tom1988

5 3 2 formation ? Probably eventually yeah, need to see where van Dijk ends up because there's no chance he's starting for Soton this weekend. 442 first up probably with Rashford, van Dijk and Mooy on the bench

Mixed bag for me I feel - massively underestimated the depth of quality strikers in the PL... :'( De Gea / Butland Azpilicueta / van Dijk / Keane / Lindelof / Lejeune De Bruyne / Fabregas / Ritchie / Noble / Mooy Gabbiadini / Rashford / Abraham

I'd like to be in if it's not too late

Tim Krul? what's going on there then?

Kevin Wimmer from Spurs?

Leave me out of this, I get into enough bull crap of my own, I don't need anyone else placing me into anymore. Howay Stiffy man, throw us a bone. What do you reckon Joe's take on preferable trans Pennine transport would be? Was he gutted that the Bentley was in the garage and he missed the chance to shave 20mins off the journey and listen to some top tunes in his luxury leather? We need to leave the TransPennine Express out of the debate imo, not representative of train travel, it's awful. Those old East Coast trains though...

Paranoia is a motherfucker. Y'all need to chill. Unless anything major happens Rafa knows the score, he knows the limitations that he has to work within and he's got it under control. For him, this isn't a one - two year plan where he's going to change us from being a laughing stock to challenging the top 7 overnight, he's going to take his time. It's a project for him, he wants to build something sustainable. I really can only seeing him leaving for the Spain job or because MA reverts to type and brings in JFK and Dennis Wise as his PR team or something. Gung-ho isn't his style, just look at the meticulous way he prepares for matches. His running of the club will be no different. No stone left unturned. It's probably why it takes us weeks to sign a player that is very strongly linked because Rafa is there checking every little detail and having real in-depth conversations with the potential signings and their coaches, scouts etc.

Iheanacho is supposedly close to signing for Leicester for £25m. In today's market I would have thought that was relatively decent value. I hope these players Rafa thinks are undervalued are out there because I think we should be able to compete with Leicester for a striker of that calibre. Of course we CAN but the thing is we won't, I can't think of a player that's come in within the last few years where we have gone head to head with another club or two in order to sign. Might just be my short term memory and it being a Friday but I really don't think that's how we operate. Iheanacho at £25m is 'relatively decent value' but he has still only scored 12 senior goals in his career - a fact that won't be lost on those controlling the purse strings at SJP, they'll want value for money with as little risk attached as possible, unfortunately.

It's still relatively early days and whilst pre season has started and ideally we'd like to have a few more in by now we have to be realistic and look at the regime we're under. They're not going to get into a pissing contest (rightly or wrongly) with other Premier League teams. The players we'll go for will be like Lejeune who don't have 5 or 6 other clubs sniffing around them, so all these Delph's, Gray's, Iheanacho's etc etc are not going to be our actual targets because we're not going to enter bidding wars. FWIW I reckon Rafa knows this and has a list of targets that are lesser known players that he thinks are undervalued by the market that will work within his system. There'll be one or two more from Europe and maybe a couple from Britain. A lot will depend on when we start offloading the dead wood, which is easier said than done. Be patient, August 13th is a long way off still.

We should definitely start monitoring him Are you crazy m8? We've gotta first think about considering to monitor him. Apologies, i've lost track of all the stages. Can we get an official timeline together please for all the stages between thinking/considering/monitoring all the way through to get it over the line

How many clubs have actually signed anyone yet though?

£30m!

Chelsea (a) first game Manure (h) Boxing Day Spurs (h) last game

Maybe they were put off by the rumoured £60m fee. Or maybe they shat their pants. Probably want to try and maintain good relations with them so that they can keep the conveyor belt working. That, and the fact they're already banned from recruiting youth players from British clubs meaning that another incident of tapping up could result in an outright transfer ban. I wouldn't be surprised if it is Klopp that has told them to stop dicking around.

He's perfect!

Wasn't it Reina that got done by the beach ball down against the mackems? If we sign him they'll be flying planes over SJP dropping them instead of trailing banners. That said, he's still class and I think if we're assembling a young squad he could be a wise old head in the dressing room.

William Carvalho is class... on FIFA as is Andre Andre fwiw

Townsend is class and Rafa has already had him playing good football. Put him on the opposite side to Ritchie and there won't have been many newly promoted teams with better wingers.

As long as it's not Reading I don't mind. Absolute shit hole of a town with a nothing ground on a retail park. Living in London, I'd prefer Fulham.

A Carr recommendation

Just looking at transfermarkt's list of out of contract players this summer, there are a few that would definitely improve us (realistic could be debatable though) Zabaleta Jesus Navas Lucas Clichy Ledley Kirchhoff Balotelli Thiago motta Miguel veloso Honda Ivan Ramis

I just really hope that if it is only the language barrier that's stopping him from being in the side that they sort that out and give him a chance before getting rid. It was so annoying to see Yanga-Mbiwa get Pardewed and then shipped off so soon when others that maybe listen and communicate better but are distinctly worse players seem to hang around forever.

Hopefully he'll spend his summer off at an English school then.. He's too good to move on because of a language barrier, surely it'll click sooner or later

Anyone at the game last night care to say how this guy played?

Shouldn't the Juve one have the new badge on it?