Daniel James Transfers to Leeds for £30m

[Bluewolf]

Heartbreaking stuff.. An elaborate scam has seen this pensioner conned out of 30Mill... 

[Smiley Culture]

£25m is the new £10m. 

[Dan+]

1 hour ago, Lucas said:

£25m looks great if you haven't spent £30m on Ayoze Perez 

I don't disagree and funnily enough I'd actually posted something, citing Perez as the example, as why I do get funny about certain fees and why it isn't wrong to have concerns. It didn't go through for some reason though.

[RandoEFC+]

I don't think the fee is that outrageous given his age, potential and Bielsa's track record of getting results out of players you wouldn't typically peg as £30m in value, I.e. Bamford, Dallas, etc. Same thinking behind clubs paying similar fees for the likes of Solanke. It's a gamble, sometimes you have to take it. Even if it doesn't really pay off and he's no more than a squad player, Leeds have a player who's likely to make a Premier League level career for the next 10 years.

As others have stated, you no longer have to really do that much to pay back a fee of £25-30m in the Premier League. That's the standard rate for non-key players in mid table now.

[Pyfish+]

It is a high price but then he's a Manchester United player which always bumps the costs up a bit. Bielsa is going to bring the best out of the lad and I imagine in a couple of months time, we'll see the Daniel James we saw at Swansea that made Leeds pursue him the first time round.

[Stan]

7 hours ago, DeadLinesman said:

Chelsea and Liverpool have sold absolute fringe players that aren’t even established at international level for this much. Hardly a fucking surprise he’s £30million is it 

It doesn't make it any less better that they can command such fees too

It's obscene for a fringe player haha

[JoshBRFC+]

Zouma makes James look like a steal.

Nearly 100 million for those 3 and Chelsea fans are claiming United have pulled off the heist of the Century . You lot have been doing it for years.

[Dr. Gonzo]

7 hours ago, DeadLinesman said:

Chelsea and Liverpool have sold absolute fringe players that aren’t even established at international level for this much. Hardly a fucking surprise he’s £30million is it 

When we sold players like Ibe (which I think is our silliest price for a player that’s a bit shit), I don’t think it was quite £30m. I think it was about half that, tbh. Or Solanke, but I think Solanke’s actually got some quality about him unlike Ibe 

I’m sorry I know the transfer market is absolutely mental, but I’ll always think £30m for a player I don’t really rate is a lot of money.

James is good at being pacy, direct, and a convincing (to referees at least) diver. Imo that doesn’t make him a £30m player. That’s around what you paid for Ronaldo & only a bit less than we paid for Fabinho 

[Cicero]

23 minutes ago, JoshBRFC said:

Zouma makes James look like a steal.

Nearly 100 million for those 3 and Chelsea fans are claiming United have pulled off the heist of the Century . You lot have been doing it for years.

Zouma is a fantastic defender in the right system. He's won the lot too so his valuation is justifiable. 

Tammy and Tomori is sheer potential. I'm pretty sure Tuchel would've kept Tomori if he'd of arrived before the deal was sanctioned. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

18 minutes ago, JoshBRFC said:

Zouma makes James look like a steal.

Nearly 100 million for those 3 and Chelsea fans are claiming United have pulled off the heist of the Century . You lot have been doing it for years.

Zouma’s got around 200 top flight appearances with 150 of them in the prem. And imo at Stoke and Everton he looked far better than he ever did at Chelsea… and maybe he’s not cut out to be a top level CB competing for the prem and CL. But I think he’s still a very decent option at CB for a lot of clubs in the league.

I don’t know a thing about Tomori, so I won’t comment on him.

Tammy Abraham had one season in the league where James really stood out and statistics indicate he was brilliant in that league and probably one of the better players. I don’t think he was even that bad at Chelsea tbh - probably not clinical enough but I don’t really think Chelsea were patient with a young player making the step up from the championship to a top flight team that expects to win. No surprise there though it’s Chelsea. He’s absolutely hit the ground running at Roma though and is looking like he may really have his top flight breakthrough this season.

If James hits the ground running at Leeds maybe I’ll not think it’s as fucking mental of a fee. And if he keeps it up, then fair enough it’s nothing to have laughed about.

But honestly I think the lad’s a bit shit.

[RandoEFC+]

11 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

That’s around what you paid for Ronaldo & only a bit less than we paid for Fabinho 

Neither of these are comparable though due to age profile, contract length and other factors. If we're going to have sensible debates about the relative value of players,  we need to stop pretending the headline transfer fee is the only or even the biggest factor in the club's outlay. Ronaldo will be costing Man Utd £2m a month in wages alone and I dread to think the size of his agent's cut of the deal. Probably another £10m right there. 

29 minutes ago, JoshBRFC said:

Zouma makes James look like a steal.

Nearly 100 million for those 3 and Chelsea fans are claiming United have pulled off the heist of the Century . You lot have been doing it for years.

I don't think any of these fees are outrageous either. Again look at the age profile of these players. Abraham scored about 20 goals in a season for Chelsea not long ago. Zouma was a pretty important player in his loan at Everton when we finished 8th in the league and he's been kept around contributing for Chelsea, including appearances in the Champions League, in the two years since.

The standard fee for any player who's deemed actually good enough for the top few clubs is now routinely over £50m unless you can get them close to the end of their contract or on loan for a season with an option to buy or something else. But if you're dealing with transfers for Man Utd or Chelsea, you know which guy you want and his club have got him on a lengthy deal, you're paying £60m, £80m, whatever, or you're looking at alternative targets.

It makes sense that the next tier down from that, players who aren't quite good enough to make it at those clubs, are valued at around £30m. Occasionally you get the odd whopper who's not actually good but got given a chance at a Chelsea or a Man Utd and therefore people think they're in that next tier down when they aren't really. I just don't think Dan James is a poor enough player that he'll eventually need to make a career in the Championship instead of the Premier League and for me, he'd have to be that far below Leeds' standard for this to be a shocking overspend.

[JoshBRFC+]

There are so many different ways of looking at it and comparing it, I’m not over analysing it.
 

The price really isn’t that bad in my opinion for a young attacking talent.

He’s cheaper than Andy Carroll was about a decade ago.

[Dr. Gonzo]

1 hour ago, RandoEFC said:

Neither of these are comparable though due to age profile, contract length and other factors. If we're going to have sensible debates about the relative value of players,  we need to stop pretending the headline transfer fee is the only or even the biggest factor in the club's outlay. Ronaldo will be costing Man Utd £2m a month in wages alone and I dread to think the size of his agent's cut of the deal. Probably another £10m right there. 

He's only 2 years younger than Fabinho was when we signed him - I'm not so sure his value should be quite as high as it ended up being with this Leeds move. But I'm sure part of the factor why Leeds had to pay so much is because they're Leeds and it's Man Utd selling.

 

1 hour ago, JoshBRFC said:

He’s cheaper than Andy Carroll was about a decade ago.

And people rightly took the piss out of that transfer fee... and tbh Carroll at Newcastle looked a miles better player than James ever did at Man Utd. Granted, I'm sure it's tougher for younger players to make it at Man Utd.

I'll obviously concede, Bielsa obviously knows more about football than me. He's probably forgotten more about football than I've ever known  So there's probably something he sees in James that I don't see where he thinks he can mold James' raw ability into something that'll be worth the fee to Leeds.

[Lucas]

55 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

He's only 2 years younger than Fabinho was when we signed him - I'm not so sure his value should be quite as high as it ended up being with this Leeds move. But I'm sure part of the factor why Leeds had to pay so much is because they're Leeds and it's Man Utd selling.

 

And people rightly took the piss out of that transfer fee... and tbh Carroll at Newcastle looked a miles better player than James ever did at Man Utd. Granted, I'm sure it's tougher for younger players to make it at Man Utd.

I'll obviously concede, Bielsa obviously knows more about football than me. He's probably forgotten more about football than I've ever known  So there's probably something he sees in James that I don't see where he thinks he can mold James' raw ability into something that'll be worth the fee to Leeds.

Our director of football, Victor Orta, who deals with all the transfer goings has said he feels the fee is very fair in the current market.

He cited examples such as Newcastle spending £25m on Willock, Villa £38m on Buendia, Arsenal £30m on Ramsdale and £50m on White.

When you compare it to what's been paid by those clubs for those players, it doesn't seem obscene at all, it's just we are still a bit old school when it comes to fee's and need to remember unless you go into the foreign market, you rarely get a domestically based player who is actually half decent for less than £20m.