Sibierski

Bit like Elanga, if he’s been a priority for two summers now, just get it done. Farcical it hasn’t when Trafford wants to come.

Barry is cheaper at £27.5m moving to Everton, with plenty upsale. Would rather take one of the many free strikers as an alternative, or even get another young winger and have Elanga play the emergency striker role. There's many different options then paying peak value for someone who's near 29 and won't be a starter and can only play one position.

“Don’t want Trafford for £30m, but yes, let’s throw money at Brentford for Wissa”

Why are we so hard on for throwing money at Wissa? Like say it’s £35m+ for a 29 year old as season starts It’s absolutely not us. Would be totally awful deal considering we have priorities elsewhere and a 2nd/3rd choice striker can be obtained for a hell lot less.

How about Nelson Semedo as a backup full back? Good fitness record, played on occasions at LB at Barcelona so can provide cover there alongside right back. Him, Tripps filling in at RB if Tino moves LB if Hall injured etc. Feels a logical short term solution if we can ship out Targett.

Chance we go in for McAtee for the CAM role if there’s a deal to be had around £20m? Not a Howe player on paper, but maybe he wants that different profile, and potentially ending up £8m+ over Longstaff is a reasonable deal? I’m not sold on McAtee because I think he’s very raw still for his age, but got enough experience for Howe to trust early on and mould into the midfielder he wants.

Yea, on paper who’s an 8, but then as season went on his performances and what he gave us, 6 is his role. Probably wasn’t the aim when we signed him, but sometimes that’s how transfers work out. Not sure who we pivot for CM. Only been seriously linked to two, Pedro (gone) and Ramsey (Only PSR link). Fully hoping for an out of the blue “Deal agreed” for some purple abroad as I can’t see who ticks the boxes within Prem within value.

That’s still effectively two different XIs. Perfectly fine, can’t keep Longstaff just in case there’s a mad injury crisis where we need him for a couple of UCL games.

Think there’s every chance Miley moves up to 5th and gets more minutes, we get a new midfielder and it’s either keep hold of Willock for one more year as 6th choice getting scrap minutes if a deal is not there, or we get a too good to turn down offer and Harrison moves to 6th choice (seeing he had good progression last season). Think the ideal situation is we can extract something out of Willock as 6th choice though and Harrison goes on loan for first half of season.

Good deal for all parties unless we consider him 4th choice midfielder and happy to give him a new deal. Means we need to move quick on a CM ideally, so may get an out of the blue deal leak in next 48 hours.

I’d take Orny as more trusting and it £52m and the bonuses is the extra £5m.

Now for Trafford tomorrow and the double signing picture.

YES. Delighted with him. Going to be pure electric.

Would usually say we shouldn’t, but in Trafford and Elanga, these are players Howe and the club have clearly wanted since June 2024. Don’t try one summer for them, then come back next summer just to not get the deal done. Don’t think it appeases Howe one bit that we still can’t get them over the line and I fully expect him to make it known in his first interview back.

They would have buyers, just we can’t keep turning down low offers when they offer nothing moving forward. Target for say £3m-£5m and Longstaff for £10m-£15m should be the range we look at. Asking for more than that is just never going to see a sale. Willock I would say is £15m-£20m due to a bit longer on contract, but that’s being ambitious so £10m-£15m probably more realistic.

There should be no way we end this window with Longstaff / Targett on our squad registration.

There’s three core we need that’s self explanatory: GK, CB, RW. Then there’s cover for striker which is looking like a Pedro type CAM/ST. That’s 4. Then when a CM goes (which Longstaff should), one has to come in. Then giving Hall coming back from a serious injury, Targett broken, Trippier getting old and us ideally not running Tino into the ground after his summer, we need a LB too IMO. That’s 6 at a minimum for me. Cordero is effectively the 7th who’s out on loan and I would prefer us to sign a young CB too as future planning for post Schar. So 8 signings.

The UEFA rules just stop new sides from challenging the elite don’t they? Has nothing to do with protecting the clubs from financial doom (especially when it comes with a big fine that hurts them financially), just about protecting the elite and their consistent access to the riches in the latter stages.

Number 9 is the shirt though. Big new contract with a massive promo with Shearer.

I do seriously want us to make some signings this week now club is back to training. If we don’t have key arrivals heading to Austria / joining in Austria, we’ve fucked up big time and I won’t hear otherwise.

Think it all depends on where Howe sees Osula. If it’s at striker then I don’t think we will if we sign a CM/CAM that can operate up front too (like Pedro), on top of Elanga. That’s players that can play upfront (with Gordon too). Whilst not ideal, it’s taking burden off Isak still because it’s going to be hard to entice an actual number 9 here when they will clearly be 2nd choice for every game going.

Glad he’s finally gone, mostly so we can remember more the good times and not another season like 24-25 which would’ve distorted his reputation.

If he was someone late 20s where the talent was there and you want to try and hope it clicks, yea fine. But in 30s, broken, there’s literally no point. Not like if he did string some games together we’d want to give him a 2 year deal. Just baffling stuff from the club.

It’s likely one of Trossard or Martinelli goes and Arsenal will still be signing a LW anyway (Eze main link). Madueke essentially replacing Sterling squad place, where for his sake he’s more favoured to take minutes off Saka.

Because he's leaving for game time / not wanted at Juventus. What scenario does a player end up in a pay rise there?