca for instance.
New stadium came,immediately roped in a lot of sponsors thus their revenue got higher by each year.And most importantly they dint break the bank except for one year where they finished 5th the previous season.They werent even looked as CL contenders back then slowly they made a steady progress and look where they are now.This is all through meticulous planning and keeping finances in check without going overboard in the market.Juve aim to be something like that.
As for Arsenal ,its a shame for them because there are two clubs who have limitless spending policies and thus it became difficult to compete.They are recovering though and can afford to spend big money now.

sportsczy wrote:Is Tevez-Llorente better than Vucinic-Higuain?  Do you really need Ogbonna???  

Personally, a consistent scorer is a must for me.  You can get away without one if you have very good scoring wingers or AM... but Juve have neither.

We'll see.  Everything depends if Tevez is on form.  Llorente cannot and never was a player than can carry an attack.  He's going to need plenty of help.

But Juve have improved.  Improved enough?  Up for debate.

I dont think it matters imo.At Juve the goals are shared between players.We've not been dependant on one player to score all the goals.For instance ,if Tevez and Llorente can score 15 goals each ,it would make for a successful return.

Not to mention a lot of goals comes from midfield too.

plus we needed quality SS than getting a CF after getting Llorente or free and Tevez fit that bill perfectly....

What's the goal here? Have a chance at CL? Because if it's just to win Serie A again, you didn't need to do anything. I'm assuming the club is trying to get better in CL... I still see Juve as a CL quarterfinalist like last year.

And again, it's a true front line scorer that's missing. It's not like you have Ribery, Robben and Mueller on that attack, which makes a top CF unnecessary (although Mandzukic is decent). Every other top team has a front line scorer.

Question of ambition i guess.

And budget could be managed. To me, you have Marchisio, Pogba, Pirlo and Vidal. Only 3 will play. Why didn't Juve sell one so that they could afford any CF they wanted? You don't need 4 top class mids for 3 positions.

Serie A is definitely next year's priority.Juve havent won 3 straight Scudetti's since 1935 ,so yeah that will be the main aim.

And i would assume making a CL quarters next year would be the minimum objective then we see how it goes from there on.

Pogba is still 20, and i dont think the management were willing to take the risk by making him fill the void if we had sold someone(out of Vidal and Marchisio) so i guess we went with the safer option by keeping all our mids.Besides i think he'll play a lot of anyway.

Most of the CL depends on the Draw

Yeah we got to the quarter final, but it doesn't make a difference when the eventual winners knock you out, it just depends when you run into them.

Tomwin Lannister wrote:Llorente is unproven, however we don't know how good he'll be in the CL

Cavani on his CL debut campaign scored more goals than Higuain has in 48 CL apps. He was unproven in the CL too.

So yeah up until now he is a CL flop, and you can't dismiss that as if it doesn't matter.

Tev has recorded better numbers in the CL than Higuain anyway.

He has mental problems coping with the CL? Oh forgive me for seeing this as a bad thing.

Amazing, you did it again. You've managed to exceed your amazingly high stupidity levels yet again. You must be the biggest douchebag on this forum. I simply don't understand where you get the nerve to write obvious fallacies and sell them as truths to further your idiotic arguments.

Cavani hasn't scored more goals in one CL season than Higuain in all his career. You do know that repeating lies to anyone with half a brain and an internet connection doesn't work? Tevez has a fractionally better record but he scored his last CL goal 4 years ago. He didn't even play half of the City's CL's campaign. And Juve bought Tevez and Llorente to conquer Europe? My Lord, now I heard it all.

Again, please stop posting about this "soccer" thingy because you are single-handedly dragging this forum's already low IQ to the bottom of the Nile.

Clandestino, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about... so who's the idiot? The one who calls the others idiots or the one who acts like an idiot?

Clandestino wrote:

Tomwin Lannister wrote:Llorente is unproven, however we don't know how good he'll be in the CL

Cavani on his CL debut campaign scored more goals than Higuain has in 48 CL apps. He was unproven in the CL too.

So yeah up until now he is a CL flop, and you can't dismiss that as if it doesn't matter.

Tev has recorded better numbers in the CL than Higuain anyway.

He has mental problems coping with the CL? Oh forgive me for seeing this as a bad thing.

Amazing, you did it again. You've managed to exceed your amazingly high stupidity levels yet again. You must be the biggest douchebag on this forum. I simply don't understand where you get the nerve to write obvious fallacies and sell them as truths to further your idiotic arguments.

Cavani hasn't scored more goals in one CL season than Higuain in all his career. You do know that repeating lies  to anyone with half a brain and an internet connection doesn't work? Tevez has a fractionally better record but he scored his last CL goal 4 years ago. He didn't even play half of the City's CL's campaign. And Juve bought Tevez and Llorente to conquer Europe? My Lord, now I heard it all.

Again, please stop posting about this "soccer" thingy because you are single-handedly dragging this forum's already low IQ to the bottom of the Nile.

Can i remind you that personal attacks are not tolerated at all in this forum? please keep that out.

Clandestino

You've done it again

Se7en wrote:When will you realize that the 40 mil asking price is indeed reasonable... becouse some clubs are willing to pay the price? Flo upped the price becouse situations changed, Falcao and Cavani got sold, which meant Napoli got money, were in need of a striker, and Higuain was the only one left

I get it now. Florentino Perez is Bob Kelso from Scrubs and he's only upping the price because Real Madrid desperately need new training equipment and, with the money they COULD get from Napoli paying insanely over the top for Higgy, he can afford to buy Cronaldo and co. new sports socks and shin pads

As a football manager, I'd want to make sure any player i sell goes to the best club possible. But I guess cash strapped Real Madrid REALLY need the money

I bet if QPR came in with a cheeky £34 million bid, Flo would personally fly Higgy to Heathrow and drive him down to Loftus Road

Lex wrote:I bet if QPR came in with a cheeky £34 million bid, Flo would personally fly Higgy to Heathrow and drive him down to Loftus Road

If Higuain is ok with it, he has a responsibility to the shareholders to do it. He doesn't own the team. He is the CEO. He must get as much money for our sales as possible. This isn't a charity.

Di Marzio wrote:Napoli continues to push. The club is trying to convince Gonzalo Higuain. Real Madrid accepted the offer of 37 million plus 3 million in bonuses, and the player is starting to consider the Italian option. There have been some phone contacts between the striker and his former teammates Raul Albiol and Jose Maria Callejon. Higuain had a promise with Arsenal, but the English club wants to first resolve the qualification to Champions League. For this reason there is optimism, and the deal continues to be negotiated. Napoli is likely offering a two year deal with annual salary of 5 million, leaving the marketing rights to the player (the deal with Nike expires in 2 years), they would then negotiate a raise to 7 million  starting in second season.

This seems like one complicated deal.

To be fair, this is the first time Perez has ever stood his ground on a transfer Lex. We've sold people at a cut price to wherever they wanted to go.

Perez is class, this entire thing isn't really like him at all. Not that it's entirely bad, if everyone gets what they want in the end.

I think it's more Flo putting his foot down on everyone always selling their players to us for inflated prices and then expecting us to sell our players for cheap.

I applaud Flo for finally doing what every club has been doing against us. Arsenal would have without a doubt sold their players for inflated prices if we came knocking aswell. Flo servin dat justice :datass:

Cope is reporting that personal terms have been reached between Higuain and Napoli.

Again, I could understand if we had come in with some sort of stupid bid like £15 mil, or if Flo had outlined the price from the start. But to raise the price three times, after terms with the player were agreed with, is pretty sleazy. Why did Flo wait until contact with the player had been to raise the price?

Lex wrote:Again, I could understand if we had come in with some sort of stupid bid like £15 mil, or if Flo had outlined the price from the start. But to raise the price three times, after terms with the player were agreed with, is pretty sleazy. Why did Flo wait until contact with the player had been to raise the price?

You must not have read Flo's interviews at the start of the transfer opening, where he clearly stated he is not going to sell Higuain under 30mil. You can dig up the quote. And yes, he did say that before Arsenal were even showing interest.

Someone might have to dig up that interview, everytime I type "Higuain" or Flo Perez" into Google, I get latest news updates only