Lotus

From what little I’ve seen of Longstaff in a deeper role, he let players get in behind him too easy.

Really? Like, Sterling knows where the net is….

Being linked with players by ‘journalists’ is worth absolutely nothing. £30M would be ample for a scout worth his badges to find an attacking talent. I bet 80% of the scouts from the top league teams in France, Spain and Germany would kill for that kind of money. As has been said so often, the stats of Miggy, Murphy and Fraser is hardly much to compete with. It’s not a high bar.

Did Ashworth do the scouting at Brighton? I don’t think he did, pretty sure that wasn’t his job. I’ve no reason to think he’s not excellent at his job but let’s not burden him with expectations of roles he’s employed to do.

Aye, crediting Nickson for that is laughable. A £40M forward who can do nothing near the box. Love him as a midfielder though. Really hope he can add to that and provide some assists and goals.

Dunno if we’re making perfect the enemy of good here, but I think it will be a poor window and serious impact to our season if we can’t add an attacking player. Like, a proper misstep. Howe’s clearly a very very good coach. If recruitment is a job too far because he’s got too much on his plate we really should have someone else handling that. Has Nickson demonstrated clear recruitment success at any other club? Serious question…..all I can see is Blackburn Rovers and the youth team at NUFC. Neither leap off the page to me like…. This isn’t bed wetting….Wood was a bad, bad signing. Can’t try and paint that any other way. A forward who doesn’t add goals or assists, not even link up play. We’ve had over 7 months now to scout about. If Etikite was all they could come with they’re not scouting we’ll enough.

I’ve no idea about Pogba’s off-field demeanour. I certainly wouldn’t jump to a conclusion that’ he’s difficult or disruptive. I’ve absolutely no idea so it wouldn’t even cross my mind. What does spring to mind though was his application when France won the WC. He was everywhere. Defending in his box, breaking up play in MF, closing down the opposition, driving the ball forward. He was absolutely great. Then I think about his frankly limp performances for Manu, it’s like 2 completely different players. No idea why, I’m sure Froggy might say he was absolutely fantastic for them, I thought he was a stunning disappointment. I won’t speculate as to what were contributing factors to his vacuous performances for his previous club, but at some level a professional sports person has to be accountable for their substandard play.

I thought Cucatella looked good on the ball but for a player that got forward so much, he didn’t have the recovery pace when a counter attack went down his side. He couldn’t even catch up with a player who was running with the ball ffs.

I’m not keen on him at all but I’d prefer him to our current incumbents. He is very quick and has a good engine. Also has a career to resuscitate so may have the hunger for it.

That’s how I’d see it.

when Howe said we might look at other positions because we can’t get the players we want at the price we want, perhaps we’re moving on a sort BPA (best player available) basis. Im (wildly) speculating/assuming our team have a system that measures players positive contributions (attack & defence) and has a value for every ‘point ‘ in that system that a player accrues. I guess then there would be a ratio between price and players game contributions. If a player approaches a level we deem acceptable to try for them, we do. If we were looking for a wide player but their numbers didn’t measure up, maybe we look at other positions. Tbf, Maddison seems to have played plenty, and effectively towards the right side of midfield.

In the absence of meaningful games, transfer speculation becomes an emotive experience.

Tbf, we all have an incredibly limited perspective of actual goings on and we all like to entertain ourselves by filling the gaping holes of information by what we can only surmise and this is done largely dependent upon our mood at the time.

I really hope the more likely scenario is that we’ve bid around £35-40M as the initial payment with the rest spread out. Leicester have rejected the initial terms.

Hey, hope it all works out in a manageable way. All the best with it.

I don’t remotely believe that we’re bidding £35M in a structured deal as Hope says. Maybe £35M upfront and then rest spread out over a couple of years.

According to the Dortmund subreddit, Bild is absolute shite for transfer rumours. Not being a German speaker I can’t corroborate that by comparing them to other sources but Bild’s reputation on there is pretty poor. At least where Dortmund are concerned anyway. I tHink it’s the speculated price that makes me suspicious.

Comparing Brandt with Maddison is not a bad shout. Are you sure he’s available though? And for less than they paid for him? I’d be dubious about that…..

Yeah, if he was a player who could really sprint and relied on it this would be bad news.

Good post and I agree. Its fair for us to wonder, in case any of us can shed some light on it, why we pulled the money this way instead of that. So far though, none of us seems quite sure but at least some different ideas are being thrown about which is healthy.

I would think it’s perfectly legitimate to at least ask why, if we’re owned (in the majority) and one would think financed by PIF why we would be taking a bank loan for cash flow. I’m not saying it’s necessarily indicative of anything any of us propose but is at least worthy of discussion, is it not? And, just because our new owners have definitely talk the talk so far, let’s have our eyes open. I read lots and lots of posts saying the Saudis won’t settle for 2nd best, etc. That may be so but, let’s just temper our excitement with the actual evidence of what they do rather than our dreams of what they might do. From my own POV football has been horribly f**ked by sugar daddies but given that it is so, I hope we go mad with it. I really do. The game in total has been ruined anyway.

Is Bompeter making any particularly outrageous observations here? Reads a little like people are just trying to shout down a dissenting voice from an established narrative that we’re loaded now. Must fully admit to knowing nothing about accounting or money in general but it does seem like Bompeter has made some points here that are worthy of open minded discussion. ah wel…..npw….

If you took away his pace he isn’t much of a footballer imo. Hasn’t got a soft 1st touch which I think is detrimental to a forward’s game. Also rarely hits a ball cleanly in game situations. Personally, I watched loads of him when he was at Leipzig and wasn’t much impressed. That doesn’t make me a football oracle or owt, just my tuppence.

I’d really like us to have someone with a decent turn of pace and a great engine to protect the back 4. That aside, Shelley’s touch and passing range is absolute quality. If only he was a bit better tactically and really knew what space to occupy to deter the opposition he’d be very very useful indeed. I don’t think he’s slower than Fabinho and probably as strong, they might even have a similar range of passing but Fabinho just holds the position better. It’s the little movements I think. The steps here and there that actually put the opposition off from trying to pass through you. It’s probably too late in Shelvey’s career to learn that tbh. Still, you never know, he might have an epiphany and transform.

They should plow all the Zaha money into getting Almiron.