Keegans Export

Either we reckon we can pick a RW for a decent fee or we've got a lot more money to spend than I anticipated...

It's a good sign. Even the very top clubs tend to have a couple of as-yet-unproven teenagers on their bench, presumably the plan going forwards is to have those spots taken up by lads who have come up through our own academy but we don't have that luxury yet. I can't speak with any authority about any of them but I have faith in the talent spotters we have (led by Nickson and Mitchell) and I have complete faith in Eddie & his team getting the absolute most out of all of them, which is a nice position to be in.

That's the key quote, looks like they're buying a club off 777 rather than partnering with them.

Presumably this means Wilson is staying for another season. Signing a 3rd choice CF who can also cover out wide makes sense at that sort of price. Would be part of a good window if we can add quality at CM and RW too.

Let's not forget Eddie Howe signed a new contract last summer and the first we heard of it was Darren Eales mentioning it last month. I'm not saying that's what's happened here but there will inevitably be discrepancies between reported contract length/terms and the actual contract length/terms. Fingers crossed Gordon is one of those.

Why not? Away teams wear change colours all the time in rugby. To put it another way, which is going to negatively impact someone's enjoyment of the game more - being unable to tell which team is which or having to tolerate one team not wearing their traditional colours for one fixture? Edit - in the interest of full disclosure, I am colour blind but not the type that confuses red and green so I've never had an issue. I'm also a big rugby fan (England, not Wales or Ireland)

Mark Douglas has already alluded to a top target that hasn't been linked previously, although that was a week or so ago.

The problem is that the amortisation of Bruno, Trippier, Burn, Isak and every other player we've signed since then is still on the books. That wasn't so much of an issue pre-takeover because we spent (relatively) little. @timeEd32 posted about it earlier and it's the downside to the amortisation "loophole" - yes, Isak's £60m fee is spread over five years so it only "costs" £12m/year, but that £12m/year is still there, plus his wages. And it's the same for the rest of the additions. Yes, our turnover has increased but I doubt it's increased enough to cover all of those additional costs that weren't there when we started spending.

Pope, Dubravka, Greek bloke, Ruddy, Gillespie Trippier, Tino, Krafth, Schar, Lascelles, Botman, Burn, Kelly, Hall, Targett Bruno, Joelinton, Tonali, Willock, Longstaff Almiron, Murphy, Gordon, Barnes Isak, Wilson We've got a 26 man squad there, 25 if Hall doesn't have to be registered which I'm not sure about. We've also still got Lewis, Hayden and Fraser on the books. If we want to add two or three players we're going to have to shift players, at least one of them will be someone Howe would ideally like to keep and I'm sure he understands that as well as anyone.

Isak there was talk of interest weeks before he signed but went cold for ages then all of a sudden he was on a plane! Don't remember anything about Tonali until he'd almost signed. The Jan '22 window is a bit of a blur for me seeing as we welcomed a newborn right in the middle of it 🥱

I think so too but this is what being "good sellers" is about. We can't wait until someone can't do it any more and hope there's a market for them. Fortunately as you say we've got Livramento waiting in the wings and I don't think anyone would be disappointed if he starts.

According to Twitter we lost 9-1 and we know that is an immaculate source.

Thanks for doing the research on that one! So he was linked about 6 weeks before he signed, which matches the reports that we were interested but only went back once the asking price dropped.

He would have been mentioned on the more general transfer rumours thread well before then I reckon

That's what Forbes reckon Source

Dont get me wrong, I'm gagging for a signing but I'm quite happy for us to play the long game, especially when it comes to the RW slot. If we'd gone early on a forward two summers ago, we'd have given up on Isak and brought in someone else. That worked out pretty well in the end.

I agree. No problem with Livramento as first choice but after that we'd be stuck with Krafth, Murphy or maybe a RCB who can fill in. Assuming we wouldn't get a huge fee for Trips I wonder what our budget would be for a replacement?

Absolutely. Our transfer strategy last summer I thought was fairly clear - we wanted depth, ideally 2 players per position, to allow us to keep up the high-intensity from the previous season that saw us finish fourth. Unfortunately our new star CM missed near enough the whole season, our new LW likewise, the injuries started to pile up and that concept ultimately failed. I don't think we signed players like Livramento and Barnes specifically as backups, I think we/Howe wanted to be able to alternate Tripper/Livramento, Willock/Joelinton, Barnes/Gordon, Isak/Wilson etc to ease the workload. That doesn't explain why we didn't pick up a RW at that point. I assume the players we really liked weren't available at a price we were willing to stretch to and Howe thought that Almiron/Murphy and potentially Gordon was enough cover at RW?

What I gather from that is that although the sale of the women's team has been completed and is on the accounts, it hasn't necessarily been pre-approved by the PL and therefore they could turn round and say "Well actually we think you've over-valued it by £50m so we're taking that off the calculation" That's what the PL were threatening to do to Everton & Villa for those academy player swaps they were doing, if they deemed it a workaround they wouldn't allow the full amount brought in to be factored in to the PSR calculation.

Just to fill the time - you've got £85m to spend, there'll be a forward/winger coming in on loan. Your DOF presents two options for you; A) Raphinha (£60m) and Thiaw (£25m) B) David (£25m) and Tomori (£60m)

It says in the pre-season thread that although it was behind closed doors it still has to be registered with each clubs respective FAs so they can't do it on the sly.

I also worry about any sort of high-intensity football at the World Cup. The Final for example is being held in East Rutherford and it's 28-30°c. Arlington is hosting one of the semis and it's over 30°c.

4. I don't think anyone has moved yet that I hoped/expected us to target

I guess any transfer fee above whatever his current book value we'd have to consider? Assuming we can bring in a replacement