Rich

“The Italian, 31, has six months left on his deal and the Blues are reluctant to negotiate fresh terms. That has alerted Newcastle, with insiders seeing the rationale in bringing in a player of experience in a deep-lying role, especially if a relatively minimal fee could be agreed.” If there’s truth in this and Howe’s on board, I’ve got no doubt he’d be quality for a season or three. Massive “if”, though.

Same people every window

Goalkeepers Pope Darlow Karius Gillespie Defenders Trippier Manquillo Krafth ? (2-4 months) Schär Lascelles Botman Burn Targett Lewis Dummett ? (1-2 weeks) Midfielders Guimarães Shelvey ? (6-8 weeks) S. Longstaff Anderson Joelinton Willock Almirón Murphy Ritchie Saint-Maximin Fraser Attackers Isak ? (1-2 weeks) Wilson ? (2-3 days) Wood -- This is where we're at heading into the January Transfer Window. Gillespie and Krafth aren't currently registered but everyone else is. Barely Featured Gillespie (0') Karius (0') Krafth (39') Lewis (51') Manquillo (76') Darlow (90') Dummett (90') Ritchie (92') Shelvey (122') Isak (244') Anderson (259') Lascelles (264') Fraser (311') Of that list, it's clear one of the backup goalkeepers needs to go now that all of them are fit. Gillespie, for me, provided Karius is happy staying and battling to be #2 with Darlow. Then, we've surely got to be looking at shifting Lewis and Manquillo. Though Manquillo will need replacing, of course. It does seem we're onto that already. Dummett and Ritchie have to be off in the summer regardless due to their contracts expiring, but it does seem Ritchie might go in January. Can't see Dummett leaving early. Shelvey might have fucked it with this latest injury and is probably off in the summer as well. He's going nowhere in January, obviously. Anderson probably needs to get out on a decent loan to The Championship where he'll start every game. However, he's currently the fifth choice in CM due to Shelvey's injury and so he's another that'll need replacing if this is to happen. Finally, it does seem that Fraser wants away and will be allowed to go if a decent offer comes in. If that happens, we absolutely need a new winger as well. TLDR (OUT) Gillespie Manquillo Lewis Ritchie Anderson (loan) Fraser TLDR (IN) Right-back Central Midfielder Winger Though that's six out and three in, we'd need to replace a grand total of 789 minutes from the opening part of the season. Not hard to do if we're signing two starters and a backup. If we register Krafth and the RB isn't U21, we'd still hit the full 25-man quota.

No chance. Strongest XI, please. They basically only had to play 45 minutes yesterday and there's a very decent gap between that and this.

It was. Nugent and Wood up top.

£52M, apparently.

Davide Frattesi from Sassuolo, anyone? Doing some stats scouting with players I think we should be trying to sign the most similar, younger versions of. Frattesi comes out closest to Gündogan, in a group also containing Wirtz, Bellingham, and Odegaard, for one of the wide CMs. Zubimendi (Sociedad), Sow (Frankfurt), and Samed (Lens) are the DM shouts most equivalent to Amrabat and Caicedo.

From all recent reports it seems that Ashby from West Ham is nailed on for this role. Suppose learning from KT for a couple of seasons would be fantastic for any young RB.

Cheers LFEE, I'll get it in the tickets forum.

From the summer, am I right in thinking that it was Ashby, Ekitike, Harrison, Maddison, Joao Pedro, and Pulisic that we made concrete reported offers for and didn't manage to get them?

Let the daft sods keep believing it's all down to luck, for me. People are absolutely clueless.

Aye, yesterday's coverage was an absolute joy because of him. Probably unbearable for the neutrals, or Leicester fans, but fuck it. He saw the writing on the wall when he left and won an FA Cup with Man City. Can't knock him.

Trippier clearly tells him to fuck off out of his space, btw

But just for accuracy's sake, here's his career playing positions to date. I'm certain he could excel in either of the wide CM slots for us based on his qualities (*but most likely on the right).

Not really for us to worry about, to be honest, but maybe you're right and we aren't still in for him? However, this time last year I would have been adamant that Almiron wasn't a right-winger and just look at him now.

This, exactly. Perfect game for Maddison to be sitting in the stands in his Disney fleece watching yesterday.

If we want to sign players this January window, the options we'll have compared to the last one will be significantly, significantly better. There can't be too many players we're not in the conversation for, these days, though obviously we're now competing with far bigger clubs than we were before. I'd be surprised if there wasn't at least one Bruno-esque buy, given our position.

Remember when people were flapping that we’d “wasted” £10M of our very strict summer budget on a position we didn’t need to strengthen? On someone no better than Dubravka, too. Magic. He’s even getting better with his feet now Eddie’s had six months with him.

He’s been so, so good this season.

Top posting.

Thoroughly enjoyed that. Shall we get the Leeds thread started @HaydnNUFC?

Since that fucking Liverpool game away from SJP: 1-4 0-0 1-2 1-4 0-3 And the first time we've won three away on the bounce since 2001, ffs. In my time as a supporter I don't remember us being so comfortable away from home performance-wise in every single game.

Soumare put in one of the worst shifts I've seen in some time. He's fucking rubbish.