Kicker reporting that Weston is under consideration by Wagner to be Schalke's new team captain. The new Chairman has said that the 2.5MM for new players is not a concrete ceiling!
i'd stay if made captain and if the club has legit plans for the future to be in the CL again. And if they falter, well then next summer move for a big club after a stellar year.
you have a finite career why spend even a year of it playing for a club that is imposing a fake salary cap and taking a short term break from trying to play european football? if im weston id want a big salary increase to stay and that doesnt seem like its in the offing?
thats an awful big ask for a 21yo kid who arrived at a place at age 18. i mean kai havertz just took the money and ran after having basically grown up at leverkusen? this is when players start talking about things like ambition and new projects imo. its one thing to be loyal and stay and rebuild if you are getting paid more to do so, quite another to take the hit out of (misplaced?) loyalty
how is it a hit? 1 more year wouldn't kill him. if he stays on he will be a key player and may even be named captain. i figure if next year fails, he can still get a move after having a strong year or he could indeed move now if a big club wants him and convinces him he won't just ride the bench.
Schalke is not going to spend the money to buy players necessary to be a CL club this year or next year. That is written in stone. If you look at the clubs transfer market value, the tiers at the end of the season are clear: TierTransfer Value RangeClubs (Hi to Low) 11.0B to 323MMBayern, Dortmund, Leipzeg, Leverkusen, BMG 2239MM to 212MMHoffenheim, Wolfsburg, Herta, Frankfurt, Schalke 3150MM to 100MM... Reg50MM to 25MM... Schalke is currently 10th (bottom of tier 2) and will not spend more to move up. If Wes wants European ball we will either have to over perform much like first half of last season , (with the same squad)or he has to go elsewhere!
plans involve committing time so in 1 year he can decide if he's still onboard or he can move to Everton/Liverpool. i'm also fine with this i see ur point though
Wes doesnt "need" European football but it certainly makes him more prepared and selfishly better for us. But in truth he just needs time on the pitch at his age no matter the situation.
This is all a delicate dance. Schalke need to have at least a plausible plan to keep Wes. They need to make him feel valued and they need to show potential buyers that they aren't desperate to sell. Additionally, it's a crappy market to sell in right now and he has four years left in his contract. One more year in Schalke was always in the cards.
Is there something happening at Schalke that would make his stay untenable? He just singed a contract extension didn't he? He should just stay put... it's probably a pretty good place to grow while playing lots of minutes, despite him not getting rich or winning a bunch of trophies.
The club is in financial troubles. They aren't likely to get better, or bring in other good teammates who aren't available on the cheap or free. Selling someone, potentially including Weston, could start being part of the solution. Having tasted being on a competitive team in the Bundesliga, it has to be tempting to move to a more competitive side. Maybe in the longer term Schalke can be a threat again.
If some injuries pile up, sure, he might play a lot. But if LFC stay generally healthy, he's nowhere near the starting 11, so should he take that gamble? Is it possible all of Hendo Gini Naby miss time and Weston plays? Yeah, definitely. But that's kind of what it would take for him to get a run out, that's just where LFC's midfield is right now. I'm sure the interest is real... but they monitor tons of players, and it's probably fair to say they have a similar level of "interest" in all of them. They're just keeping tabs on a guy that might look like a Liverpool player in a couple years. But this move right now doesn't make any sense for the player, if he wants to get real minutes. appoo said Thiago doesn't fit perfect in with Klopp, and I think that's generally true, but he represents a very advanced/specific skillset, one which LFC do actually need. Cannot really say the same about Weston, at least not from what I've seen -- he's got a great engine and is versatile, but he's in many ways a regression (in terms of skillset) from the players they already deploy in that active/energy CM position. Should stay put IMO, as he's young and growing as a player, and due to his workrate that bigger move is not going to up and vanish. It'll be there in another year or two. Perhaps not to a Liverpool, but somewhere.
Well that might change things somewhat... I don't really know what the market for Weston looks like, but it will be interesting to see what happens if he really wants to leave.
I don't follow pool closely, but i know Xherdan Shaquiri got some minutes. I figure Wes can get some minutes here and there too, and if Klopp sees a player he could use then that would lead to more minutes. I do agree with your analysis,I just do not know if S04 is a good place to be with the front office so screwed up.
Less than 3 matches worth over the entire season. If McKennie moved to Liverpool, he'd probably be in line to get a similar amount of playing time as Lallana, who had about 900 minutes this season.
I don't really care about S04's financial problems. I don't really care that they suck or are painful to watch. The most important thing to me is playing time for a young player a high level. Wes will start 30+ Bundesliga games next season. That's the most important thing. Moving to a club like LFC or somewhere similiar to rot on the bench is not better than that.
Yeah, exactly. And when he did play in 18/19 it was mostly because of a reshuffle due to some injuries. But they then got healthy, his minutes basically evaporated, and this season he's barely featured. On top of that, frankly Shaqiri has/had a much more useful skillset than Weston for this specific Liverpool side... he was an attacker for them and provided a goal or assist every 100 minutes in that role in 18/19. That's the only reason he ended up ultimately getting over 1000 minutes IMO. As a LFC fan would I mind them signing him as a Gini understudy? Probably not, just as I wouldn't have minded CP joining last summer... but just as in that situation, I'm not sure this Liverpool would be good for his minutes, and hence his development.
Thiago fits in perfectly with 'Pool which is why the transfer is very likely to happen if the parties can work out the right terms. Thiago is very quick, aggressive, tackles, intercepts, dribbles, passes (quick, short, long) and is absolutely press resistant as a dribbler. His only downside is that he is injury prone because he is so aggressive and a bit dirty. At 29 he has 3+ prime years if he stays healthy. I will be happy to see him gone from Bayern!