SteV

Even slipped in him eating an apple. This wasn’t just thrown together…

Doubt Dummett goes anywhere. Ever.

That’s a valid point re. Gordon, he’ll take one of the 25 slots next season.

I think he would have played more but first half of the season seemed a bit of a write off due to him having a string of small injuries that kept knocking him back. Haven’t got the stats to hand but felt like the majority of his minutes came after the WC break once he stayed fit for a prolonged period.

But if you’re adding 2-3 signings and not losing anyone significant, that’s giving you depth. There’s very little you can do about situations like the keeper one for the final. No-one has a third choice keeper that’s better than average. If Ederson and Ortega go down for Man City in the next couple of weeks, Scott Carson’s playing in the CL final.

No, sell 5 potentially. Kraft wasn’t in the PL squad second half of the season, so he doesn’t get replaced, or sell Manquillo and Kraft replaces him. Darlow wasn’t in the squad so he wouldn’t necessarily need replaced. Obviously if we were to sell a ‘big’ player like ASM or Miggy (can’t see it myself) then clearly they would need replacing. If you’re bringing 9 in, you’ve got to lose 9 out of the current 25 man squad, and that’s just not happening.

Loan - be surprised if it’s anyone from the current squad (bar a kind of loan that’s really a sale like Hayden and Hendrick this season). Maybe Miley I suppose, certainly not Anderson. Sell - Fraser and Lewis. Think we’d like to keep to Dubravka, but he might well want to go, in which case we’d let him. Manquillo or Kraft. Darlow. Other than that only someone who asks to be away, like Ritchie.

There’s absolutely no chance of signing 9 players for the first team squad.

Apparently not. That just gets chucked out the window to accommodate Inter going into Pot 1 and Feyenoord go wherever their coefficient places them, which would be Pot 3. Having said that, it would take a fairly terrible choke for Man City to balls the final up again against this Inter team.

Interestingly (or probably not for most normal people) if Inter win this seasons final, Feyenoord drop from Pot 1 to Pot 3, which would be a bit of bastard for them

Yeah, they’ve been in the same group before in the Europa League, so assume it could happen here. I think I’d be quite intrigued to go to Leipzig, more for the place than than the football. See if ‘East Germany’ still has any Eastern Bloc feel to it. Might be a bit of a twat to get to though?

I thought he was their best player up here a few weeks ago. Very raw and tired quite quickly second half but definitely looked a threat.

Copenhagen won the Danish league today, so will enter at the second qualifying round. Should they make it through they’re projected for Pot 4 currently, but wouldn’t take much for them to end up in Pot 3. When Man City went there this season they got an allocation of 3800, so potential for a decent trip to be had over there.

Tbf Leicester were seeded/Pot 1 for winning the league, so you would have expected them to get through a group with Bruges, Porto and Copenhagen. Did well to beat Sevilla in the next round mind.

Not like Juve to be fiddling the finances…

We do, which is all of the qualifiers, so seems very, very unlikely.

Yep, I have reiterated this point before. You can pay transfer fees for players that haven’t yet quite made to elite level, but you think will, (like Bruno, Botman, Isak), that are roughly equivalent (or a tad below) to players that are elite level. However the difference in wages between the two is absolutely massive. Having said that, how we’ve ended up getting Trippier in our current wage model is bit mental though.

If anyone is quoting our budget in terms instalment payments, they’d have factor in what we already owe for previous signings. So if they were saying £100m, about £20/£25m would already be accounted for.

Looking at some of the other teams in qualifying I reckon it’s 50/50 at best as to whether Rangers actually make it to the group stage

You would think so, but Mainz had seemingly downed tools (lost four on the bounce) going to a rabid Dortmund stadium , and look what happened.

You’re right actually, which is a bit strange (that they’ve decided to only use one year, not you being right ?). There’s a note at the bottom of this page: https://kassiesa.net/uefa/AccessList2024.html

It’s calculated over the last 5 years worth of European results. Ourselves and Italy have a fairly healthy lead over Spain and Germany, so for that to change there’s going to have to be a pretty ropey European season had by the majority of English teams next season, coupled with a very good one for Spanish or German teams.

Not sure we’d buy someone for the sake of three friendly matches… Although I do agree his attributes would certainly suit our style of play.

With Dortmund bottling the league, Bayern take their place in Pot 1. So we could now get Bayern and Real Madrid…