Yeah, i just think it's funny because it shows how fucked up this is. 130+ million player and now we're happy if someone takes him on loan. That's so surreal.
And instead of re-thinking what they are doing they decided to double down and bought another 120M (misfit) player in Griezmann replacing the failed 130M player because the 3rd 120M+ player Dembele is injured all the time. And now they are behind Martinez with his nice 111M price tag while still trying to get Neymar back, who's transfer to PSG started all of this in the first place.
This is football history right there
It'll be hard to ever top this level of money wasting, might even be impossible. Stunning.
I know. I was thinking what would happen if Neymar would never left.
1. I'm 99,9% we wouldn't buy Dembele.
2. We would probably still buy Coutinho because we saw him as a future replacement for Iniesta. But I think we would have gotten him cheaper. Something like 100 m + 20m add-ons could probably do it because L'pool would know we don't have Neymar's 200M to spend. Still too much but better than what we'll actually pay. But more importantly, with Neymar here we would have to play Coutinho in midfield and not as a LW. We'll never know if Busi-Raki-Cou midfield would actually work or not but couldn't be much worse than what we've had. They would be suspectible defensively especially with MSN not helping them much but offensively we would be better.
3. With Neymar still here I don't think we'd buy Griezmann either but if we would buy him he'd need to play as a striker more and not on the wings so he could do better as well. Ney-Griez-Messi upfront would look better than Griez-Suarez-Messi imo but yeah, there is no way that any player could break MSN (in fact if they would stay together and we wouldn't have been convincing anymore maybe some people inside the club would realise that it's time to move on from Suarez) so we'd probably play 4-2-3-1 with Ney-Messi-Griez behind Suarez which again could work offensively but would also put a lot of pressure on midfield and defense.
4. With Neymar here we wouldn't try to buy Lautaro now. Or maybe we would but we wouldn't have bought Griezmann so it would be only one of them.
Without Neymar leaving there also wouldn't be a 200% inflation on the market so we could've gotten some other players cheaper as well. Yeah, Mbappe's transfer to PSG (or maybe he'd even go to RM) would become a new record transfer fee but his fee could be 20-30m lower if PSG wouldn't pay 222m for Neymar.
So from my quick calculation until now we've paid:
1. Dembele = 125m - 105m fixed fee + 10m (for 50 games played, we need to pay another 5m after the next game he'll play) + 10m (winning two La Liga titles)
2. Coutinho = 135m - 120m fixed fee + 10m (qualifying for the CL twice) + 5m (for the first 25 games he has played) - what we'll seemingly get of is paying another 20m if he'll reach 100 games for us (he currently sits at 76, that's another reason we want to sell him) and 5m for winning the CL
3. Griezmann - 120m
with
4. Lautaro incoming - 111m (I'll assume total value of the transfer will be around here even if we'll include some players)
So 491m spend -222m we received for Neymar = - 269m
I didn't include cca. 170m for Neymar's return as I don't think we can afford to buy both him and Lautaro this summer so it will be one of them and LM seems more likely (I also prefer him if I need to choose between those two but if it would be up to me I wouldn't buy either). But yeah, if we'll actually get both then all of this will look even worse, lol.
Now assumng Ney would never left we would almost surely still get Cou for around 100m and I'd say threre would be 70-80% we would buy one of Griez/LM for 110-120m. So from this standpoint we wouldn't have actually "save" more than 50-60m* but we'd have been spared of many transfer sagas and if one of Cou/Griez wouldn't work out it also wouldn't seem as disastrous as it does now when we have more or less three failed 100m signings and are on our way to make the next big investment in hope things will suddenly change. There are also odds that Cou and Griez would actually worked out better than they have/will under different circumstances (being used at other positions which they would need to be if Ney would still occupy LW spot).
I'm sure we would also made some different moves at other positions had Neymar stayed (we probably wouldn't have buy someone like Malcom or Paulinho because we wouldn't have free non-EU spots) but there is just no way to predict what else would also change for better or worse. And we also wouldn't have Fati's breakout (though with Neymar's possible return we'd stall his development as well so this is another big reason I don't want him back).
We wouldn't have been much better (if at all) in the wages department because we'd give to Neymar and his dad at least what we've paid to Dembele, Cou and Griezmann combined over the last few years. But his impact on the pitch could (and probably would) have been better. Still don't know if enough to do more in the CL because he probably wouldn't have been available in the most important part of the season.
*I know clubs don't actually calculate transfer fees like I did above and as many people (wrongly) calculate them. They are using amortisation costs. So we didn't actually earn 222m for Neymar when he left. And on the books we won't lose whatever the difference between let's say Coutinho's (because he's the most likely to leave) buying and selling fee will be. Instead they'll look at a difference between his unamortised value (he's still not even half way through his contract) and whatever we'll get for him. So from this standpoint loaning him again (with other club paying a loan fee and his wages) could be a better solution for the club than under-selling him on the current market where values of all players have dropped for 10-20%. And his value wasn't really high to beginn with based on his average performances over the last few years and high wages which are preventing most clubs to sign him (or on the other hand will be compensated with a lower transfer fee for us if we'll want to sell him permanently).
