Welcome Brahim Diaz!

https://www.marca.com/futbol/2018/11/29/5bffc05eca474140198b45ca.html

19 year old youth superstar at Man City youth academy.

Way to go Flo!

Superstar is a bit much isn’t it? I feel like Real Madrid are clutching at straws with these youngsters since missing out on Mbappe.

he is a "free" youngsters lol, nothing beats signing a free player

Is he a winger ?

From what I have seen he is an AM, so we're going to have the same Isco/James issue of him either moving forward as a winger, or move deeper as a CM unless we get a scheme change from a manager. Plus he is Castilla level, no? I doubt he's coming to the first team.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e3PuEnxTG8&t=18s

*Watches Diaz play

Great signing! Tell him not to forget to pack his teddy bear and toothbrush as well.

And somebody please tell Florentino to slow down and stop going after all the world beaters in Europe. Give somebody else a chance, jesus.

He's actually a very good player. Glad we got him. Mahrez and Sane were gonna freeze him out. But kn, we need some established players already

Any established players out there 19 years old or younger? Because that's our only hope lol

who do you see us signing at an affordable price who is "established"?

"Affordable" is such a subjective word.  To me, Madrid should be paying on par with what all the other elite clubs are paying for players... if not slightly more.  That's how we were able to buy literally every one of our top players.  

How many of our great players were "affordable" according to the market price structure at the time?

You're not going to pay less than 80 mil for a top relatively young player today.  That's just how it is.  Shit or get off the pot as they say... If we're going to get off the pot, we shouldn't consider ourselves a top club anymore.

What's wrong with signing a very talented 19 year old for free?

honestly, i want to see names. everyone here insinuates that we should do better. but who should we sign? and how much do you think that will take?

Well we could have gone after Icardi and Griezmann who both had a buyout of 100m. Firmino I campaigned for before his release clause went up from something silly like 40m. Could have attempted to get Dybala in some swap with Ronaldo. Wingers were kind of limited but I wanted us to go for Malcom. Midfield we could have gone for Rodri, Arthur, Torreira, Carvalho or Witsel. CBs De Vrij was free, Sokratis went for relatively cheap.

Any of those could have bolstered our team for relatively cheap, and were obviously attainable as they moved in the summer.

Moving forward I would be looking at players who,

have contracts expiring: Martial, Herrera, Alderweireld, maybe Ramsey, maybe Rabiot but I am not cool with his attitude.

youngish players from teams who will sell: Hermoso (seems all but done), De Ligt, Ndombele, maybe Depay (worried about attitude), Suso, Andre Silva, Werner, Maxi Gomez.

There are probably more but those are off the top of my head.

Nick is gonna reject most, if not all those names because they do not fit his idea of what a Madrid player should be.

I actually like the names he posted, all fine players, but barely any of these names are established players ready to walk into our XI: "Martial, Herrera, Alderweireld, maybe Ramsey, maybe Rabiot [...] Hermoso (seems all but done), De Ligt, Ndombele, maybe Depay (worried about attitude), Suso, Andre Silva, Werner, Maxi Gomez"

they are all young players for the most part with a lot to prove and most will come with a high price tag, this was my point.

Guys like De Ligt are rumoured to be priced at 100 mil already lmao. so honestly, Deez did not answer my question, where are those stars and how much do you think it will take for us to sign them.

My personal favourite midfielder whom i see as a must sign is Ndombele. he is unbelievable.

De ligt looks legit from what little I've seen of him, as well. He may be young, but the talent is clearly there. He reminds me of Varane, when he was that age and had just transfered to Real Madrid. He's seems very mature for his age, and is physically strong as well. I have a feeling he'll make a name for himself in the future. As it stands, he seems inclined to join Barcelona, though. They've shown far more interest in him than we have, and he recently admitted that he's a fan of their style of football, in addition to likening himself to Pique.

I'm definitely behind us pushing a move for Icardi, at this point. I know you're not a fan of what he brings to the table, Nick, but his hunger for goals, and his extraordinary ability to score them, is something I've been incredibly jealous of considering how toothless our attack has been this season. I don't think his build up play is something to scoff at either. Due to Inter's strategic approach, it's not something he's able to showcase very often, but his hold up play and passing ability are both clearly very good. I imagine he would improve a lot through playing for us. Whenever I watch him play, I can't help but wonder what he'd be capable of doing if he didn't have such a restricted role.

Well the ones with less than a year- free obviously in summer. Can't beat that.

And no one can predict how much players will cost, so it is somewhat of an impossible question, unless you are in the negotiating room. Did anyone think Kepa would go for 80m, or Oscar for 60m, when players like Malcom and Rodri went for dirt cheap?

Maxi Gomez has a release clause of 40m, and if I just had to guess on the rest of the players I would say they are definitely in our reach financially, but may range from 50-100m, probably on the lower side of that range for Suso, Andre Silva, and Depay, and on the higher side of that range for De Ligt, Ndombele and Werner.

Plus we have players that want to move like Modric, Bale, possibly Isco among others that would raise some capital to go after more targets, beyond our current financial reach.

Nick, I am just wondering what your argument is exactly- that there are no players available, or that we cannot afford players?

We should ask for Lautaro Martinez from Inter to be included in the Modric deal. He isn't having a good time with Inter at the moment but he seems a good talent for CF

Valkyrja wrote:We should ask for Lautaro Martinez from Inter to be included in the Modric deal. He isn't having a good time with Inter at the moment but he seems a good talent for CF

inter are not stupid they would never do that. You don't give up a young attacking talent you could sell 100 mil in a couple of years to get a near finished midfielder lol. Not to mention Inter, if they sign Modric it's gonna be on some hand me down type of deal like loan + obligation to buy the next season for like 25 mil lol. Just don't expect to make much money out of a Modric transfer

@VanDeez, my argument is that the transfer market has changed, and people have not adapted to the new realities and are still using the same yesteryears logic.

Some of the names you mentioned are average players, not established guys that can come here and start. They are not bad players, but certainly nothing special compared to the young players we already have. I am referring to the Suso, Andre Silva, Malcom, Werner, Depay etc...

My challenge is to name established stars available for affordable prices, because it's so obvious the club should go for those guys. i also dont think it's that hard to estimate the price clubs would ask for certain players.

I can tell you for Ndombele for example, Lyon will be asking for around 60-70 millions next summer. 60 mil is the price that they put on Fekir last summer, that's in line with the type of money Monaco got for Fabinho for example. Talking about Fabinho...

I can understand that. I think what a lot of posters are feeling lately is that we have multiple starters under performing for long periods of time, players who are unmotivated, and players who are aging poorly. If we could have replaced them with some younger players like the ones listed above (decent, young, motivated, and can develop), we may not have been in such a bad spot.

The lack of movement overall is a bit depressing considering the squad has needed refreshing for years now. And given we could have had the likes of Icardi/Griezmann, Rodri, Malcom and De Vrij instead of Benz, Bale, Llorente, and Vallejo (basically dead weight players), for relatively cheap given our past buying power, it's even more depressing.

The ones I called out as dead weight players are absolute quality, no denying that. The problem is age and mentality. We have now had 3 coaches who have basically shown they can't rejuvenate these players anymore, so I think it is time to cut ties.

we all know that the motivation issue comes from dominating the CL for 5 years. the high of what they won was...too high, and then they play la liga and they same motivation is there... it's a unique situation.

The problem is not age or mentality, the problem is opportunity. Take Marcos Llorente for example, Zidane buried him on the bench for a year, Lopetegui did the same making him look like a scrub, and now he just delivered two excellent games. The same applies to Ceballos.

If you sign Rodri and he never plays because of Kroos, casemiro, Modric, you would have been saying the same thing, praising another kid in another team.

And i dont understand some of the names you throw out. Griezmann was never leaving; De Vrij was not coming here as a 4th CB, he starts every game for Inter; why sign Malcom when you are trying to promote Asensio to grow + Vinicius + Rodrygo coming + Vasquez in the squad; Icardi, again poachers...

Mr Nick09 wrote:

Valkyrja wrote:We should ask for Lautaro Martinez from Inter to be included in the Modric deal. He isn't having a good time with Inter at the moment but he seems a good talent for CF

inter are not stupid they would never do that. You don't give up a young attacking talent you could sell 100 mil in a couple of years to get a near finished midfielder lol. Not to mention Inter, if they sign Modric it's gonna be on some hand me down type of deal like loan + obligation to buy the next season for like 25 mil lol. Just don't expect to make much money out of a Modric transfer

So give them Modric and money. He's the type of striker we should target from Inter, not Icardi, as he good both inside and outside the box.