Matt1892

I can’t believe we spunked nearly 10% of our summer transfer budget on Minty. Seething.

We signed a prospect right back in the last window.

Of course, as the thread was made off the back of Hope’s comments. I voted £81m - £100m but we can add the sales of Wood, Lascelles and ASM to that too which will push it up to the £150 million mark. might even sell Miggy too.

Including player sales or not?

Worrying.

I don’t think other clubs have the same revelations about transfer pots every window.

We have sold Wood this window so that puts it at £90 million.

I don’t know if Leicester have relegation clauses in player contracts that impact wages but their wage bill was running at 85% of turnover in the Premier League so they are not in the position to play hardball for too long.

Most have been piggybacking off Romano with the Mac Allister to Liverpool story, he was giving daily updates on it.

Mac Allister has become overrated since the World Cup, he’s decent but I wouldn’t put him near the top grouping of midfielders in the league. Caicedo is far better of the pairing in the role he does.

He will be picking up a lot of the leg work that Longstaff does though as Bruno doesn’t have the engine to press at that high of a tempo from a more advanced position, unless we are changing formation to go with the double pivot of Bruno and Adams? We should be looking to sign a back up to Bruno and a better version of Longstaff that offers all of the work but more ability in the final third.

The issue with Adam’s is that he doesn’t offer any real improvement on the shortcomings of Longstaff, which is surely what we should be looking for in a first team replacement in his position.

Would it be against the rules for us to sign Gundogan on a 2 year contract and the Saudi lot sign him on a pre contract for 25/26 on another 2 year contract? 2 years with us for £100k a week and then another 2 years on a £1 million a week?

I can see this getting abandoned if West Ham go behind.

Going back to Carlos Alcaraz, someone made a video of his performance again us in the cup at St Mary’s. This was 2 weeks after he joined. You can see why Benfica might have wanted him to replace Enzo, he plays like a more mobile Bruno in the clips. https://twitter.com/nufcgallowgate/status/1666143250598461441?s=46

According to this he played DM against us in the cup games and up top against us in the league. https://www.transfermarkt.com/carlos-alcaraz/leistungsdaten/spieler/748319

He was apparently lined up by Benfica in January as the replacement for Enzo but ended up moving to Southampton.

Let’s be honest, if he hadn’t gone to Southampton and we were trying to sign him from Racing this summer people would be excited about him as they were about the possibility of signing França, Perrone and Andrey Santos. He scored 4 in 18 for Southampton despite him being played from DM all the way to CF, in what was easily the worst team in the league. That was a good bedding in period for any foreign player coming from South America. Him and Lavia looked really good out of the youngsters they have.

This is an article from just over a year ago when he was still at Racing… But despite his clear ability, the youngster struggled to make much of an impression in a faltering side, looking unsure about what his role on the field was as he was shuttled to and forth between the middle of the pitch and attack. Gago's arrival at the tail-end of 2021, the third coach to sit on the Racing bench in the space of 10 months after Juan Antonio Pizzi and Claudio Ubeda came up short, would clear up much of that mystery. Alcaraz was installed as the most advanced member of a dynamic three-man midfield and given complete license to push forward into the penalty area, while at the same time required to form part of Racing's suffocating high press. It is a position in which he has thrived, catching the eyes of Tottenham, Arsenal and Wolves in the Premier League, as well as Inter and AC Milan over in Italy, all of whom may well be in the chase for his services once the summer transfer window opens. The youngster represents decent value, too: while his release clause is set at €25 million, any bid approaching €20m would likely to be too attractive to refuse for his current employers. https://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/carlos-alcaraz-arsenal-tottenham-inter-argentine-teenager/blte617db2ef01b79c2

I was undecided about putting this in here or the Twitter nonsense thread. https://twitter.com/toonmouthtyne/status/1666102457762566144?s=46