2021/22 Lucas Digne

[Saint Domingo]

The aversion to selling comes from our complete inability to recruit properly. Why would people want to see sales when they don't trust us to reinvest well.

Plus selling your best players rarely works. Lots of our recent problems go back to the day Lukaku was sold.

They’re different issues though.

Digne needs to be sold and probably at some point in the next few windows because it’s when his value is highest. Any later and he becomes a 30 year old who can’t defend rather than an attacking French international fullback.

We then need to fix the problems we’ve had with investing the money, but Everton can’t become a club that just keeps hold of its best players until retirement. We can’t afford to be.

 

[Littlesue]

Is he doing anything?

 

[Spadge Vernacular]

I think it's clear Digne's agent has lined up some "upward" moves for him, and Benitez is happy to cash in on him.
What we do know is that Digne ruled himself out with injury. This was put out there by Benitez and Digne's party didn't deny it.

Digne called out the managers shocking tactics and the next thing he fell ill with a severe case of benitezitis.

 

[DanEFC92]

We are a disaster on pretty much every level.


Thank the lord for the stadium atm

Just waiting on how we manage to cock that up.

 

[ToffeeTim]

They’re different issues though.

Digne needs to be sold and probably at some point in the next few windows because it’s when his value is highest. Any later and he becomes a 30 year old who can’t defend rather than an attacking French international fullback.

We then need to fix the problems we’ve had with investing the money, but Everton can’t become a club that just keeps hold of its best players until retirement. We can’t afford to be.

Digne doesn't have to be sold. Its not essential. What matters is that if he leaves we get a very deal for the club.

I'm not against us selling more but deals need to be on our terms. The idea we might loan him out shows that clubs see us as a soft touch. It all goes back to allowing PSG to loan one of our players.

Selling players and recruitment are different issues but unfortunately they are closely linked. If we are going to start selling more then we will need lots of replacements so we will have to recruit properly. Until I see signs of improvement then I will always be concerned about us replacing players.

 

[The Hibbert Agenda]

Digne called out the managers shocking tactics and the next thing he fell ill with a severe case of benitezitis.

k ?

 

[Nymzee]

Is he doing anything?

What's he meant to be doing?

 

[Spadge Vernacular]

Either this was started by Digne looking for an exit in Jan, and RB responding to this information by excluding him
Or RB decided to exclude him first (due to personal difference or poor form) and then Digne started looking for an exit

It kinda doesn't matter though does it? It's clearly happening, and it looks like he's being replaced. I would want to keep Digne long-term, but we need to get used to the idea of selling our best players over the next few years. What matters is if we manage to replace them adequately.

Digne called out what we have all been being made to suffer - Benitez, ugly, ineffectual defensive mess. Digne then gets dropped for the next game and we head to this point.

Edit: was it 'ugly football' that Digne used to describe what Benitez has brought to us?

 

[toffeeblue9]

Digne doesn't have to be sold. Its not essential. What matters is that if he leaves we get a very deal for the club.

I'm not against us selling more but deals need to be on our terms. The idea we might loan him out shows that clubs see us as a soft touch. It all goes back to allowing PSG to loan one of our players.

Selling players and recruitment are different issues but unfortunately they are closely linked. If we are going to start selling more then we will need lots of replacements so we will have to recruit properly. Until I see signs of improvement then I will always be concerned about us replacing players.

It's fair comment, but we have to start somewhere.

Essentially two major problems

• We rarely seem to buy players and get good value - we either buy players who are too old to have a significant resale value or we recruit poorly for players who are in a better age bracket
• We rarely sell players at the peak of their value. Selling Digne now at his age is the absolute perfect time to do it, but often this sort of thing is seen as having a lack of ambition by the fans. I hate to use them as an example, but if you look across the park at Liverpool and how they sold Coutinho, Suarez etc and reinvested the money, they're the model to follow. Plenty of other clubs do this, but for some reason it seems to be seen as a stick to beat the owners/management with

We HAVE to reverse this and start to recruit better and at an age bracket where we can still sell these players when they have value - targeting the likes of Mykolenko and Patterson does at least seem like a step in this direction

We have to start selling players before they pass the point where they have value - selling Digne makes absolute sense in this regard

It's easier said than done, but the mess we are in is essentially because we have failed at the above

If you go back over the period since Moshiri took over and list all of the players we've brought in, very few of them tick the boxes of being bought at the right age and being good enough. There are far too many who've been past the optimal age and result in us needing to allow them to sit out their contracts and eventually give them away for free.



Buy younger players
Don't be afraid to sell players

That's the shorter version for the TLDR members

 

[The Hibbert Agenda]

Digne called out what we have all been being made to suffer - Benitez, ugly, ineffectual defensive mess. Digne then gets dropped for the next game and we head to this point.

Edit: was it 'ugly football' that Digne used to describe what Benitez has brought to us?

I mean sure, you can frame it like this, filtering it down to only the details that describe it in the way you want. Or you can be less conspiratorial and angry about it all.
Digne wants out. Rafael wants him out. What matters is if the replacements work.

 

[Spadge Vernacular]

I mean sure, you can frame it like this, filtering it down to only the details that describe it in the way you want. Or you can be less conspiratorial and angry about it all.
Digne wants out. Rafael wants him out. What matters is if the replacements work.

Well I suppose that we can pretend that what we want to have happened, happened. Or we can consider what actually happened as reported and then the sudden omission from the team. ?

 

[Carloblues]

It's fair comment, but we have to start somewhere.

Essentially two major problems

• We rarely seem to buy players and get good value - we either buy players who are too old to have a significant resale value or we recruit poorly for players who are in a better age bracket
• We rarely sell players at the peak of their value. Selling Digne now at his age is the absolute perfect time to do it, but often this sort of thing is seen as having a lack of ambition by the fans. I hate to use them as an example, but if you look across the park at Liverpool and how they sold Coutinho, Suarez etc and reinvested the money, they're the model to follow. Plenty of other clubs do this, but for some reason it seems to be seen as a stick to beat the owners/management with

We HAVE to reverse this and start to recruit better and at an age bracket where we can still sell these players when they have value - targeting the likes of Mykolenko and Patterson does at least seem like a step in this direction

We have to start selling players before they pass the point where they have value - selling Digne makes absolute sense in this regard

It's easier said than done, but the mess we are in is essentially because we have failed at the above

If you go back over the period since Moshiri took over and list all of the players we've brought in, very few of them tick the boxes of being bought at the right age and being good enough. There are far too many who've been past the optimal age and result in us needing to allow them to sit out their contracts and eventually give them away for free.



Buy younger players
Don't be afraid to sell players

That's the shorter version for the TLDR members

Let's get it right mate, Liverpool didn't sell coutinho to raise funds, they sold him because he actively told them he wanted to go, klopp tried to keep him.

You don't sell your best players in their prime purely to raise money, that may be a good business model from a financial prospective, but from a football point of view it's just stupid.

He hasn't been at his best for well over a year now which is why this isn't as bad as it could be, but of it was say Richarlison who Rafael decided to pick a fight with and sell, the consequences would be a lot higher.

 

[Littlesue]

What's he meant to be doing?

Possibly some sort of training ? ?

 

[The Hibbert Agenda]

Well I suppose that we can pretend that what we want to have happened, happened. Or we can consider what actually happened as reported and then the sudden omission from the team. ?

This isn't what you're doing though
You're actively ignoring that Digne has ruled himself out of playing ever since he got dropped

 

[blueblue]

Digne called out the managers shocking tactics and the next thing he fell ill with a severe case of benitezitis.

And then the results started to improve even though we only had a team of boys against Chelsea.

Digne has been poor for twelve months, long before RB arrived, he has been poor since the second half of last season.

I do believe it suits the club to sell and raise money and Digne is probably at his peak value now, whatever that is.
I would guess he will sell for around 30m, hopefully more.