sushimonster85

I know rumour coming out of the England camp was that he would prefer a move to London, but this may end up not meaning much if: A) He is also happy about the idea of play for us as... B) Spurs are unwilling to pay more than we are for him. I know we're trying to be cautious, but there's zero chance Levy will sanction spending even 40m on a player out of contract in 12 months.

You were close with one. Wasn't Bobby desperate for us to go sign Fowler? Think it was when he ended up going to Leeds.

Shame it turned out he was a massive racist.

Think it's more that people (Hope, Edwards etc) have heard it's likely to be two elite players that can immediately improve the first team in terms of the majority of the budget. But that there may also be scope to add another 1/2 in terms of depth options.

This place will be like Lord of the Flies if it's a few weeks before anything happens.

The good news is the betting markets seem to be slow catching up to this, money to be made backing Spurs as his next club.

Yeah, bias aside I'd say both sides are about even when it comes to the possibility of finishing in the CL spots next season (whether that means top 4 or 5 who knows yet). You imagine over the next 5-10 years we will start to pull away from them, but that probably doesn't mean as much to someone who turns 27 in November. If he were 22/23 then maybe he'd take it into account more.

Barca using their local journo's to try and reverse engineer a transfer.

I think it's likely more been the case of no one knowing for sure what the fuck was going on at Spurs. Now Postecoglu is in and has said he definitely wants Maddison it's probably made things a lot clearer.

This has always been the insider line, right? That ultimately Maddison prefers the idea of moving to London.

Think it depends on their asking price. If they're still asking for a fee no one will pay (50m+) then I can see it dragging on. The further into the window we get the more twitchy they become/the more likely the fee is to drop to something we deem acceptable.

Jorginho?

Would likely be a vast improvement tbf.

Have people got the goalkeeper and the Everton midfielder mixed up here?

Depends. I can see a younger player, for example that Nmecha lad, being ok knowing he is coming in with the idea that he will have to fight for a place rather than be an automatic starter.

Assuming this likely means no training kit (or warm up gear) sponsor.

Looking forward to getting into next week. Feels like these international games are the last (of the never ending) 'nothing much will happen till after X' hurdles.

Anyone got a prediction for the random evening bombshell? Last night Barella, couple days ago that Felix lad? I'm going to mix it up a little and say it will be someone saying talks for Kulusevski are actually advanced with Juve.

I swear, Daniel Levy is becoming the parody of himself.

Agree with most of what's been said today. Think he will be a big player for us next season. The way he spoke after the Chelsea game about his fitness and wanting to get better makes me think his season has actually started now with the U21's. When that's done I can see him wanting to join up with the squad (who will be back for pre-season by then) right away rather than having any sort of break. A player with the pace Gordon has matched up with the fitness Howe & coaching team demand could be devastating.

Not sure I'd go that far, but I do think there's a case to made for a merger with realistic targets. Now we've had a top 4 finish and are backed by considerable means, there aren't many who could be deemed as 'unrealistic'. Barella is one of the best midfielders in the world and several sources have now said we're interested, they just vary in how far along our interest has gotten.

In his defence, the 75m figure was Hope, not Edwards.

Aye. Feels like it could turn into a proper 'saga' this one.

Think the 25-30m figure was specifically baked into Spurs loan deal for a permanent transfer. Imagine on the open market he would be closer to 40m.

Going to ignore a lot of the noise around this one and take away the one pretty nailed on positive. That our interest has at least been stood up by a lot of different sources now (to varying degrees obviously) shows the calibre of player we are after. Whether that means there will be 4 or 5 signings of varying quality, or 2 properly elite ones, who knows. But It's good to know that there's a concerted effort to bring our starting 11 closer to being properly 'elite'. Because that's Barella. He gets into pretty much any side in Europe.