Asier Illaramendi

[Toli 977]

Who pays €39m for a player who only has a season and a half of top flight football under his belt at the age of 23? And a defensive midfielder none the less.

Sure, he was good last season and played a big part in Real Sociedad making it to the Champions League places but that price is still way too high. For almost 40m I'd expect to get the absolute best defensive midfielder in the world and not just someone who could potentially become one of the best if he succeeds.

DMs are rare in the market and so they cost a lot. look which problems chelsea have suffered because we didnt have a proper DM last season. we also paid 40 m for Essien, which was huge at that time. of course they overpaid, but Sociedad didnt want to negotiate so they had to pay it. also vidal/pogba etc werent available.

[Beepu 1,714]

thought we paid around 26m for essien??

[BlueLyon 9,359]

Couple of years ago it was expensive to pay 40mio for world class players, nowdays young prospects are even more expensive...

But overal its good thing. Small clubs get lot of money and big clubs invest in young players and develop them. Either you pay 30mio for Alonso who will be on top for 4 years (when Real bought him) and once he is too old, you have to pay another 30 for new player or you just pay 40 for a player that will play for club for next 8-10 years.

[Toli 977]

Madrid are saying they have paid 32.190.000 million Euros while Sociedad are saying 39 m

http://www.realmadrid.com/cs/Satellite/es/Actualidad/1330154573454/noticia/ComunicadoOficial/Comunicado_oficial_sobre_el_fichaje_de_Illarramendi.htm

[Jype 6,398]

DMs are rare in the market and so they cost a lot. look which problems chelsea have suffered because we didnt have a proper DM last season. we also paid 40 m for Essien, which was huge at that time. of course they overpaid, but Sociedad didnt want to negotiate so they had to pay it. also vidal/pogba etc werent available.

By the time we paid £24m for Essien he was way more proven than Illaramendi is now. He had won back-to-back league titles as well as one cup title with Lyon and he was definitely one of their key players during those campaigns. In his last season at Lyon he was Player of the Year in Ligue 1. To me that's a player who's already among the best in the world. Maybe the price was a bit steep but there was more competition for his signature than there was for Illaramendi's. Real Madrid could have just played it cool and waited to see if Real Sociedad were serious about demanding the whole release clause because it's not like there was a chance someone could have beaten them to the player's signature.

Or they could have just got Geoffrey Kondogbia for a third of the price who in my opinion is almost as good as Illarramendi is despite being three years younger. Real Madrid wanted the Spanish player and ended up paying the premium price, a situation similar to English clubs overpaying for British players when they could get a foreign player who's just as good for a fraction of the price.

[Zinedine Iniesco 172]

Real Madrid can afford it, and if everything goes well with him the no one will even remember the price. Thats not a problem for Madrid.

Only other two young options out there with similar traits are veratti and gundogan but they were not for sale. In any case now Asier has Alonso to learn from in the same team, and has good experience in the league.

Konodgbia-Illarramendi is a luaghable comparison. (but a probable partnership)

[Bosnian Blue 2,471]

Well you won't see Platini complaining about it.

To think people say 20 mil for Rooney is too much.

[Christo191 173]

luaghable comparison.

?

[drog.ba 239]

Is he even much better than Romeu?

[Zinedine Iniesco 172]

Its a luaghable comparison because hes got it all wrong if he thinks Illarramendi and Kondogbia are the same type of midfielders.

When thinking of someone like kondogbia thing of someone like makalele, when thinking of someone like Illarramendi think of someone like alonso, schweinsteiger, pirlo.

illarra is a deep lying playmaker with defensive abilities, so considering that madrid wanted one of these players ( like verratti and gundogan) saying that kondogbia is almost as good illarramendi is making a comparison that is not even there.

Illarramendi is a multi faceted player with drops of busquets and alonso in him.

[lucio 5,395]

Is he even much better than Romeu?

has romeu even completed a full season? cant really tell until he is playing first team football.