TRon

Just watching the Loaded channel where they have a guy from Milan as their guest, and he's there to discuss Thiaw, and he's saying that he's more suited to a low block defence, but when Milan pushed high then he sometimes struggled with strikers who got him in behind him. That sort of ties in with the poster who said he lacked pace. Obviously he mentioned his attributes as well like his strength and defensive nous, but seeing as we also push forward in numbers, I would have thought recovery pace should be high on our list. We certainly shouldn't be paying over the odds if Milan are looking to replace him, maybe £25m would be reasonable.

It was just reported again today in the Times it was £13m but we were looking for closer to £20m. People on here say it was as low as £2m so I just go with the journalists over the posters on here for the most part, although none of it is verified.

Trippier is still a very good player, even at 34 I would imagine he would be an asset for another season on the pitch. Off it though his value has decreased significantly and we've had to sell Anderson and Minteh to satisfy PSR rules. I totally understand why Eddie as a manager is so loyal to the group leaders, but it's also why I think we need a DOF like Mitchell who will look at the financial implications further down the line. We need to be more ruthless when it comes to buying and selling at least until we are allowed to spend without getting penalised.

We should have sold him to Bayern for the reported £13m in January. I said it then, I'll say it again now. Maybe we hoped keeping him would pay off by getting us into Europe but if so, it was a gamble which failed and we've sold young assets instead.

He wants Trippier to stay though according to reports in the media today, and I don't doubt that is true.

If we've paid £20m for him then he's worth less than nothing because that means we've basically given Anderson away for £10m.

I think we signed Barnes and Gordon because they were both players we really liked, and we took the opportunity to sign them when it came up. Not exactly balanced squad building, but I think with the top clubs all zoning in on the best talent, we just take our opportunities where we get them.

Not where they would pay us any sort of significant transfer fee.

If it wasn't for the PSR nonsense, I'm sure we'd have far rather sold Miggy or Willson rather than Minteh. I'd like to think we'd have sold Longstaff and Trippier as well, although I'm not sure Howe would agree with that. I hope you're right about signing far better players, I think that will get rid of the bitter taste far sooner than anything else.

I think the hardest part is probably identifying players who can play at the level we want that the cartel clubs haven't already got their hooks into. We need to be creative and that usually means paying more for undercooked but promising talents like Gordon, Livramento and Hall. I've got no issue with that as long as we are able to cast our net outside of England as well, and I'm hoping Mitchell will be a big help here.

From the noises coming out of the club we were willing do a deal with Almiron but he didn't want to move to Saudi, so I'd class him as a hanger on rather than Eddie wanting to keep him, although I'm sure he was happy enough to have him available next season, he never lets you down effort wise. But obviously due to not being able to shift players in January we've ended up selling Anderson and Minteh instead. Not the worst deals, but I'd far rather have shifted Miggy, Wilson or Trippier first.

I don't know, I'm sure as far as Eddie's concerned, every player is valuable. If it wasn't for PSR we'd probably keep them all.

I'm not exactly jumping for joy over our transfer activity so far, but losing our DOF and replacing him with Mitchell doesn't seem like wank planning. If anything we've handled that side of it exceptionally well. I'd say the January transfer window where we didn't shift reluctant hangers on was where we came up short.

I hope you're right tbh, we'll only really know next season if we get to see him at Brighton. I would like to think we'll have bought someone better and we aren't relying on Almiron going toe to toe with him from our side.

CB I think we'll definitely get one. RW and striker I THINK we will, but if it depends on Miggy or Wilson leaving, that might not happen. So the lack of links is making me a bit twitchy I'm not going to lie.

I'd need to see us linked with a RW or striker to get excited tbh. At the moment we are actually weaker in that department having sold Minteh.

Worse than that is the optics of clubs being forced to sell their young talent and homegrown players to stay on the right side of PSR. The whole thing has turned into an embarrassing shitshow.

It needed to be said tbh.

Tbf we tried to sell Almiron in January, but he wanted to stay. One of the trade offs of keeping players reluctant to move on the books turned out to be having to sell Anderson and Minteh instead.

Well at least we aren't short of lowly rated keepers.

I'm not positive at all. Strikers at a young age who can hit the ground running are not that easy to find, especially at PL level. I think it's more likely we'll end up going with Wilson for his final season and crossing our fingers him and Isak aren't injured at the same time.

Yep, I liked him too, mainly because I saw finishes like that in his other videos. I think it would be a good idea just to lock this thread and throw away the key for everyone's sanity.

They could probably set him up with his own private bar at home tbh. He could drink himself under the table if he wants. Not much chance of a game of darts at the pub with his mates though, that might be a dealbreaker.

I'd be really surprised if we bought a CB who is slow mind. Are you sure that's right?

Hadn't he already played half a season on the LW for us by the time we signed Barnes?