Fonte sold to Chinese Club

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

Makes sense

Hes the oldest, arguably on the biggest wage, can command a fee and is coming off a long ish injury

CB is probably an area we are going to look to improve in the future to get the average age down

ASLEFshrugged

€5.5m/£4.9m apparently. A good move if we offer Ginger a new contract, if we're going to stick with three at the back we'll need at least five (or six).

Macca85

I think this is great business by the club
At the time we were desperate for a cb and to get that money a year later is superb
Don’t often say it but well done Gold and sully

EXETERHAMMER

Although on the field he didn't make the impact we wanted, I think Fonte may be missed as a positive role model off the pitch.

imagelost

baracks_a_hammer said:

grey_til_I_dye said:

baracks

imo, if it goes through as reported, it's a good deal, regardless.

I don’t agree

When we sold Rio it might have sounded good to some - £18m was a lot of money back then

However when it was not clear (except perhaps to Terence Brown) where the money actually went and we ended up with Rigobert Song as a replacement the picture changes somewhat

I know in the case of Rio most would have been very unhappy, however I still stand by the point of only truly being able to judge whether the grass is greener without Fonte when we know what the extra wage capacity will be used for. What if we say go on to sign Jagielka as a replacment?

Song Try’s dripping out the box at Man U ,,, don’t grrrrrrr

thornburyiron

What?

jay_in_cpt

welovethehammers said:

jay_in_cpt said:

Fonte IMO is not our worse CB...
But each 2 their own..

Out of curiosity, who do you think is our worst CB?

;ok
That's a fair question!.
Im not sure, what I'd say tho when fit & before he got injured i think he was worthy of his place in team..

Don't actually think the 4 senior CB's are much different in skill etc..

Reid , should be our best , but too injury prone & IMO a bit inconsistent.

Ogbonna , has impressed me, got some stick on here earlier on, but fair play to him, he's been our best CB this season so far IMO.

Everyone loves Ginge, including me, he's not the greatest but plays with his heart and no one can ask for more, even with the odd gaff..

alderz

If we continue with a back three you probably want 5 specialist CBs in the squad, with 1 or 2 who can cover.

I think that Cresswell is a CB in Moyes' mind now, which means we've got Collins, Reid, Ogbonna, Rice & Cresswell as 5 CBs, with Kouyate and Zabaleta as emergency cover if needed.

OldCastleSwift

https://whufc.com/news/articles/2018/february/23-february/jose-fonte-departs-dalian-yifang

Official now.

Hopefully this means Collins stays as the token veteran centre back.

baracks_a_hammer

Welcome, Jagielka

claretandbluesky

In my view Collins must stay for a few reasons firstly he will be accepting in being a squad player as I feel just wants to stay where he and family happy. He is a squad player however who will never just pick up his wage and when called upon for 5 minutes of 90 he will give everything as though his life depended. I would imagine he is a strong character and of use in the dressing room, and finally he is most equipped of ours to deal with the big centre forward or opposing centre half at set pieces, to deal with the Andy Carroll or Robert Huth types who with respect Cressers and Rice will get nowhere near in my view, so we will find matches in which Collins just fits.

If they should sell him he should be awarded a testimonial in my view.

Macca85

Reid Ogbonna Collins rice oxford
Think that would be fine next season if money is tight

billybondsbeard

I don't for a minute think that Fonte was a poor purchase. He had some good games for us and he's off. You dont become a Portugese world cup player by accident.
Good luck Jose - make some money for yourself ;ok

Yeoldhammer

Hope he is on a decent wedge out there, especially after comments from Sullivan exposing that his kids told him not to sign him.

I'll still throw down the 20+m we got for Ayew and Fonte will not be added to the budget for Summer.

IronHerb

So what is the budget for the summer then?

Hamstew

;wotsits

claretandbluesky

In theory it could be quite substantial in that if we accept that we went in for Carvalho in a meaningful way and budgeted say 25m which we did not succeed in we could in theory have that unspent sum. In the transfer window just gone we sold Sakho, Ayew and now Fonte but only bought in Hugnil. so some decent wages off the book and a decent size surplus to add to the budget, we also will lose Hart's wages which again gives us room to play. So with unspent from last year, January window surplus and a reasonable summer budget we should have something to go to war with and space in wages to attract decent players.

All in theory as I say.........

As big a part of the summer will be keeping the two players who we will get enquiries for in my view who are Arnie and Mani. I believe Chelsea may put a lot of pressure on us for Arnie and it could go badly for us.

OldCastleSwift

C&B ;ok I was thinking that about Arnie last night. Can see him going, TBH. He's saying all the right things about the club and the fans, but I don't think he'd hesitate to join Chelsea if they came asking (and I don't see the Dave's turning down a profit on him).

As for the budget, we made a £13m profit from January, plus the reported £5m from Fonte, which added to the Carvalho money (if you believe we had/still have it) is £43m.

We spent around £36m on Arnie and Hernandez last summer so you could argue that that's our 'basic' budget, which means we could/should be looking at, what, £80m to spend?

alderz

OCS

What was our net in the summer? People talk about net a lot so I would assume that would be the base budget.

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

It’s been around £1m profit for the season

A far cry from the £40m transfer kittt they said the LS would give us

But it’s okay I’m sure they’ll add it to next seasons, right?

alderz

My prediction is that whatever they spend and whoever they bring in there will still be some people who say they didn't do enough, there won't be 100% agreement on a single signing, and if any of the signings we make don't come off people will say they were stupid to sign them in the first place.

MunichHammer

Alderz, we could probably sign a front three of Messi, Neymar and Ronaldo and there would still be some who complain about a RB or a DM ;sofa

But everyone is entitled to their own opinion. And how often would we play with three strikers? ;wink

Cuz1

Especially messi he’s not that good ;whistle

PrestonHammer

Well he will be 31 in the summer ;whistle

Macca85

If we are only making 25 mil profit there’s no way of getting 40 mil that’s for sure

ianbishoplegend

One of the least committed players I have seen.

Cuz1

ianbishoplegend said:

One of the least committed players I have seen.

Bit harsh in my opinion,

OldCastleSwift

ianbishoplegend said:

One of the least committed players I have seen.

Fonte? ;hmm Pretty sure Declan Rice is on record as saying Fonte was the most committed player at the club

alderz

ianbishoplegend said:

One of the least committed players I have seen.

Maybe you've not seen very many?

Macca85

I know for a fact that Fonte thought Rush Green was a joke when he first joined