I think the only way [Keita] leaves is on a loan
Yep, I can't see anyone being mad enough to buy him, they'll all be wanting a loan deal, justifiably pleading Covid hitting their finances
Original value = £50m
Halve that to reflect Covid depressing transfer fees = £25m
Halve that to reflect his appalling injury record = £12.5m
That's what I reckon he's worth (very very back-of-a-fag-packet), if anyone was mad enough to try to buy him, £10-15m.
I'd take £8m just to get him gone and free up his salary for someone else. His current value on the balance sheet is £20m (2 years left of a £50m fee over 5 years). Take off our commitment to him in future wages of £12m (if he really is on £120k a week) leaves a net asset of £8m. Just take £8m transfer fee if we can get it. It kind of leaves us even.
If we can't sell, and I'd be surprised if we can, then I'm hoping FSG will only be too happy to loan him out just to get £6m a year off the wage bill, even though we've moved away from loaning out our duds in recent years. The Covid effect on football seems likely to reinvigorate the loan market, possibly to record levels in the circumstances.
All these supposed minor injuries in tandem with his agent's bleatings suggest that Keita's downed tools in a sort of Coutinho-ish sort of way, not that Phil's the only player that's ever done it but he's the most recent.
I'd be surprised if Naby ever plays for us again. Juergen plays nicey-nicey to the cameras and oh Naby's great we love him etc (he says that about everybody) but I'm sure he sidelines players if he wants to and it looks to me like his relationship with Keita is completely broken.
All this Atletico talk is classic agent stuff early in the market. Pick the team your client wants to play for, send out some online smoke signals, watch as Atletico piss their pants laughing at the idea they're going to follow up winning La Liga by buying some injury crock, and then connect your client with a less ambitious/ridiculous transfer, and down and down you go until you get to somewhere plausible.
Agents do this to us all the time. Start off by saying Liverpool are interested in your player when we're not, and then weeks/months later eventually agree to transfer that player to Norwich or somebody.
