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And this is the entire issue with City and Chelsea paying the fees they do, it totally breaks the rest of the market. Lower and middling clubs see City pay mental money for Grealish so they immediately add a massive premium to any player worth even a look.
Barnes looks a decent player but I wouldn't want our club having it's eyes ripped out by paying £50m for him.
Something, Something, Something, Dark Side
That's certainly true and there may well be a bit of a clamour from clubs at the end of the window, but we could do with some trimming ourselves.
Even ignoring things like our financial model or the home-grown quota issues or the Champion's League squad structure, we have players that are probably surplus to requirements, such as Origi, Shaqiri and Davies.
Then there's another cluster of players that could be on their way due to being injury-prone, or that little bit older, or just are a bit too far down the pecking order. You're looking at Phillips being 5th-choice, Milner being in his last year most likely, Ox and Keita fighting it out for the "regularly injured but valuable when available" role (surely we can't have two of those in midfield?) and although it won't happen immediately, we probably have one eye on getting a younger/more available centre-back in to replace Matip, though I think that's a problem for later.
Would be good to get one or two out before stressing on the "ins" side of it.
"Leicester City have submitted an opening offer worth up to £15 million for Southampton centre-back Jannik Vestergaard, The Athletic understands.
The bid has not yet been accepted by Southampton, who are believed to be holding out for a deal worth up to £18 million."
Wonder if Southampton bid for Phillips if he isn't off to Newcastle.
Phillips looked a very decent mid table Premier League CB last season. He’s English too, so surely worth £15-20m
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