[Albion] Mercurial, majestic, magnificent Mitoma [20/10/23: New deal signed]

[WATFORD zero]

I agree in part, but we will never achieve anything further to what we have if we are okay with letting the like of Mitoma, Pedro, Van Hecke, or Baleba go. There has to be somewhat of a fight to keep them with new contracts offered. If we want to win a trophy or qualify for the Champions league we need to go through more than a couple of seasons where we keep hold of all the best players we've accumulated.

I am absolutely certain there will be new contracts discussed and possibly offered, but if the player wants to play Champions League, probably double their money and they've done their time for us, you can't force them to sign it, so you have to take a long term view. Which is what we have always done, got us to here, and puts us in a better position to offer new and improved contracts, year on year.

 

[Gabbiano]

I felt like it was always likely that Mitoma would go this summer, and with the clubs best wishes.

He's done a few years with us now and has always been the model pro. Very much a Mac Allister or Gross situation. If he wants to play Champions League, he needs to leave now. Every year extra here reduces his chances at this age.

Anything less than £60m feels cheap, but maybe the club would be willing to facilitate that given Mitoma's professionalism.

 

[Miximate]

£80 million and chuck in a pre season friendly so we can say goodbye properly.

 

[Triggaaar]

I don't know, the guy surely can't play out his career at a midtable premier league club

So you're thinking top 4 next year, right?

There is no downside with Kaoru. There is no 'he's a good player but..' - he's a great player full stop.

Indeed.

 

[jimhigham]

Don’t we tend to sell towards the end of the windows when we don’t want to sell to allow other offers to come forward in the hope of a bidding war? - the price will go up as other Club’s preferred targets fall through.

Managers early, squad signings late.

Fair point well made. Guess it depends on if a bidding war emerges. Seems a decent possibility.

 

[Berty23]

I suspect he will go. We need to accept where we are in the food chain. We sign people and if they are brilliant we benefit and they can draw huge fees. Each time we have to hope we can attract slightly better players and keep climbing.

This talk of keeping people so we can win something like palace. Didn’t they lose Olise and Anderson who were key players? What we need is a bit of luck in cup matches. If Sels does not make that wonder save then we might have won the cup despite playing 3 of the champs league contenders in consecutive matches.

 

[macbeth]

It was a pretty seamless transition for the first half of that season, great start in the league, won the europa group. Lost Mac and Caicedo but gained Gilmour, Pedro, and Fati for the briefest of moments. But it was an end of an era and post Rome we just floundered around until Fab came in with new players this summer.

Yes, we can never replace Mitoma, maybe never will, but we will have someone playing there who won't be useless. And we will improve in other positions, and invest the money received. We lost Mac and Caicedo but two years later we're going to be just 1-4 points worse off, even though they haven't been fully replaced, we have better players in other squad positions

I really don’t remember it like that at all. I remember watching those first couple of games against Luton and Wolves and thinking ‘this Gilmour and Groß combo just isn’t going to work’. Case in point the West Ham game a couple of weeks later. It was far from a seamless transitional and was a major recurring problem throughout the season.

 

[Blues Guitarist]

The same model works very well for Dortmund and they seem to continuously be able to get over losses of key players.

It's a difficult model to get the balance right. Over the last 6 years Salzburg has made a profit on player sales of almost €300 million, headline sales include:

24/25 Pavlovic to AC Milan
23/24 Sesko and Seiwald to Leipzig, Okafor to AC Milan
22/23 Aaronosn, Kistensen and Wober to Leeds, Adeyemi to Bor Dortmund
21/22 Daka to Leicester, Mwepu to Brighton
20/21 Szoboszlai to Leipzig
19/20 Haaland to Bor Dortmund

You can replace key players some years - Brighton, Dortmund and Salzburg have all managed it for a period, but after a while the bubble bursts.
In the last two seasons Salzburg has failed to win the (quite weak) Austrian league and is not competitive in the CL. Imagine if Salzburg had not sold Haaland, Szoboszlai and Pavlovic. They would be both profitable and competitive at a high level.

Brighton has done an awesome job replacing key players over the last few years, but it is a dangerous game to keep playing.

Imagine if Brighton refused to sell any of their crown jewels one summer (while adding one or two new ones).

 

[AstroSloth]

Has to go out on loan (somewhere in Europe) as he won't have a work permit to play here.

Work permit rules have changed.

You now get ESC places in the squad so that you can register players without work permits, I believe we had to do so last season with Baleba as he didn't qualify for a permit.

It's an Elite Significant Contribution player, someone who doesn't qualify for a work permit but will be good enough to play for the team. If they feature enough in enough minutes that season, they can then qualify for a full work permit.

Premier League teams get up to 4 of these to use, Championship 3, and Leagues One and Two get 2 each.

 

[Gabbiano]

It's a difficult model to get the balance right. Over the last 6 years Salzburg has made a profit on player sales of almost €300 million, headline sales include:

24/25 Pavlovic to AC Milan
23/24 Sesko and Seiwald to Leipzig, Okafor to AC Milan
22/23 Aaronosn, Kistensen and Wober to Leeds, Adeyemi to Bor Dortmund
21/22 Daka to Leicester, Mwepu to Brighton
20/21 Szoboszlai to Leipzig
19/20 Haaland to Bor Dortmund

You can replace key players some years - Brighton, Dortmund and Salzburg have all managed it for a period, but after a while the bubble bursts.
In the last two seasons Salzburg has failed to win the (quite weak) Austrian league and is not competitive in the CL. Imagine if Salzburg had not sold Haaland, Szoboszlai and Pavlovic. They would be both profitable and competitive at a high level.

Brighton has done an awesome job replacing key players over the last few years, but it is a dangerous game to keep playing.

Imagine if Brighton refused to sell any of their crown jewels one summer (while adding one or two new ones).

The failure in this logic is that if they hadn't sold Haaland, Szobo and Pavlovic, the players would have just left for nothing at the end of their contracts. They wouldn't renew because Salzburg can't match the ambitions of elite players. Unfortunately nor can we.

 

[giveusfalmerplease]

They definitely want to Sign Rafaele Leao.

Got a mate whose a Brighton STH, says Mitoma is Shitehouse.

Yeah Mitoma is reaaaaaallllly shitehouse.. Nobody wants to buy him but we will gladly keep him hoping one day he'll have a great game for us lol.

 

[dazzer6666]

I really don’t think he would have. We had a 1 year option on the original deal so he still would have had a year left. We got a similar figure for Bissouma in the same situation.

We reportedly got c£28m for Bissouma, and c£56m for Mac (with add-ons). That's double, not similar.

 

[dazzer6666]

Yeah Mitoma is reaaaaaallllly shitehouse.. Nobody wants to buy him but we will gladly keep him hoping one day he'll have a great game for us lol.

...and he's a sicknote. Definitley not worth a top club coming in for him.

 

[dazzer6666]

I agree in part, but we will never achieve anything further to what we have if we are okay with letting the like of Mitoma, Pedro, Van Hecke, or Baleba go. There has to be somewhat of a fight to keep them with new contracts offered. If we want to win a trophy or qualify for the Champions league we need to go through more than a couple of seasons where we keep hold of all the best players we've accumulated.

Never going to happen. Players will always want to go to established, bigger clubs that pay far higher wages.

 

[Bakero]

I really don’t think he would have. We had a 1 year option on the original deal so he still would have had a year left. We got a similar figure for Bissouma in the same situation.

What do you mean a similar figure? If Mac had gone with just a year left on his deal we may well have got a similar figure to Bissouma (about 25 million but possibly a bit more). As it stands, it look like we'll have ended up with 58 million for Mac, way more than we'd have got if he hadn't signed a new deal.

 

[Justice]

It was a pretty seamless transition for the first half of that season, great start in the league, won the europa group. Lost Mac and Caicedo but gained Gilmour, Pedro, and Fati for the briefest of moments. But it was an end of an era and post Rome we just floundered around until Fab came in with new players this summer.

Yes, we can never replace Mitoma, maybe never will, but we will have someone playing there who won't be useless. And we will improve in other positions, and invest the money received. We lost Mac and Caicedo but two years later we're going to be just 1-4 points worse off, even though they haven't been fully replaced, we have better players in other squad positions

Take a look at results with Mitoma and then without Mitoma.

 

[Freddo]

We reportedly got c£28m for Bissouma, and c£56m for Mac (with add-ons). That's double, not similar.

Hang on, you can’t use non-add ons figure for Bissouma and then use the add on figures for Mac Allister…

 

[WATFORD zero]

...and he's a sicknote. Definitley not worth a top club coming in for him.

Yeah, and I bet he can't pull a ball down on the end of his toe when it's blowing a hurricane on a wet Tuesday night in Stoke

 

[Bakero]

Hang on, you can’t use non-add ons figure for Bissouma and then use the add on figures for Mac Allister…

Did add-ons for Bissouma almost double the fee?

 

[Freddo]

What do you mean a similar figure? If Mac had gone with just a year left on his deal we may well have got a similar figure to Bissouma (about 25 million but possibly a bit more). As it stands, it look like we'll have ended up with 58 million for Mac, way more than we'd have got if he hadn't signed a new deal.

I haven’t seen any reporting that says it’ll be as much as 58m. The most I’ve seen reported is 55m and that likely needs Liverpool to win the Champions League.

Then you have Bissouma’s legal situation hanging over him at the time, compared with Mac Allister who had just played a major part in winning the World Cup and finishing 6th with us in the prem.