Chris_R

FWIW I'm not saying nobody would ever choose Man U if it's between us and them, just that choosing Man U isn't automatic like it once was. They can still pay enormous wages, they still have a massive stadium and worldwide appeal that we lack. But on the flip side we finished 24 points and ten places ahead of them, and will be in the Champions' League next year.

Yeah Vardy hasn't left Leicester because he thinks he's good enough to play in the PL, he's left Leicester because he's not good enough to play in the Championship.

We qualified for the Champions League. Man U were closer to qualifying for the Championship. They're not the automatic first choice they used to be.

Yeah but he's still cost us £26.25m that we've had to fund from somewhere else. We'd only be breaking even on PSR for that last year, we'd have lost £8.75m each of the previous 3 years which has to come from somewhere.

The bold bit makes no sense. How can they pay more for someone with a release clause? Or do they mean wages? Fine, we'll offer him £20m/week. They have to offer at least £20,000,000.01 now which is clearly insane money and it'll ruin them. Good. Saying "we will offer more" is nonsense. You cannot always stick to that as you have no idea what the other side will offer. As for shifting Nunez, good luck. He's shit. I'm sick of seeing players fail upwards though, it's about time someone was forced to take a big loss. Hopefully this is the time. Normally someone (normally Saudi, frustratingly) comes in and offers more than was paid for someone underperforming which bails out their current club. It would be nice if this time the footballing world agreed that Nunez is, at best, a £15-20m striker. And that's being generous.

Probably one of the best academy graduates we've had in the PL. Though the competition is probably Carroll, Shola and Stephen Taylor. By god that's slim picking for what, 30 years of football? Fucking hell. Still, Longstaff has been a decent servant and done himself proud, definitely a PL player and I'm sure he'll do well at Leeds.

I didn't say they deserved to be paid the same. I said they will question if combined they're still paid less than him.

I think him being paid the most isn't an issue, but if he was getting more than Bruno, Elanga, Botman and Gordon combined there might be a few raised eyebrows and people contacting their agents.

Dominic Calvert Lewin enters the chat...

What if Jaoa Pedro was also an Isak replacement?

Why do we need another striker with a groin strain?

I really REALLY don't want us to sell Isak, but I can't see how this deal makes sense unless we do, because we're desperate for younger legs in central defence, another central midfielder, and probably a goalkeeper far more urgently than we need a €80m striker. Sadly.

We're currently monitoring several such targets and hope to start contemplating a bid in the coming weeks

Don't care if it is or isn't Gordon specifically, I think he's great, but at some point we'll need to sell someone for more than we bought them for in order to fund purchases. Literally every club does it. As long as we get a good fee for whoever it is and spend the money wisely, I'm OK with it.

Is this the same Chelsea that finished above us for the past 2 seasons, and are in the World Club Cup final? That Chelsea? I get they've got a tonne of players but they're not some joke in terms of performances. Plus the players they do have that don't make the first team seem inevitably to move on for a profit so it's not going too badly for anyone there that I can see? Don't get me wrong, I'd love for them to implode, but I just can't see it.

Exactly this. Every transfer announcement takes ages, because we like to have all the media / interviews / photos etc ready before we announce anything. It's the same every time but people seem to have memories shorter than goldfish.

People harp on about his injuries but we're not buying a car at auction, he has to undergo a full medical so I can't see the problem.

Quite happy the announcement is dragging on - it's my birthday tomorrow.

It's been years since we did a 1st team transfer so just remember, they'll have to all the photo ops etc before the deal is announced so don't expect anything today or even tomorrow. Doesn't mean anything bad.

Great finisher, when his legs functioned properly he had everything - pace, power, decent in the air. Probably the most "Shearer-like" player we've had since the man himself. Sadly as happens to everyone evenetually it seems his legs have gone now, and either he can't reinvent himself or our game requires him to play in a way he no longer can, so the time has come for him to move on. He can probably still do a good job for a team that's less about pace, if he can still find a yard in the box or get on the end of a few crosses he'll have another couple of years at a high level. Been a shining light for us during some really dark years though, who knows where we'd have been without his goalls during the Ashley years and I'm glad that he was still here to enjoy some good times with us. Will always think fondly of him.

Yes and no. It pays for THIS year's cost of Elanga, but everyone will immediately forget that we still need to pay for the next 4 years of him when we sell someone else for £10m profit next year. Let me put it another way - does this pay for year 1 of Elanga, or year 4 of Bruno? Or year 3 of Gordon etc? We've already forgotten we're still paying for them and are assuming this pays for the next amortised transfer, because in everyone's minds the previous ones just get paid magically after year 1.

Exciting stuff. This transfer is now almost - ALMOST - at the stage where I'll look at compilation videos of him playing.

Burnley have a much larger pool of players they can look at who will improve them. The pool who will improve us is much smaller. Not saying we can't do more and do it faster, but it's not a fair comparison.

I've got no problem with them trying to create an identity but there's quite a few UK cities with actual beaches - They're not THE city by the sea. (according to chatGPT, which I'll assume is correct)

Thought Villa were up against it PSR-wise? Sounds like bullshit to me to try and get us to put a bigger bid in.