Luka Jović

Gave an interview (apparently) where he quickly spoke about our interested. Was honored to be mentioned alongside a club like us but other than that a diplomatic answer of him being fully concentrated on his Frankfurt adventure.

Will play tonight against Shakhtar Donetsk so an opportunity to check him out in action.

https://www.sport.es/es/noticias/barca/reaccion-luka-jovic-interes-del-barca-7303473

Talk about Frankfurt expecting to get €40-45 million for him. Seems like a more than fair price given the market.

Alik said:

It's a bit of a circular argument. We are static because of the players we have.

Dembele is not static for example, but that is not enough.

Click to expand...

Too many of our players are what one could call as seniors or semi-seniors. Past their best in other words. That and them not being the quickest and most mobile players by nature to begin with. Looking at the likes of Piqué, Rakitic and Busquets here primarily. Then you have a Suárez that is way slower than he once was. Essentially our only players (that are starting fairly regularly) that have pace are Alba (hence him being such an important player for us nowadays), Semedo (who rarely bombs forward for obvious reasons and us having a mostly inexistent right flank if Dembélé is not playing), Dembélé and Messi on a good day. That is not much, unfortunately.

Made an assist yesterday and received a high ranking from Whoscored (7.7). Second highest after the right back Hinteregger (7.9) who scored 1 goal.

https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...018-2019-Shakhtar-Donetsk-Eintracht-Frankfurt

[youtube]_nSDVkfdzjk[/youtube]

Meh

So is this one a pretty much done deal (he agreed with Barca, wants to go to Barca, and just the fee in question where they have to field older clubs offers not to be totally off the mark in underselling), or is all wide open?

Arizona Scott said:

So is this one a pretty much done deal (he agreed with Barca, wants to go to Barca, and just the fee in question where they have to field older clubs offers not to be totally off the mark in underselling), or is all wide open?

Click to expand...

We need to negotiate with the club too and AFAIK, we haven't submitted a bid yet. So, basically half way done, but nowhere near completed.

Arizona Scott said:

So is this one a pretty much done deal (he agreed with Barca, wants to go to Barca, and just the fee in question where they have to field older clubs offers not to be totally off the mark in underselling), or is all wide open?

Click to expand...

Frankfrut have an option to buy him from Benfica for only €12 million this summer. They are obviously going to trigger the buyout clause. Afterwards they are likely trying to sell him to the highest bidder. A price of around €40-50 million has been rumored so far. What we or another club will end up paying for him is hard to guess right now. It depends if he keeps impressing and if a bidding war emerges between potentially interested top clubs which might very well happen.

I hope it'a not a done deal, there are better options in the market ...

Big test for him against Donetsk mid-week. He's shown quality in Europe so far. Hopefully he can take his game to the next level because we are looking desperate for a striker signing in the summer.

Trafalgar said:

I hope it'a not a done deal, there are better options in the market ...

Click to expand...

Like?

Messi983 said:

Like?

Click to expand...

Let's get something clear here. Are we buying him to be a backup or a future starter? IMHO he is not good enough to be a future starter (not even close) and for a backup who will play 10-15 games max he is to expensive. FFS we paid 30 mil for Paco and he was a better player than than Jovic is today and look how that ended and how many minutes he played for us. Until we clear this up any further discussion is useless. This fee is reasonable only if we see him as a future starter and if he is our future starter than we are in for a big fucking downgrade from prime Suarez. And if current Suarez is our benchmark than god help us.

Raketa10 said:

Let's get something clear here. Are we buying him to be a backup or a future starter? IMHO he is not good enough to be a future starter and for a backup who will play 10-15 games max he is to expensive. Until we clear this up any further discussion is useless.

Click to expand...

He will bought as a player with potential.
Who will currently be a squad player with an option to be a starter in the future.

If he will be awesome=he will be a starter.
If he will be meh=he will stay as a squad player or he will get sold and we'll buy a new guy.

Something like transfers of Malcom, Denis, Gomes, Paco, Arthur.

As someone mentioned on previous pages: a medium price/risk transfer.

Dembele, Coutinho, Frenkie, De Light are high risk and high price.
Malcom, Arthur, Gomes, Paco, Lenglet are a medium risk.
Todibo, Mina are a low risk/low price.

So, imo, he is neither a clear starter or a squad player.
He is actually both.
Depends on how will he play in the first 1-2 seasons.

Icardi, Kane, Firmino on the other hand would be players bought as obvious future longterm starters.

BBZ8800 said:

He will bought as a player with potential.
Who will currently be a squad player with an option to be a starter in the future.

If he will be awesome=he will be a starter.
If he will be meh=he will stay as a squad player or he will get sold and we'll buy a new guy.

Something like transfers of Malcom, Denis, Gomes, Paco, Arthur.

As someone mentioned on previous pages: a medium price/risk transfer.

Dembele, Coutinho, Frenkie, De Light are high risk and high price.
Malcom, Arthur, Gomes, Paco, Lenglet are a medium risk.
Todibo, Mina are a low risk/low price.

So, imo, he is neither a clear starter or a squad player.
He is actually both.
Depends on how will he play in the first 1-2 seasons.

Icardi, Kane, Firmino on the other hand would be players bought as obvious future longterm starters.

Click to expand...

How is Frenkie a HIGH risk with 75 mil fee and Jovic with 50 or 60 mil fee (I doubt he will go for less) is a MEDIUM risk??? Is there some official risk/reward scale??? He is playing for Eintracht and he only had ONE good season son far so at 50+ mil he is definitely a HIGH risk buy.

BBZ8800 said:

He will bought as a player with potential.
Who will currently be a squad player with an option to be a starter in the future.

If he will be awesome=he will be a starter.
If he will be meh=he will stay as a squad player or he will get sold and we'll buy a new guy.

Something like transfers of Malcom, Denis, Gomes, Paco, Arthur.

As someone mentioned on previous pages: a medium price/risk transfer.

Dembele, Coutinho, Frenkie, De Light are high risk and high price.
Malcom, Arthur, Gomes, Paco, Lenglet are a medium risk.
Todibo, Mina are a low risk/low price.

So, imo, he is neither a clear starter or a squad player.
He is actually both.
Depends on how will he play in the first 1-2 seasons.

Icardi, Kane, Firmino on the other hand would be players bought as obvious future longterm starters.

Click to expand...

Exactly. Little to lose on "gambling" on him with the rumored price (€40-45 million). That is not much for a player of his age (just turned 21) with his track record and potential. Certainly worth the risk.

Not sure if Raketa10 has even watched Jovic in action once for him to be this categorically convinced that he will be a failure and be worse than Paco. Really strange stuff. Seen zero arguments from his side to date why that is the case. Untrue claims of him being unidimensional too. Baffling stuff.

Raketa10 said:

Let's get something clear here. Are we buying him to be a backup or a future starter? IMHO he is not good enough to be a future starter (not even close) and for a backup who will play 10-15 games max he is to expensive. FFS we paid 30 mil for Paco and he was a better player than than Jovic is today and look how that ended and how many minutes he played for us. Until we clear this up any further discussion is useless. This fee is reasonable only if we see him as a future starter and if he is our future starter than we are in for a big fucking downgrade from prime Suarez. And if current Suarez is our benchmark than god help us.

Click to expand...

We're not getting Harry Kane for 300m euros, so what do we do? We have a limited budget. Suarez is slow as a turtle and ageing fast, so I doubt he'll play all the time like he did when Paco was with us. Its hard for us to sign backups for 20m euros these days and its better to sign players who have upside potential than simply sign yet another washed up oldie who we cant get rid of and who need to be replaced after a couple of years.

Raketa10 said:

How is Frenkie a HIGH risk with 75 mil fee and Jovic with 50 or 60 mil fee (I doubt he will go for less) is a MEDIUM risk??? Is there some official risk/reward scale??? He is playing for Eintracht and he only had ONE good season son far so at 50+ mil he is definitely a HIGH risk buy.

Click to expand...

Dont pay so much attention to that. Coutinho was supposed to be a no risk, instant impact, established PL superstar joining to take us to the next level and he is turning out to be a 160m disaster. Risks depend on lots of factors, but the point is that we need two strikers. Boateng will be gone and with Suarez being a shadow of his peak, that second striker will need to be potentially better than Suarez will be next season. But the striker market sucks, so there is very little opportunity in the market. Spending 150m+ on mediocrity could be the result if we splash big in a bad market.

Raketa10 said:

Let's get something clear here. Are we buying him to be a backup or a future starter? IMHO he is not good enough to be a future starter (not even close) and for a backup who will play 10-15 games max he is to expensive. FFS we paid 30 mil for Paco and he was a better player than than Jovic is today and look how that ended and how many minutes he played for us. Until we clear this up any further discussion is useless. This fee is reasonable only if we see him as a future starter and if he is our future starter than we are in for a big fucking downgrade from prime Suarez. And if current Suarez is our benchmark than god help us.

Click to expand...

50M today is basically the same in "real value" as 30M before Neymar/PSG have f*** up the market.

We are looking for a new Paco (bench player at first with a hope he can develop into something more) but situation is different than in 2016. Suarez is 3 years older and in a clear decline so whoever we'll bring should have (on paper) better chances (than Paco) to stay here longterm and become Suarez's potential future replacement. We won't know if Jović is/will be good enough but after watching him more closely over the past few weeks he's my prefered option. He's much more mobile than people give him credit for and while not great technically he's very good in link-up play and he should only improve in that aspect playing with Messi/Dembele instead of his current team mates. Those were my main concerns about Jović when he first emerged as our potential target but now I'm convinced that he will fit into our team.

We are past the fase when we could use just a cheap veteran backup (like F.Llorente for example) and have to do something both short-term (next season) and long-term. Suarez can't play 50-60 games/season on a top level anymore, I would be more than happy if we can get him to be on a good or at least respectable level for 30-40 matches next season (and even more so if he'll perform in the "right" games). Suarez needs more rest but hopefully new guy will also be good enough to get playing time away from him if he'll be out of form. He'll have to convince Messi first though.