Lotus

I don’t think Willock, Longstaff and Miley will cut it at CL level. Miley has the potential to in the future (and maybe that will be this season but he didn’t show it last season). I think if we don’t sign a CM will be in trouble. Most important part of the pitch and we have 3 starters and that’s it. Our shape and ability to affect the game drop off massively if any of those 3 miss a match. If we could sell Willock and Longstaff and buy a player who could genuinely compete with B, T and JL we’d be so much stronger for it.

Put the money towards Ederson from Atalanta.

@John P That does sound extremely useful tbf.

Pedro does look miles ahead, totally agree. How many non-penalty goals did Pedro score last season? Will a forward with that kind of record be an effective stand in for Isak? Just saying I'm not sure he would be. And for the money it would probably take to prize him out of Brighton.....

I think that's my point though, I'm not sure Pedro does offer cover for Isak. He's goal scoring record (non penalties) was what? 4 or 5? I reckon Osula could that many, at least.

If I had to choose between Pedro and Ederson (Atalanta) I think I'd go for Ederson. He easily covers 6 & 8. Not sure where Pedro plays other than as a 10 and we don't even use that in our formations. There's absolutely no way our 3 CMs are gonna play all those games next season. What Miley does or doesn't do is yet to be seen (high hopes, personally). We need quality starters for CB, CM and RW primarily.

Is Guler not available for similar or less money? Weren't we meant to be interested in him before he went to RM?

When you put it like that then 33-35 does seem reasonable.

Think there should be a definite limit on youth players. And I think 35 senior players is too many. Need to lower it so clubs can’t buy players just to loan them out. Talent should be spread throughout leagues, not a disproportionate amount of registrations held by a select few clubs.

Wonder if we are snooping around an Atalanta player but it’s not Scalvini….

I've seen plenty of games when Adeyemi couldn't find his arse with both hands let alone another Dortmund player anywhere near the opposition box.

It’s probably £45M + all sorts of add-ons.

Is he having an op this summer?

I’ll start by saying I’m by no means unhappy with our owners. Couple of points though. Didn’t the club go after Emery first? Wasn’t it Amanda and Merdad rather than the Saudis who making those choices at the time? I'm certain they all knew the PSR restrictions at the time so knew in advance we couldn’t go all Galacticos. My personal concern is not the willingness of the Saudis to fund us, it’s their inability to do anything in a timely fashion. Or think ‘outside the box’.

Ederson > Ramsey

I would imagine that such a hiring would require an approval from a particular key person/group and there’s the bottleneck right there. The kind of decision where, if it doesn’t work out, would be very hard to pin it on someone else…..creates a certain reluctance in said key person/persons.

Given all the hype around Bardghji pre injury I hope we’re having a very serious look at him.

That must near on untenable for everyone involved.

Love Froggy and his input but given he seems to know every intricate detail of all the financial deals, wages, pay offs, etc with Manu either, a) he’s speculating or quoting someone who’s widely speculating or, b) Manu is possibly one of the leakiest clubs in the world. No one can simply look ‘at the published expenditure’ and then accurately workout what each individual player is earning. And if during negotiations players requests are leaked to the press at every juncture the club is gonna become a pariah.

Mbeumo would be away for AFCON I presume. From the 21st of December. That could be an important factor in whether to sign him or not.

Antonio Silva Arthur Vermeeren Oscar Gloukh Roony Bardghji

If I was Delap I’d want a move to Villa. I reckon he’d be the main man before long while not having the pressure of being the only striker.

If/when Trippier leaves/retires I'd be more than happy if we signed Dalot as a replacement. There must be a way Amorim can get a tune out of him.

He's good enough when he's in a Portugal shirt. He's a talented lad. I bet, if he moved on you'd see him playing well at a new club. I've even seen you say he's a good player, I'm certain of it! Something is badly off all over at ManU. You can't have that many decent to good players out of form for so long.

Dalot is a good RWB.