TRon

It's not daft money at all. He's a proven striker who has all the tools to do a job at the top level. Man City and Chelsea used exactly these type of signings to fire themselves into the top echelons of Europe and it was worth every penny. The only reason we can't do the same is because football has become a closed shop for the cartel clubs.

If he's not getting the proper support it's down to Eales IMO. If Howe and Mitchell wasn't going to work, Eales should have got shot of Mitchell earlier and got someone else who could deal with transfers. If Eales wasn't up to doing this due to health issues then he should have stepped down and someone else appointed even as an interim measure.

Only way we would sign Wissa is because Howe has won the battle to make such decisions with Eales stepping aside. As a manager he'll want any player who will give him the best chance to win games, he'll leave the spreadsheets to someone else. Not that I think Howe would push for Wissa either mind. He's as aware of PSR ramifications as anyone.

Also there's always the chance if they did sell up, they would put the money into buying one of the cartel clubs where they would be allowed to build the team they really want.

He's a top striker IMO. The only reason I would be dubious is the fee for a 29 year old, especially given we'll get hammered for it down the line with the cartel PSR. But I wouldn't fret over it, he won't be coming here.

Hard to come to any other conclusion. What makes it worse is that we saw this last summer as well with Guehi where it felt like we were just chasing shadows while the likes of Liverpool have just bided their time and if they want him, will just move in when they need to and get it done.

Spurs and Chelsea came up smelling of roses after both having fairly turd seasons.

I did wonder if PIF might think it would all be a lot easier buying out a cartel club, but I don't see why we would believe it's going to happen on the back of some gobshite forum.

I wonder which part of the recruitment team will take the blame. Mitchell or post-Mitchell?

There was some youtuber who posted about him as an alternative to Pedro a few weeks ago. I thought we might have moved a bit quicker back then but we were busy going down blind alleys.

I'm not sure how we ended up having Mitchell here for a year then he leaves at the start of a transfer window. Something's gone massively wrong there.

It seemed like Liverpool wanted Isak above Ekitike though. I just thought once they had unsettled Ekitike they would have used that to drive the price down more given he wasn't their primary target. But fair play to Eintracht for sticking to their guns.

Even if we could match the wages, we won't have the pull of the really top clubs until we start winning stuff and making a name for ourselves across the world. Clubs like Chelsea and Man City took a short cut by paying MORE than the top clubs while they were still trying to catch up. But yeah it's pretty clear that if the cartel clubs are after the same player, we are not going to be successful. If we've a back up strategy we are keeping it well hidden. The small pool of players line just means we are going into a CL campaign with an inadequate squad. Again.

I'm surprised Liverpool had to go so high to get an agreement. Eintracht really didn't want to let him go is my reading of it.

It has become a pattern over the last few windows. The other side of it is we don't get many transfers wrong, but then we don't really have a squad capable of dealing with a full season as a result usually.

We wouldn't have got him anyway in that case. Oh well, at least we aren't short of keepers in the squad.

Rich owners like Qatar or Abrahamovic did not give a flying fuck about spending £40m on a 29 year old. They would have spent it on a 31 year old if he fired their side into regular CL places. PIF are more than wealthy enough to put that money in....if they are allowed.

If Trafford is open to going back we should be switching our sights to Garcia instead. You would like to think we haven't put all our eggs in one basket this time.

I was going to say Pep will give Ortega the no 1 shirt but I see he's in the last year of his contract as well so Trafford will be able to fight for first choice after all.

The quality of his goals alone tells you that it wasn't a fluke season. If we were allowed to spend how Man City and Chelsea did back in their days of building to super club status he would be the ideal signing.

We can't compete with these clubs. If we are going to do it then we need to have a really solid Plan B list of players to fall back on. Not seeing it so far.

Think there's every chance he turns down City and chooses to come here tbh. Why would he go back there when he's clearly going to be the understudy?

He's effectively 29 in reality. Cracking player though, if we didn't have to contend with PSR would be perfect.

If that pool is players that the cartel clubs are also chasing, then we are going to keep seeing transfer windows like this one. We are not in a position to compete with them because of PSR. We are sick of hearing it, but there's no way round it unless we want to ignore it then deal with it in a year's time.

Depends if there's one out there that Howe rates. From what I've seen of Howe is that he prefers to stick to his small pool of players who he has already identified, so if the strikers have gone elsewhere, then he'll probably use the funds to buy Trafford or a CB. He might go with Osula as the back up with Gordon which is a bit risky, or he might decide to bring in DCL late in the window.