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It is a silly thing.

Good mates with Anthony Gordon too, keep him happy after losing his bestie Anderson.

£30m for a keeper that age and who will likely be England's number 1 within the next few years seems brilliant value to me mind.

40 million for a keeper who has barely played top flight football is a lot. You'd think he'd have some outstanding attributions to be worth that

Like the difference between getting KO’d from the CL group phase and a run to the QFs is what? £10m+ all in? That covers the amortisation of Elanga’s fee.

He's definitely not 6ft 6". Think it's been mentioned a few times on here that keepers and clubs seem to get creative with their heights Very good with his feet and looks calm as you like. Nowhere near as commanding as Pope or as aggressive off his line, crosses are his weakness, even. Although I'd say he's much more active than Dubravka with the sweeping up. Not seen much of him this season, mind and probably not fair to judge him on his Prem season. As he was very young and playing in that suicidal setup under Kompnay. But he made loads of howlers. I think £30-40m seems steep and it's the English premium at play, yet again. But if the club want him and think he is only going to improve, then who cares. I didn't realise he is still only 22. A baby in keeper terms.

1. Why do you know of that gif? 2. How does one acquire that man's confidence?

Something to consider if you have time to read what appears to be 100 fucking pages in like two days.

JT24 seems to...

I wouldn’t mind if we needed to sell next June if it meant another season in the CL. I would actively encourage it tbh.

In the past I didn’t, now I do. We’ve seen how much better we look with Pope v Dubs. Imagine if Pope could also kick.

Apart from kicking, Pope is better than Dubravka at everything. And this was borne out in the stats. That’s immediately not the case with Trafford.

Be a good signing, I never get excited by keeper signings though

Keepers seem almost impossible to value for me. Pickford was £30 million a decade ago. Kepa was 70 million. So to me 30 seems pretty cheap in that context. That being said the lad is only proven really in the Championship up to now, and Burnley have to consider that he may be about to have 12 months of conceding goals and then have a year left on his deal next summer. So it is in their interests probably to cash in now and get an experienced goalie.

Before it descends into chaos, he isn’t 6ft6.

Seems he joined just after, in March 23 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65258735 Shelvey and Wood went to Forest in Jan 23. Filippo Giraldi seems to be the legend who bought Shelvey and Wood off us. Article does say he came from Rangers and their fans had been critical of some of his signings. But every fanbase loves a moan tbf.

Yep - best business Everton ever did was get Pickford, he's arguably their best player of the last 10 years and has kept them in the PL.

Add European football and that’s an immediate -6/-10 points.

@Rich

Should probably be concentrating on getting that new CEO in the door first, right?

Not many thought we needed the Pope upgrade either and it was transformational. Also if this lad tears it up this season for Burnley he’ll be on the way to fucking Chelsea before we know it. He’s our long term target. Let’s get it done.

Do they? A lot of talk about ‘the budget’. I think about 10-20% of our revenue is dependent on performance. And we can take a risk based approach - we don’t know what that risk decision is. And it can change.

Young good English players tend to cost loads. Sorting your keeper for 5-10 years is pretty valuable.

Just a comment on our form, but take numbers in the 29 games from Nov 1 2024, around when Sandro switched with Bruno, and extrapolate them to 38 games and its P38 W22 D4 L12 F77 A48 Pts 71 That'll get you CL every season, esp if fifth gets CL. The two numbers to improve are goals conceded and defeats. We're already not far off a title winning number of goals scored. We should be aiming at conceding under 30 though, a huge improvement. Trafford may not be ready yet, but getting him in and working on him is a wise move.