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Going to be a lot of disappointment when July 1st rolls around and the club still aren’t doing anything.

Think it’s more to do with the June PSR period tbh. I just don’t think they want to go yet until July 1st. Rightly or wrongly

I get the idea of wanting committed players etc, but on the other side of the coin, if high potential players are available for 12 mill who we can likely fleece for a lot more (ie 50 mill) a year later, we should be pushing for them. We can't lament the injustice of PSR while refusing to go after players like that that we can massively profit from.

People had exactly the same attitude about the European Cup once upon a time. Same also goes for the actual World Cup. The sport has become the undisputed global game ever since Rous and the old colonial attitudes were booted out because FIFA have continually pushed its global appeal and spread. Hard to separate that reality from the level of corruption that has developed over the same time but it's absolutely true. A Club World Cup once every four years in principle is anything but a shit idea imo. Far more palatable to me than an expanded and bloated CL calendar or money-spinning friendlies between clubs from the same league that are already now the norm anyway.

Will be back in the Irish league by 22.

We weren’t in for Huijsen because he wanted a release clause so he could piss off after a year. Other than the financial upside of that, we don’t want players like that.

The Newcastle pull.

In hindsight the best sale we’ve ever done, right at the peak of his value. 35m in 2011 is the equivalent of a 80-90m sale today, perhaps even more. It was a British transfer record at the time so perhaps it’s more like 100m. The best thing Dalglish ever did for us, including his two year managerial reign

It's kinda obvious the club thought they had Guehi in the bag and thus passed on everyone else last summer. I think Parish and his demands really caught us off guard. I think in the past we have been diverse in our targets as well, I know this drought we are currently enduring has people fucked up but if you step back our work in the market has been second to none. We can't be critical yet imo, obviously if our business is looking like the gobi once the window closes that will be another story.

This is a magnificent interview. You can join for 14 day free trial.

Lacroix and Diomande at the back is FIFA/FM-tastic.

Yeap. Problem is we've seen it with Huijsen (and arguably others) already. If we're leaning towards a strong preference for well established top level players, and showing little interest in investing in prospects too, it's a high risk strategy imo. One that eventually will come back to bite us. Diversification (mix of established players and up and comers) of transfer targets is key imo, and I'm not seeing much evidence of Eddie wanting to do that. If this window ends and I was wrong, wonderful, I'll hold my hands up.

There's a reason Brighton were desperate to cash in on him when his rep was high. They kept playing him to build and maintain that rep. They had no intention of him becoming a proper first teamer, but hoped to cash in. Nope.

I would back Eddie to get the best out of him, but his drop off has been huge.

I'm just worried we're being very rigid with who we're targeting and why. I think our transfer approach may actually be very imperfect, to put it politely, and some fans seem unable to bear the thought/reality of that.

This is a great litmus test for how we scout mind, if he goes to Palace and tears it up we've dropped the ball. We know it's a position we are targeting and we know it's an age profile and budget we could work in. The fact we obviously aren't in for him means we have someone in mind we deem a better fit.

Tbf, if Diomande was a top target for us then we would get him imo. He wouldn’t be choosing Palace over us.

What she seemed to do in terms of player acquisition was leave her ego out of it. She wasn’t a director of football or a transfer “specialist” like supposedly Mitchell and Ashworth were - she had absolutely nothing to gain or lose by simply going out and getting the players that Howe said he needed. And fuck me, for the most part, it worked.

Who is this Diomande? I've been informed no other non-cartel clubs are doing business, and it's ultra difficult to find players to improve your team.

Has he not had a few bad injuries? I might be making this up like 😂

Evan Ferguson anyone? He was tipped to be a world beater just a couple of years ago and is still only 20. Unless there is some context to his drop off I don't know of that is.

The pettiness I felt through February and March when he didn't score for them was off the scale. To this day I'm glad he was a massive flop at Liverpool, I was so fucking deflated seeing the images of him on SSN signing for Liverpool. We saw some really good strikers in the years to come which somewhat softened the blow.

Now you mention it, he has a bit of Dixie McNeil about him 😒

Palace have agreed terms with Diomande, negotiating a fee with Sporting now.

Made something of a legend of himself over there by all means. Glad to see it. Hope he doesn't join fucking Wrexham or something.