Think about it from the other side, if you just saw Palmer go for 40m, why would you pay as much for ESR who’s older, always injured and has barely played in 2 years? Palmer is not the right comparison for your point.

This interlull is passing at a glacial pace, so purely for the sake of conversation and not meant as any serious criticism of anyone - which of our players, in your estimation, have “that dawg in them”? This would be my list currently:

Tier 1 - Certified dawgs: Martinelli, Zinchenko, Saka, Gabriel, Rice

Tier 2 - Clear dawg qualities: Saliba, Odegaard, Jesus, Tomiyasu, White, Ramsdale, Trossard,

Tier 3 - Inconclusive, further testing required: Partey, Raya, Timber, Kiwior, Smith Rowe, Nketiah, Havertz

Tier 4 - Not dawgs: Jorginho, Vieira, Nelson, Cedric, Elneny

They’ve won the league twice in the past 10 seasons and have been in the Champions League every year, we haven’t won our league in 2 decades and just spent 6 years outside the Champions League. 20 years ago, Arsenal were a top 5 club in the world and Atletico were in the Spanish 2nd division.

We just need to start winning trophies regularly again and the conversation will change quickly.

Pires is so damn handsome bro

He does not not fit the LCM role for us, he lacks the pace, stamina and work rate for it. He would fit the exact same purpose in the squad as Jorginho and he’s not as good as Jorginho.

This man had 18 finishing on Championship manager and still never banged any goals for me, game was too realistic I guess

Horrific ball knowledge, keepers have always and forever been the one position where you can consistently find world class level players spending their prime for mid clubs.

Sommer spent his entire prime at Gladbach and he’s Top 10 ITW over the last decade. Unai Simon is top 10 ITW right now and he’s been at Bilbao his whole career. Pickford, literally England’s #1 ahead of Ramsdale btw, is playing for relegation battling Everton. Just a laughable notion that world class keepers only play for big clubs, it has never ever been true in the history of this sport.

There is no such thing as high stock for a backup keeper

I’d really rather not spend that kind of money on either of them tbh