BG

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Totally... I've not seen him enough to judge but am a bit sceptical at that price I have to say. I also think there's a lot in your point about people have convinced themselves on Benteke. My memory is that Bony has broad similar stats and there was no great clamour for him...

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Those three players were all signed from better value leagues though. Which is kind of my point: our record on big signings from the premier league doesn't inspire much confidence. And the same anxiety about players gave us a free run at Downing and Carroll etc too

Yes. Last time we had 50m from a sale and bought a premier league forward it wasn't a resounding success. Wasn't my money either then. I still didn't think it was a good idea.

Yes, not bad but that's a different set of players you're comparing him to than the first table...Those stats are certainly impressive in the premier league though. Given current prices (Schneiderlin, Shaw, Lallana etc) there must be some anxiety holding back big clubs or he'd be gone by now. To us or elsewhere. As I've said I've not seen him that much. If we get him obviously I hope he scores for fun. My main anxiety about him as always been that the fee and concomitant wages would probably buy (almost) any player in all but a few leagues. And when we've spent big in the past 15 or so years we've tended to do better out of players not from the premier league.

That's just cherry picking. A better table would compare him over a season or two to those players rather than on 15 or so games. I've not seen him that much as I suspect most on here haven't. On what I have seen I'm not convinced he's anything other than big gamble at his release clause. That said it's always hard to judge. I'd seen Torres lives in the flesh about 5 times for Athletico and he didn't play well in any of the games and, IIRC, missed two pens over the games too. So you never really know...

I like the look of him in a three a lot. I know what Fred's getting at on agility too. I think this can be compensated for by nous and general ability to read danger in the defensive midfield position but not that convinced he's got that yet. That said he's young for that position.

Decent fee, about what I thought we should get for him given the Shaw and Fellaini fees. Think comparisons to Wright-Phillips gets are way off the mark. Personally I think he's the best English youngster since Rooney. Hope we spend the money on an obvious first teamer or two. Still not very excited by Benteke (based on my admittedly fairly limited exposure to him), despite the general thawing of opinion towards him.

I'd pretty much forgotten him. Talking of big shouts (Benteke/Costa) I have a vague recollection of there being a few arguing that he was better than Lucas at one stage.

Agree encouraging on the face of it. The fact it appears under the name John Cross tempers it a bit though...

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Heading for Eric Hall level of bellendery.

Persistent gut symptoms are an indication for top and tail endoscopy...

Unless we get 50m I'd just keep him.

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Well it's hardtop see how any realistic scout would you think you'd get those players for much less than 25m. Balotelli was Italy's starting centre forward a year ago... When yo look at the players we've spent a lot of money on over the past say 15 years the list of foreign signed looks a lot better than the list of Premier League signed.

Seems totally reasonable to say that you're not sure a certain player is right without naming an alternative. I think it's a perfectly valid view to question whether or not there is better value to be had in say Dutch/German/Portuguese/French/Argentinian/Brazilian leagues. That's pretty much where I'm at on him. FWIW I agree that I'd rather have him than any of our other forwards (bar Sturridge). But if you want to place a lot of faith in our scouts its worth remembering that presumably they recommended signing all of them.

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