Unbelievable

Was laughably bad at PSV too. Or perhaps we have higher standards for defensive footballers

I think Madueke would be great for us, but I genuinely can't see Chelsea loaning us him with an option to buy and thereby helping a direct rival for European football with a PSR friendly deal. I know they did with Hall, but surely they wouldn't want to do it again? Especially as they have PSR problems of their own (unless they really can just keep selling themselves assets). I can see Madueke being available, but they'd probably want a sale in this PSR period.

I'm in full agreement that we need a new RCB, but I'd have been looking at a promising understudy kind of player, someone capable of filling in now and with the potential to be a first team player in the near future. I see Schar, Botman and Kelly as first team players (3 for 2 positions), Burn as more than capable back up and arguably a good enough starting LCB as well, and Lascelles plus Krafth as "break glass in case of emergency" players. I also think Schar defends through intelligent positioning and takes such good care of himself he could easily be a Sergio Ramos, a Pepe or a Thiago Silva and have another five years at this level in the tank. I think we need a little more depth and a little more (age related) squad planning at CB, but we're not short of quality or quantity. All the above in context of us looking at spending pretty much our entire remaining kitty on Guehi, while once again potentially neglecting the RW position. And I don't even think as badly as most about Almiron and Murphy, but RW is clearly the one position where any one purple could have the biggest impact on our fortunes - just imagine what a right sided Gordon could do for this team. Instead we may stick with Almiron while (when everyone is fit) our bench has two first team center backs.

People say Schar turns 33 as if his legs will fall off this season. He's the type of defender who can easily play at this level under his mid to late 30's.

What if the accountants say we can't afford 65m?

Left to right for opening match thread starting: ?, Haydn, Disco. Who’s the question mark?

Two goals against decent opposition and this local lad’s thread is about to fall off the front page *bump*

You’re probably dog whistling me with that comment, but there is no way England have a better collection of center backs than Holland do at the moment. Marc Guehi wouldn’t have been in Germany this summer if his cradle was in Amsterdam or Utrecht.

Good runout, we look ready for the new season

White injured I think, so probably that Man City kid. Decent lineup

Trippier, Schar, Kelly, Willock, Bruno, Almiron, Barnes, new striker kid. Could be decent

Sanusi there

Hall has been exceptional again today

Excited to see what Sanussi can do in a strong team

Isak is absolutely useless

Isak is unreal

Penalty!

I think we are ready for the new season

3-0

2-0, great goal Murphy

Can't find a way to watch by the looks of it, so depending on your updates...

Him and Lisandro Martinez; not a fan in general of diminutive Argentinian hot heads in central defense. Feel especially Romero is always a foolish moment of dirtiness away from being sent off.

55m is as high as I'd go, which in terms of PSR adds 11m amortisation plus his wages (7m based on 140k/week sounds about right) would leave us with pretty much no budget for RW (assuming the estimated 50m current loss position in the PSR thread is about right, taking us to 68m of the cleared of the 3 year rolling period 70m 2021/22 loss). We'd be looking at loan to buys unless we manage to sell some players for decent fees. Edit: one and only PSR related post I'll make in here today as it was mentioned. If we buy Guehi we can do some calculations in the PSR thread as details emerge, but I doubt there'd be much room left if any

Hard to blame the Longstaff goal on anybody else like

That works both ways though. Should similar excuses be made for all the players we brought in from abroad under Ashley and who are mostly labelled "shit" on here to this day, despite often having decent careers before and after, the likes of Florin Thauvin and Luuk de Jong? We were after all an absolute basket case of a club. Which brings me to my point: it is not where a player comes from or how "league proven" they are, as long as they have the right mentality and are of the required talent, it's whether where they go have a manager, coaching team, tactics etc. that can get the best out of them. Then there is an element of luck involved (injuries, squad developments, adopting to new surroundings, not getting caught doing something silly off the pitch, etc.) To be more on topic: Marc Guehi is not a guaranteed success here. Like any transfer there would be some risk involved even if he has played a hundred odd PL games to date.