J7

His agents player list. I was going to look to see if any of the others have have these kinds of transfer sagas but…

I’m not sure it’s his quality as a player people are concerned about. If he’s our main CB target though, and we’re going to wait until late in the window it’s bit of a worry. I don’t think a new centre back is optional tbh. We’re desperate for one.

Hope’s video was pretty positive tbh. Whether that’s because he has seen and heard things to be positive about, or just because he’s been given more access than before, who knows.

This probably just comes down to the definition of rivals. Regardless, I think they’d rather play us with Isak in their team than in ours, especially in a cup final. I think that’s the point. Weakening our chances against a team we compete against.

We’ve got plenty of PSR headroom and barely spent anything yet given the out goings.

Disagree with this. We played them in a cup final and are in the same competitions. Had Isak been playing for them and not us, we’d have likely lost.

If we get Šeško and Wissa, I want Isak gone. It would leave a bad smell lingering about the club and we need to get a first choice CB and a CM in at least too. I wouldn’t be lowering the asking price though.

IF this happens, and we get Wissa too, I’d still be pushing for the £150m and wouldn’t be doing any deal with them until after we play them. A top class CB and Gallagher would just about save the window, for me. A lot to happen for that though.

Im not for this TalkSport talking heads bollocks that they’re not our rivals either. They are. As soon as you face them in a cup competition regardless of the league, they’re our rivals. Had Isak been in their shirt and not ours, there’s a strong chance they’d have won the cup final. So for that reason alone, they’re our rivals and are playing in all the same competitions as us. That puts the price up for me.

There are still question marks about Slot. He did well riding the crest of a wave last season and did alter some things, but the competition disappeared for a year. His management in the cup final of just throwing attackers on was horrendous. Buying lots and lots of good players would certainly help him.

You don’t accept a lowball bid, just because the club bidding has unsettled him. They already have PSR in their favour without giving them another advantage of being able to lowball. Fuck them. Do what Brentford did to Man Utd. If they want him, it’s the initial valuation and only after we’ve got players in. I don’t know how this makes things uncomfortable or any more awkward for us either. He’s already in Spain training on his own and we already knew Liverpool wanted him. They’ve not got a magic spell to force us to do something. Again, fuck them. If anything, tell them their offer is derisory and we’ve no interest in doing any business with them in the short to medium turn for their disrespect. We hold the cards.

We HAD a small squad as it was at the start of last season. Since then we’ve lost 4 and brought in 1. It’s not like we have young players to fill the void either.

At least we’d have a striker for two years, and if he’s pushing for a move to one of those then he’ll have at least done pretty well.

If we aren’t looking at defenders, then it’s almost negligent. Five of our first team defenders are into their 30s, including Lascelles on the back of an ACL who was never that good anyway. Are we just waiting for Schar’s form to go off a cliff before we do anything? We’re going to need a couple per window for a bit going forward at this rate, not just a special player from ‘the list’. I honestly can’t believe how terrible this window has gone. It’ll likely define the next few years. The perfect opportunity after CL qualification and Man Utd and Spurs floundering and we’ve totally messed it up. Chasing after small list of long shots then seemingly nothing below it.

Exactly this. I thought it was generally accepted amongst the fan base, and those who were ‘you can’t sell first team players’ were the outliers. Why are so many bothered about the sell on value of signings if they don’t expect us to ever sell them. The club have never hidden the fact they need to start trading. Bruno had a release clause for example and they expected him to go, hence the PSR mess last summer.

I think he’s a bellend, but he could be correct there. Ambitious young players aren’t necessarily going to see us as their final destination. Eales talked about us needing to trade and how we’ve not sold anyone of value over a year ago. I kind of thought we’d almost be a Brighton for better players as we grow. Eventually you’d hope we’d be that final destination.

This is true. It’ll not be because they’re trying to annoy us either. It’ll just be because we’re going after a player that they’re hoping to get at a later date. I doubt Ekitike would have been there yet had we not gone for him.

Have we even bid for a defender yet? It’s one of the positions we’re lacking most in and we’re embarrassing ourselves in the search for attackers.

He’s only 22 and will expect to be playing in the CL for them pretty soon. There’s not much to say we’ll be regulars in the competition either given what we’ve done this summer.

I think the blame comes from the top. I think they had an idea on what they wanted to do and executed it quite well early on with Ashworth coming in after the first window or two. Howe obviously did far better than they expected which gave him more power. I suspect that frustrated Ashworth a bit, as did the involvement of Staveley. There were reports he left because he didn’t have the control he thought he’d have. Mitchell then came in like a bull in a china shop, and although he had some valid points about transfer business, went about it the wrong way. Howe made a power move and then I don’t think Mitchell had the control he was expecting, partly due to his own idiocy. Given the target list, it feels like all power has been with Howe over the past few months and our search for a new DoF seems to be for someone willing to work with him. The wrong way round. I think PIF/Eales took their eye off the ball a while ago and things have snowballed to where we are. I don’t blame Howe. It’s natural he’d want that power, but I think this is why we are where we are.

Brilliant post and is exactly my thinking. I don’t even blame Howe for it. You’d expect a manager to try and have as much control as possible, but we shouldn’t have allowed it to get to this stage.

Botman did prefer Milan from what I remember. We signed him. I’m not very hopeful on this one though.

What a disastrous summer. 😂

Osula looks way off it, which is ashame given this is probably his big chance.

Players will prefer Man Utd and Liverpool. We need to suck it up while we continue to grow and become more and more attractive ourselves. If a promising player is happy to come here, regardless of who they ultimately prefer, so be it. ‘Poor us’ isn’t going to cut it.