TRon

I would imagine a lot depends on contract situations. Both Longstaff and Willock are down to 1-2 years left, so it's whether we want to extend them or use that money to buy replacements with a higher ceiling.

Which is fine, but they'll have to pay way over the odds to secure him.

It was. But I'm not really sure that should include allowing other clubs to ride roughshod over PSR rules while we just sit on our hands. Chelsea have set a clear precedent, I am guessing Villa will now follow. By now surely the gloves should be off.

I think by now we should be sufficiently motivated and maybe start pulling our finger out.

Seen it mentioned on the Loaded Mags podcast that following the whitewash of Chelsea's sale of their ladies team to themselves, we should sell The Stack to ourselves for £200m. Is that so ludicrous now it's clear that PSR loopholes are not going to be challenged seriously?

If there's any rumours of Liverpool spending £100m on Gordon, then that shouldn't really be described as a media source. Might as well bring back tits on page 3 tbh.

I'm sure we'd like both, but we'll have to be prepared to pay about £20-30m extra in total which would be could be described as Howe tax.

I think it would be daft to get rid of one of our world class players even for a stupidly high fee. There's a reason City would want him. I'm sure he's happy here, but until we can match the cartel for paying wages, there's always the risk a player might be tempted.

Does anyone even want him?

Iraola is a really exciting up and coming manager IMO. But Frank is a bit more established and therefore probably a safer pair of hands. Think it was a good choice personally, but either manager would have been a good choice.

I'd like to think Howe's people have sounded out Pedro about coming here and he's presumably up for it. We don't even know if Chelsea are in for him.

I'd find a way to start him over Murphy like. Although in reality they would both play a very important role in most of the games.

Other way round for me. He seems more of a striker than a wide player, that's how I've always viewed him, although tbf I've not watched him that extensively. I think he would do fine as rotation for Isak.

Fair point. Chelsea already shot their load on Delap and they would have been the main threat.

A striker is the number 1 priority for me too, I think I said this yesterday in this thread.

Except for us ironically.

I wonder what Nunez would fetch now? Was only a couple of years ago he wasone of the most sought after strikers on the continent.

I think the reason people start getting anstsy is because while it's somewhat clear which players we want, their club valuations seem to rocket when our interest becomes obvious. This means if a deal gets done, it's generally going to take a while to get to an agreed price. If at all. See Guehi last season.

I made a similar point wrt Trafford. It's been called a Saudi tax but I think really it's an Eddie tax. If selling clubs are smart they will know that Howe will tend to stick to his guns and he's usually pretty insistent on getting only his preferred targets.

Starting to see Jadon Sancho being mentioned in the last couple of days as a cut price alternative for £25m. Might just be bullshit of course, it doesn't sound likely....but if we are getting quoted £70m for Elanga....

How much would Chevalier cost? Unless it's a huge saving I think Howe would rather just pay the £40m and bring in his top choice. Realistically I think we'll end up compromising and paying between £30-40m for Trafford. Howe wants what Howe wants.

I don't really watch any football content these days, only really Loaded and TTTR now and again, but usually both are less informed than we are over here so pretty pointless when it comes to transfer news.

Tuchel values experience far more than I thought he would tbh. While that's not a bad thing in itself, if you overdo it, it leaves you lacking in pace and spark in key areas.

They are prepared to take more risks tbf. Happy to throw in the wonderkids far earlier than we would, as a result those kids have good reason to choose them over bigger clubs who might not give them much game time.