McCormick

Probably down to 2 things: 1) players looking at getting a large signing-on fee on a free transfer and 2) fears that their current team will price a player out of a potentially more attractive/lucrative move.

I suppose it shouldn’t do, but something that’s really annoying me is the amount of great deals the “big” clubs seem to get; Eriksen on a free to Man Utd or Spurs, Bissouma for 25m, potentially Sterling to Chelsea for 35m, PSG and all the quality out-of-contract players they hoover up, etc. etc. Whenever a quality player becomes available for cheap or for free, the more established clubs just swoop in and use their leverage to get them in. It just makes closing the gap that much harder when we’d be paying significantly more for the same quality player or worse. Along with FFP, the odds are just way too stacked against any clubs trying to break through.

Was just on transfermarkt in an attempt to post something similar . Cornet is a good player and better than what we currently have. I’d take McNeil as well; ready-made champions league level players will be hard to come by without having European football to offer. People don’t want mercenaries who will just come here for the money but at the same time want elite young players to come here despite inevitably having (currently) better suitors. Our best bet is to bring in young/youngish and undervalued players -like high PL performers who’ve just been relegated eg. Sarr, Cornet, Pope, McNeil- climb up the table, get the FFP monkey off our back through sponsorships etc. and push on from there.

If they get Paqueta too I’ll be inconsolable

Spurs making all the signings I wanted us to make. Annoying.

Pope is significantly better imo.

He’s really good, yeah. Would have loved us to sign him.

Johnstone to Crystal Palace on a free. Very good signing.

He’s definitely better than Dubravka.

You wouldn’t have thought buying an uncapped defender for 30m+ from a club with financial issues would be so difficult but here we still are after 6 months.

JWP is a fantastic player. Obviously he gets a lot attention for his set pieces but his overall play is really good too. I hate saying this because it sets off the gammon klaxons but if he was coming from a La Liga team (where I think he’d do very well) with tilde letters in his name he’d get more of the respect he deserves imo.

SempreMilan: “Mbemba has called Milan officials himself offering his services. The Congo native is said to have pleaded with Rossoneri Chairman Paolo Scaroni to bring him to the spiritual home of football and will vehemently rebuff any approaches from Everton football club.”

I think I’d prefer Aguerd, honestly but both have their strengths. I’d be really happy if this went through. Sick of the Botman saga.

Actually wouldn’t be a bad idea to raid PSG’s academy; they’re always willing to sell their better youth products for whatever reason.

Left footed as well, so it would appear (if true, and it’s a big if) like we’re telling Lille and possibly Botman to kick rocks.

Really good player and someone I’d hoped we’d be looking at. Too late now though you’d imagine.

I don’t reckon it’d be super difficult to get a striker with more than 1 decent season under their belt for under 30m tbh. Moussa Dembele for example.

Pep on record saying he’s one of the best in the world. Still doubt we’d spend that kind of money on a cm this window though.

Very, supposedly. Read that they would be looking for more than 50m though…

They mentioned we’re interested at 78m . Surrree.

According to SempreMilan we’re just stalking him at this point . Absolute nonsense again, we’d definitely just walk away if he was being this dismissive over our offer.

Scared the life out of me. Thought we’d signed James McArthur

Looks like someone is spending all their per diems at Dan Flashes.

When all is said and done he’ll be the signing of the summer imo, especially at that price. Transformative for that Spurs midfield; he’s the exact player they needed to get to that next level. Annoying.

Hojberg in the holding role in a 3 is very good tbf. Not good enough for the elite level as he’s not particularly press-resistant; top opposition teams tend to target him for their pressing triggers because of this. Despite that, he’d be a very solid signing imo. Bissouma is the superior player (albeit different) so I’d be slightly annoyed that we’d be paying more for PEH but it is what is I guess. I think I’d rather we took a punt on Sangare for similar money though.