Thomas Lemar

BBZ8800 said:

Denis will never be a starter material.
Lemar is a questionable fit for our style and a risky investment from 100s of angles.
Not to mention that his price is 120M.

He could turn out to be good, or he could be a waste of 2-3 years (while we waited for him).
Hardly sounds like a good idea for Messi's final years when we need a right here-right now type of a proven talent.

Lemar-Denis sounds more like: wow, we haven't solved a shit in our team and wasted a few years on waiting on them than solving our Lcm/Lw issues.

Click to expand...

The argument about "Messi's final years" have been used continuously as a reason for signing the players we have signed though, which have been mostly garbage that we are now stuck with, while missing out time and time again on great opportunities in the market. As a result, the market value of our squad as it stands today is low for a top tier team.

Just curious, who do you want us to sign? Malcom from Bordeaux? Pulisic? Goretzka from Schalke? Fabinho? Chase some PSG or Chelsea star?

Jombi said:

The argument about "Messi's final years" have been used continuously as a reason for signing the players we have signed though, which have been mostly garbage that we are now stuck with, while missing out time and time again on great opportunities in the market. As a result, the market value of our squad as it stands today is low for a top tier team.

Just curious, who do you want us to sign? Malcom from Bordeaux? Pulisic? Goretzka from Schalke? Fabinho? Chase some PSG or Chelsea star?

Click to expand...

I am always about proven players, like Coutinho and Griezmann.

About younger prospects, only if they are somewhat cheaper.
Not semi unproven guys like 120M Lemar.

The fact that we bought Arda is not a reason that we should suddenly go for Lemars.

We already have one 150M guy in our team.
Let's breathe, wait and see whether he will fit into our team before we try to buy more youngsters for insane price (with way less talent).

Imo, a chance to hit a gem for Barca's level with guys like Lemar, Martial and similar is like 20%.
If you buy 5 Lemars, you'll hit a gem on one.
If you buy 1 or 2, well, you could spend a fortune, lose 2-3 years and get absolutely nothing in return and then you'll be at the same spot (looking for a new player) 3 years later, except that we lost 3 years.

Also, some of you are constantly mentioning young gems and how our board is stupid and how we are missing on 10s of no-brainer gems.
A small test: write down 10 Goretzkas, Lemars and other current flavor of the Month players, for whom people think that we should go for (no brainers).

Then we'll come back to those 10 names in 2-3 years.
Imo, you'll see that from those 10 Goretzkas and Lemars, 2-3 of them max will turn into players okish for Barca's/Real's level (I am not even mentioning key players level, just "ok-ish" level).

More or less, the same as with La Masia gems.
Ok, Lemar surely has a higher ceiling than Adama, but you get the point.

People act as if buying youngsters is a sure thing.
I think I have wrote a few Months ago a list of all our transfers in the last 20 years when we bought youngsters for a lot of money.
1/4 of them turned good. Others turned into Saviolas, Quaresmas, Simaos, Geovannis etc, even though majority of them were 100M players (in the today's market). The best potentials in the world in that moment. A sure thing...

So anyone who watched our club, or developing youngsters in general over the last 15-20-25 years won't be THAT much excited about Lemars, Goretzkas etc.
Or those few guys who are mentioning Martial suddenly in the last few days (wtf?).

So, yes, I am not sharing views of some guys here who think that Lemar and other guys are better deals than proven world class superstars like Coutinho and Griezmann.
Coutinho and Griez are combined 250+M.

On the other hand, imagine splasing 150M for Dembele and let's say that he will never fit in (just an idea) and then splasing 120M for Lemar and a guy turns into a bad fit for our system.
Imagine splashing 270M and getting nothing.

Ok, sometimes you need to make a risk and splash on youngsters (if you are confident about him).
But we can't go around and just splash 100s of Millions on youngsters who had one good season.

In short, you should add these factors into maths:

1. if Lemar goes to Chelsea/City=he is gone forever. We missed out on him
2. the only chance to EVER get him is NOW, before he goes to other big team
3. the chance for a youngster like Lemar to turn into a player good enough for Barca (if you buy him NOW, BEFORE he proves his world class worth)=is 20%

So, yes: if he goes to a big team, we will lose on him.
But again, buying him is not that simple, because there is a huge chance that he won't turn as good for our level.

When you think about those two things, it is not so easy and buy 1-2-3 Lemars for 100M each.
As said, we already have one Lemar (in Dembele) with whom we tried a risk.
Let's wait what will happen with him before we invest new 100M in this risky poker game.

BBZ8800 said:

In short, you should add these factors into maths:

1. if Lemar goes to Chelsea/City=he is gone forever. We missed out on him
2. the only chance to EVER get him is NOW, before he goes to other big team
3. the chance for a youngster like Lemar to turn into a player good enough for Barca (if you buy him NOW, BEFORE he proves his world class worth)=is 20%

So, yes: if he goes to a big team, we will lose on him.
But again, buying him is not that simple, because there is a huge chance that he won't turn as good for our level.

When you think about those two things, it is not so easy and buy 1-2-3 Lemars for 100M each.
As said, we already have one Lemar (in Dembele) with whom we tried a risk.
Let's wait what will happen with him before we invest new 100M in this risky poker game.

Click to expand...

So basically, you are about trying to chase stars from rich clubs? That should be the strategy going forward? Isnt that what we have always tried to do though? Its very, very hard to lure stars from rich clubs to our team. That includes players like Griezmann and Coutinho as well.

So you are totally against buying players like Asensio, Isco, Ceballos as well like Madrid did? I suggested buying Lemar last summer when he was a 25m player. Were you positive or negative to that? This summer he was a 100m player. Or are you only against buying young players if they cost 100m+?

Groundhog day argument from Jombi who names any decent young player he has heard of and says Barca should sign them

Conveniently forgets all the ones that turned out not to be good enough and brings up ones that have done well.

BBZ literally said we should sign such players if they don't cost an arm and leg. Who wouldn't sign Asensio for 4m, Isco for 30m when he was turning out to be a superstar level talent and already doing very well, and Ceballos who we tried to sign, but got in too late.

BBZ8800 said:

In short, you should add these factors into maths:

1. if Lemar goes to Chelsea/City=he is gone forever. We missed out on him

Click to expand...

And yet we are chasing Coutinho like headless chicken with 130 million in our hands, with Liverpool clearly not intending to sell, because they want to have the same transer policy as those two clubs. And as I said before: Lemar is a 80 million player if you approach Monaco at the beginning of the transfer window, not the last day.

DonAK said:

BBZ literally said we should sign such players if they don't cost an arm and leg. Who wouldn't sign Asensio for 4m, Isco for 30m when he was turning out to be a superstar level talent and already doing very well, and Ceballos who we tried to sign, but got in too late.

Click to expand...

Pretty sure he was negative to most young players and using our young flops we have signed as a counterargument. Our young flops have nothing to do with quality players who dominate leagues at a young age. He usually is very negative to anyone who isnt a superstar from some rich club IMO. Did he support signing Umtiti or Nelsinho? Wasnt he highly negative to signing Neymar as well?

FCBfan22 said:

And yet we are chasing Coutinho like headless chicken with 130 million in our hands, with Liverpool clearly not intending to sell, because they want to have the same transer policy as those two clubs. And as I said before: Lemar is a 80 million player if you approach Monaco at the beginning of the transfer window, not the last day.

Click to expand...

That is all hindsight about Lemar.

If barca had bid 80m for him at start of window folk would have been going fucking mental about it.

Jombi said:

Pretty sure he was negative to most young players and using our young flops we have signed as a counterargument. Our young flops have nothing to do with quality players who dominate leagues at a young age. He usually is very negative to anyone who isnt a superstar from some rich club IMO. Wasnt he highly negative to signing Neymar as well?

Click to expand...

I think he tend to be negative towards JUST signing young talents.

If you sign Lemar or Goretzka WITH someone like Coutinho, it makes a lot more sense.

Next summer or the summer after, this club will have to spend more money that it ever have to rectify their mistakes.

DonAK said:

I think he tend to be negative towards JUST signing young talents.

If you sign Lemar or Goretzka WITH someone like Coutinho, it makes a lot more sense.

Click to expand...

Exactly it is that simple Barca need to buy both types of players.

There is not one top team out there that has not been built doing that.

A scatter gun approach to naming the latest young player to get headlines wont work.

DonAK said:

Who wouldn't sign Asensio for 4m, Isco for 30m when he was turning out to be a superstar level talent and already doing very well

Click to expand...

Edit: but tbf we didn't have a penny to pay in 2013 after Neymar deal.

DonAK said:

I think he tend to be negative towards JUST signing young talents.

If you sign Lemar or Goretzka WITH someone like Coutinho, it makes a lot more sense.

Click to expand...

Maybe, but my impression is that he is extremely negative to anyone who isnt a superstar from some rich club. If an opportunity arises and we get the chance to sign some superstar from a rich club at a very good price, of course we should take it. We should never be fixed in our ways and always do one thing. But to just dismiss any player who is young and use counterarguments about some young flops we have signed isnt really relevant at all. Did he want us to sign Neymar? Umtiti? Nelsinho? Or were they dismissed using the same arguments he is using now?

I was saying this a few posts ago... We could go with Griezmann and Lemar or Coutinho and Martial/Werner. One young player and one proven player, while selling 3 deadweights such as Paco, Arda and Vermaelen. But still with Coutinho and Griezmann we must take into account that they have their flaws (one is inconsistent sometimes while the other tends to disappear in the big games).

khaled_a_d said:

Edit: but tbf we didn't have a penny to pay in 2013 after Neymar deal.

Click to expand...

Take a loan.

That's what Real Madrid did very early in Florentino's comeback.

Or sell players that aren't needed.

I think Zubi and the board thought Cesc would turn good.