Ozil - Do we need him?

[Özim]

No, I'm not suggesting we should have lost both players for free. Where did you get that from? For Ozil, I said we should have sold him when he had two years left on his deal. The focus should have been on trying to sign up Sanchez because he kept some sort of value even when he had less than a year on his contract. Value in his contribution on the pitch and his transfer fee. I can't say the same for Ozil or Ramsey. Neither have attracted any sort of attention in the final days. No swap offers, no low ball offers, nothing. If a player is in high demand, clubs don't wait until the player is out of contract so they can battle it out with Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern, PSG, in a bidding war. Way too much risk involved.

But saying all this, it's a lose lose situation whatever the club does in your eyes. If we sell, you'd complain about it, if we keep them at all costs, you'll say we have handled business badly and overspent. Which is what we have done with Ozil. There is no outcome I can see here that would satisfy you. And I have no idea where this late loving for Ramsey has come from. The guy is pants.

Well you were saying we shouldn't have offered Ozil a contract right here:

I don't believe we should have signed a player up to a major deal if he consistently produces 5's, 6's and 7 performances on the pitch but you rarely see 8-10 performances from him and need to spend even more money on other players just so he can perform at that elite level.

If you're not saying that, then what are you saying, he had 6 months left, we either signed him up or let him go for free?

You're agreeing with me on the 2 year thing, so then it is the clubs fault, like I said I'd have got them to renew with 2 years left or sold them, at worst I'd have sold them with a year to go to recoup some money.

To be fair Sanchez only attracted attention on the last day of the transfer window and only from one club last summer, so it doesn't always translate, it depends if the player wants to leave (clubs often speak to the player first indirectly), I can see the logic in signing the player up for less money.

If we'd wanted to we could have sold Ozil and Ramsey, all we'd need to do is tell clubs they're available, we'd probably get a cut price fee but it's better than nothing. Now we'll get nothing and I'm pretty sure Ramsey will have no problem finding a club, he's done very well for Wales and people will have seen what he can do and take a chance, you're only using the argument there's no interest because you don't rate them, fact is it's more complicated than that.

Sorry but that's nonsense, I say it how it is, the way I see it is we don't have a lot of money because we have an owner (which you seem to value incidentally) who basically has no interest in winning, putting his own money in or indeed football, this leaves us with using money we have generated, however if we just let our assets leave for free then we'll have even less money to spend which in my book is a terrible situation as I'm already unhappy with our lack of spending in the summer considering where we were last season and the fact we have a new manager.

As I said I don't have a problem with what we did with Ozil, I'd have rather kept him than lose him, it's cost us but it's better than losing him on a free.

I know you don't rate him but the fact is he's performed at better/bigger clubs than ours so he is good enough, it's up to the manager to tap into that. Ramsey I'm not fussed about, but I wanted us to get money for him rather than none, because in the end it affects our transfer budget which very much concerns me.

Can you not see the problems with letting players run down their contracts, do you see it as a good thing? If not then you must recognise it's poor dealings by the club, why would you let an asset walk away for free when you have a limited budget?