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I'm slowly coming round to this prem proven idealogy that the club seems to prefer. We'll go for prem unproven this window but I suspect they will all have pedigree that players like Minteh don't. Next season is arguably our most important season and ensuring we're getting CL, it's finances and the profile associated with being CL club is probably the most important factor for the growth of this club. We can of course find a million and one players who might be better and more exciting but pushing for that CL target will be much more difficult with a squad that contains 5-6 gambles.

£40m is magnificent business. If the profile of player we're after is Olise level then Minteh is unlikely to ever be worth this much again playing for us. DCL over the line means the rest of the window will likely be first teamers only and we'll have barely spent anything so far in the process of creating the squad that allows us to do that. RW CD CM?

The one season he had a chance to spend money at Bournemouth he ultimately delivered. Solanke Ake Billing Danjuma Kelly Mings Bournemouth.

In what sense?

Back ups sorted, wait till we go after the 1st teamers.

Would be a decent signing but completely uninspiring. Think we have to take into consideration that at this stage, any striker we sign will know they'll be second fiddle and that significantly limits the pool of quality players we can go for. Even a youngsters who's got a high ceiling could be put off by that fact. Not ideal, but understandable. But also a Luke Edwards special so complete bollocks.

aye, fair point

Signing Neto only for him to spend a significant portion of time in the injury room would be about the single most infuriating move this club could possibly make.

Gutted we missed out but if that's the bar...

I'm sure there was a piece in the Athletic which said we consciously leak stories to distract and divert?

I can see MGW as a number 8 but I really think we need a left footer in our 'front 6', ideally RW.

Aye! Remember Elanga tearing BDB a brand new one at St James

Both statements can be true and I think people beleive one disqualifies the other from being true.

I'm gonna take Ornstien's word as fact and assume that if we think we could be in the running for a £60m player in Olise, then our finances aren't as bad as people believe them to be.

Agree with this but I think we're more in the running than we're giving ourselves credit for. By all accounts he's extremely focused and diligent with his career choices and we're arguably the only club that could guarantee him a starting place whilst also having the finances, stabilty and ambitions to match his own.

I never said he was a better player or that Minteh wasn't a good player - in fact he does look a good player, what I'm saying is a healthy profit and a replacement that costs nothing and is seemingly highly regarded by both our scouting team and Arsenal's, makes perfect sense, especially if the money can be used elsewhere. And FWIW, ACD does look a very good player from the same sort of clips that we've all seen of Minteh.

Hard to answer this without being completely disrespectful to Celtic, the nation of Seychelles, DRCongo and Gabon. ACD is seemingly highly rated by Arsenal and us and would be available for free.

Cozier-Duberry in, Minteh out would be excellent business no matter which way you look at it.

I don't think there's any question in anyone's mind that the rules are anti competitive, even the fans of the clubs that benefit are coming round to that idea, but I don't disagree with the supposed principles of them. I can't reconcile arguing against rules in their current form as anti competitive, whilst also arguing for rules which would make even fewer clubs competitive. As I said in my earlier post that would be purely hypocritical.

I thought extending the PSR loss amounts was a perfectly reasonable idea tbh but I guess that's why it was voted down.

Free for all, by far. And it's not even close. Can easily make the argument that allowing uncapped spending would put us, PSG and City on a completely different plane to the rest of the clubs and make it even less competitive than it is now, which in itself would be total hypocrisy. Furthermore the implications of uncapped spending could be detrimental to the market and more importantly the fans. If a nation is allowed to spend whatever they want then why would they care what the fans think or want? And tbf, I did say they need updating to allow for competition to grow but not at the behest of the above.

Anyone else hoping that City and Villa don't unlock Pandora's box and allow a free for all? The rules need updating to allow for growth, but sustainability needs to underpin all of that and we do need to stop financial doping as it's essentially cheating anyway.

£16-20m for a 21 year old on the cusp of the senior squad seems risk free to me. I cant envisage a situation where we wouldnt recoup a significant portion of that back if required so on that basis this seems a no brainer to me. Having said that, I'd still love Mama based entirely on the fact he's forrin

Could say the same about alot of our players tbf

Who'd have thought that 6 months after certain relegation we'd end up signing one of the best striker in the world.