Kid Icarus

You've had this same attitude with so many players now

Probably influenced by the fact we had none of this calmness when we spent £25m on Chris Wood tbf

Aye, it's sounding like £25m +£5m in add ons will get him, which seems alright even though as you say there are potentially better, more oven ready players available.

I think João Pedro being classed as home grown from January and therefore not taking up a squad place is probably factored in, along with him having loads of time left on his current contract. For me it has to come down to Howe and Ashworth wanting him, it was a similar situation if we'd got Ekitike too and tbf the more I've watched Pedro and seen Watford fans talk about him, the more pursuaded I am. Absolutely no chance that the same will get Gallagher though. You're talking easily £45m+ for him imo.

“The bid that has come in that's been talked about, it's not anywhere near the level that we'd expect it to be for him.” "If anything else was to come in again, then we'll sit down and talk about it as a club and as a board." It's reported as being 'closer to £35m' so most people (including Romano) are saying £25m +£5m add ons will do it.

Yeah, Watford's manager said our bid was nowhere near their valuation.

The analysis is neither here nor there, but this has a few nice little bits from him as a 9 https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMNnFfVc9/

I think it's highly unlikely that there's nothing to it when Fabricio Romano and the Athletic have reported on it and Watford's manager confirmed that the bid they'd received from us was well below their valuation.

Hard to tell, because if our reported first choices had come through, it would have been Ekitike and Diaby. So Ekitike who has similar attributes to João Pedro would have been the back up for Wilson, with Diaby at RW.

Honestly, watching him, he looks every bit the player you'd put in the Henry role drifting from the left. Similar to what Ekitike looked like. He doesn't look like a striker in the understudy to Wilson mould at all.

Harry Kane's the best example I can think of. He went from: 5 in 18 in League One 7 in 22 in the Championship 2 in 13 in the Championship 3 in 10 in the Premier League and looking like a bit of a donkey to 21 in 34 in the Premier League to being labelled a one season wonder and we know the rest. Others I can think of are Sterling at Liverpool and early Man City and Torres at Atletico Madrid, his record was good but he was a bit wasteful, then he went ballistic at Liverpool. Vardy took a while to get going as well.

Spurs 2-0 Wolves Palace 2-1 Villa Everton 0-1 Forest Fulham 1 - 1 Brentford Leicester 2-1 Southampton Bournemouth 0-4 Arsenal (double) Leeds 1-2 Chelsea West Ham 1-0 Brighton Newcastle 0-3 Man City Man Utd 1-3 Liverpool

That's Romano not Romero

Aye, we could do with a Brighton fan telling us this is how he does things. We're pretty in the dark here.

I've no doubt he was, I've still seen him looking shit individually for you and as part of a collectively shit back 4. The talk at the time was of him solving your problems/being the finishing touch to make you title contenders.

This tactic we're employing might be setting down a marker that we won't be mugged off, but it also seems a bit unrealistic where attacking players are concerned and it's not reaping any rewards at the moment

I thought that about Varane. I'm not sure tbh.

In other words, we know, stop being killjoys

'Enjoy your birthday party mate, it's not happening now, but just bear in mind that it means you're a year closer to death'

Some absolute Reeks in here. Oooh please master, punish iz.

Of course there is, but considering Howe and our scouts looked beyond YouTube clips and decided on Ekitike, Dortmund and PSG did want him, and his stats are better than João Pedro's, I'm not sure what difference it makes.

Nah he was asked 'should they be selling to Chelsea when they're a top 4 rival?' and he said words to the effect of 'top 4 rival to who? Man United!? They'll get nowhere near the top 4, it's Newcastle they want to be worried about selling to as a rival'

Aye him . Just woken up.

Speaking Aouar and more broadly N-O rated 'we should be all over that' players, how's Fofana been at Villa? I watched a little bit of Villa vs Everton but can't say I really noticed him.

Nothing makes sense, wasn't our rejected bid more than that? I can't keep track