Joey47

This guy looks class, going off their highlight videos alone he looks better than Ektike. Had never heard of this Zerkze kid tbh but looks very agile and silky for his size. Seems to have really good vision for a striker as well. I feel like his dynamic movement would really combine well with Maxi and Bruno. Is he a straight up centre forward or can he play on the wing as well?

Don't think we've been played. Just an agent being greedy. Stuff like this will happen more and more often now that we are trying to sign good players and competing with clubs like Bayern and PSG. I do think it's good though that they are not giving in to this agents demands.

Sorry if i'm being dumb here but this would still impact the amount a club can spend on infrastructure right? If not for these new FFP rules a club could have their stadium sponsored and spend that sponsorship money directly on first team and not have to worry about any FFP allocation going to infrastructure?

Interesting one but not sure you're right. Comment below from liverpool fan about how it's maybe not as important as you would think, especially when you have a keeper who makes a lot of sweeping actions (Pope and Alisson make the most and furthest sweeping actions in the PL by far). The first graph in this tweet shows how good Pope is at sweeping.

He also has never had a starting spot as a cf for a full season. I think his goal contributions per 90 mins are pretty solid.

Yeah Maldinni would count.

Who are your top 10 Italian CBs? Also as others have said, hope you stick around. Really enjoy your posts.

Interesting stats here

We know that Milan, the Serie A champions, can't compete financially with Newcastle United

Last season Pope saved 73.6% of the shots he faced placing him 5th best in the league last season. Dubravka saved 67.9% of the shots he faced placing him in 14th. As a shot stoppers there's no question Pope is a (probably significant) upgrade on Dubravka. Also, it's not like Dubravka is some wizard when it comes to playing it out the back. Obviously you can dig even deeper on those stats and look at the quality of shots faced, but I don't think you'd see a significant difference considering Pope played for a horrific Burnley side last season.

Shots faced is a very important factor to look at when you compare GK's. Pretty sure Pope has a higher save percentage than Ederson and Alisson.

If we were going to push the boat out for anyone this window I think Raphinha would be the perfect choice. Proven to be one of the best players in the premier league and a big role in the very strong Brazilian national side.

Wow, Graeme Bailey pretty reliable in Jan wasn't he?

Is he the striker you were comparing to Osimhen?

I'm starting to get impatient in this transfer window. Not because I'm worried they're gonna fuck it up, but because I just wanna know who we're gonna sign already

How so? Was Fraser's best form last season not when he played LW when St maximin was out?

His purple patch was playing on the left when Maxi was out.

West Ham wanted him back in Jan and their striker situation is quite dire relying on an aging/out of form Antonio.

I do think Pope is better than Dubs, although definitely not by much. I think his signing might bit in a similar thought process to Targett's signing. Get a solid premier league player in for a good price and forget about that position for at least a season. Even if not a glamorous pep guardiola system type signing. Remember what happened at the start of the season when Dubs was out and Woodman and Darlow were costing us points pretty often iirc.

Worrying. I'm starting to think Agbonlawhore was right.

It's a tough one, I'd personally be happy with either that or James right CB and Trent right wing back in a back 5.

Walker is not done, he's perfect as a right sided CB in a back 3. Especially for tournament football, his recovery pace bails England out so so often.

Just because AC Milan has a bigger pull than us right now doesn't mean we should believe every word coming from shite Italian Journalists with an agenda. As people have said it is very possible Botman prefers moving to Milan over Newcastle, however it is also a possibility that he would prefer to join Newcastle during these exciting times. We don't really know what is going on behind the scenes in these negotiations and all these "journalists" love to use that to their advantage for farming clicks.

Exactly this. Especially La Repubblica who are well known for bullshiting. It is possible that he prefers Milan over Newcastle (underrstandable) but he's not going to refuse to sign for us if Milan can't afford him. Also are people forgetting Botman was so ready to join us back in Jan he was liking transfer stuff on instagram about him moving to Newcastle. That's literally 1 step before handing in a transfer request.