Holmesy

I mean have been sucked in by an imposter. It was basically saying there needs to be a review into why we can't attract players to the club and that PIF will likely be holding an investigation meeting into it. But she's normally very diplomatic so it's probably bullshit

Amanda's tweet this morning was spot on - there needs to be an internal review into why we're so shit at attracting players. This isn't just an anomaly, it's a pattern now. We're significantly shitter at convincing players to come to us and we clearly haven't spend the downtime doing any groundwork. It's a fucking shambles

That home game against them when they had Enrique playing for them was one of the best/most intimidating atmospheres i can remember. That shat themselves

nice thought but it seems fanciful considering they can't seem to get one transfer over the line

£65m for Strand-Larsson?! The world has officially gone mad

Speed? We're 3 weeks away from the start of the season.

I definitely think some of that can be levelled at him if we take our Howe-tinted specs off but at the same time, he's earned enough grace to have a big say in who we sign. But this transfer window has highlighted that maybe there was some truth in what Mitchell said - our transfer policy hasn't been fit for purpose. We're 3 weeks away from the season start and we're beginning to panic. 18 months of opportunity to do the pre-work on our transfer target and we've sat around with our dicks in our hands. Such a waste!

I reckon Lee Charnley would do a better job than this lot. And i'm not taking the piss. Fucking Mickey Mouse!

Villa come in for Sesko after selling Watkins, and we miss out on another?

I can't think of anyone else we could go for that would be whelming at this stage.

It really isn't. He's nowhere near the level we need. Miley is already a better player at what, 18? We won't notice his absence at all.

So, we could potentially spend: £45m on CB Ekitike money on Sesko Wissa or similar for £35m MGW - £60m Some shit goalkeeper to add to our existing troop

Do we even have an inkling of what our transfer budget is right now?

He's very raw but I reckon Eddie could shape him into a decent asset. But not for £80m

There's plenty of value out there - look at Tonali, Bruno, Hall, Livra. We need better scouting and player recruitment, not consistently going head-to-head with the cartel. It was a ridiculous strategy to begin with. Ok, maybe we didn't know they were going to go after the same players as us, but our list appears to be so small that we've backed ourselves into a corner. There really is no excuse. We've had 18 months to plan for this window and we look like fucking amateurs because of our lack or work and flexibility around targets.

What's the alternative? Hang on to a player who doesn't want to play for us? If we can get in 4-5 quality additions with the Isak money plus what we already have available, we'll be net ahead of where we are now, and it's not beyond the realms of possibility. Wissa scored 4 fewer PL goals than Isak last season, and i'm pretty sure he cost £10m. Mateta scored 16 goals and he cost circa £10m. The problem isn't spending the money and rebuilding right now, it's our scouting team's ability to find value, and our manager's obsession with signing expensive players from the PL, hence the comment about still sitting on the money in January.

I totally agree with you on that front - he goes for what he's worth or above, or not at all. But my point is, if he goes, he goes. £120m is a joke for arguably the best striker in the world in his prime years. Pay up or fuck off. But if he does go, we shouldn't lose any sleep over it. What we should lose sleep over is the fact we'll still be sat on that money come January because our recruitment team couldn't negotiate a 10% discount at a Turkish market.

Liverpool sold Coutinho to a more attractive club and rebuilt Villa sold Grealish to a more attractive club and rebuilt Whether it's Liverpool, Real Madrid or PSG, there will always be a bigger player courting our best players until we're consistently sat at that top table. It's frustrating as fuck but there's also a lot of personal bias at play in these discussions. We love the club, therefore everyone else should love it as much. It doesn't work like that. Fuck him, if he wants to leave let him go - it won't define us, we'll keep moving forward. The only question mark is whether the recruitment team have the competence to spend the money, which at the moment looks like the biggest risk to this whole situation.

I think the evidence so far is pretty damning

I think one of the biggest things we have suffered from is that Amanda was clearly brilliant at selling the club, the vision, the 'project' to players, and we miss that. Whoever we've got doing the selling now appears to be woefully inadequate.

We're so good at this! Very impressive

You could make a sitcom about our transfer business.

Have you been there?

And sitting around, leaving it on the table for 2 weeks, playing 'hardball' while our rivals circle. Fucking amateurs

We had that nobhead who want to Man Utd for a fortnight before Mitchell