Shak

Aye, Caicedo seems to be off to Chelsea too if you want to count them as a team that we can't compete with.

Real Madrid Barcelona Bayern PSG Man City Man United Arsenal Liverpool A few others you can certainly make a case for but that's a list of clubs that I would say we can't really compete with in terms of transfer fee and wages. Barella is obviously a top quality player but there are lots of other good options out there for teams looking for CMs. Real have gone for Bellingham, Arsenal clearly want Rice, Liverpool got MacAllister and seem to be closing in on Thuram and Kone. Yes there's a chance someone comes in for Barella but it's quite possible the really top teams either don't need a CM this window or else prefer different options for one reason or another.

£65m might get it done? Be interesting to see what we do, if we really like him. There's no waiting it out like we did with Maddison, who had a year less on his contract. Price isn't likely to come down for Barella.

Feels like Arsenal should be after Osimhen, have they been linked at all?

Just don't get a top player like Kim wanting to move to the Bundesliga in his prime tbh, is there really that much glory in helping Bayern win their 10th title in a row?

Italian lads do tend to be a bit more dependent on their mammies than most nationalities, must be said

I'm not sure about the whole idea of talks being made public having a massively adverse effect on a potential deal. Surely if he is available Inter and his agent will have made sure to get the word out there to the top clubs around Europe? They're not going to leave lots of money on the table to keep negotiations secret just so that we think they're sound. Yes, there are clubs out there that can blow us out of the water on wages and transfer fee if they want this guy. However, that's ultimately a small number of clubs and if we do get him I think it'll be because those clubs either didn't need a CM this summer or else they had other targets they preferred for one reason or another.

Well I guess that's it, folks.

If we're going to drop trou and sign some Napoli lad it should probably be Kvaratskhelia tbh.

In a minority here I suspect but if they want Klaus in exchange they can fuck off IMO.

On a family holiday with in laws and checking my phone before a walk after dinner was a terrible choice. Gonna get myself in trouble

Anyway, could study for weeks and I wouldn't beat my first attempt of 37. Some world class absolute guessing from the pictures

LOSER

One selling point for us if we're really after Guler is that the right side of a front three looks his ideal position and there's a pretty clear path to being first choice for us in that position pretty quickly. Would love to see it happen, he just looks like a really fun player to watch.

Maybe he went there on his holidays and had a cracking time.

I mean we could use a LW

Aye, much the same. Remember a few years ago looking at a list of players Chelsea had out on loan and the amount they'd paid for them all and thinking how completely shite the current system is. Hopefully he'll go there and look like the absolute tits and be a part of our team in the future. Most likely scenario is probably he spends a couple of years on loan and then gets sold for a small profit, we'll hopefully get a few of the absolute gems Ashworth found for Brighton though.

I'm hopeful this is an elaborate ploy to make us happy with signing McTominay for 25m.

I mean... his horrible views are probably shared by the people running the club, sadly. Seems completely stupid to sign someone who's likely to be a divisive figure in the dressing room though, even if the decision-makers at our club do share his views it seems an unnecessary bad vibe to introduce in order to bring in a slightly more affordable depth midfielder.

I'm fine with the jokes but let's leave Rui Costa out of this, we should have s fucking signed him dammit.

Same unmistakable smell of piss off the new guy though.

Calling for a real right winger and saying it should be Almiron all in the one post is provocative stuff

Isn't that where he mostly plays for RB Leipzig? Looking at him in clips, he looks like he could play the wide positions or as one of the #8s in our system. Might make more sense to swap him and Maddison in the above formation.

I do increasingly like the idea of playing Joelinton LW and using the extra defensive contribution from that spot to allow us to use a creative, goalscoring player like Maddison in the midfield three.

I guess the counter to this is that Erik Ten Funke has done fairly well at Man U and they look pretty well coached, no. I'd be much more optimistic about taking players who've failed at Chelsea because it's obvious that they were a shitshow. Man U meanwhile were pretty solid so not sure you can blame that for Maguire.