OhForAGreavsie

Good. Now all you need to do is work on not winding any of the rest of us up and you're there.

I heard a know-nothing, Arsenal reject turned journalist, explain to the world this morning that Jose repeatedly loaned Rom out season after season. He actually gets paid for this staggering lack of knowledge.

What barrier? You've seen all of the confirmed evidence of bids made above that level. Unless you are suggesting that those bids are made in full knowledge that they won't be accepted and with the sole intent of fooling the football world that we are trying to improve our squad when in fact we are not. Is that what you think is going on here?

He'll do for me however. If we can get him.

That's certainly how it appeared to be last year. After the dust had settled on the summer 2016 transfer window Everton made public the fact that, despite countless claims to the contrary, Chelsea did not bid for Lukaku. Rom is not useless, far from it. In fact he's much better than the Diego we suffered from January onwards in the season just gone. He is not though the man I want to lead the line for us. Given what he can do, I would not have wanted to see him join United, but if it's a choice between that or him coming here then United can have him.

Yess!!

This is a very specific breakdown of the way you think CF transfers are handled. Do you have evidence to support this?

If something isn't good for you don't do it. 😊 When exactly did Chelsea say that? You are seeing ghosts and letting them scare you man. 😊

True That's one possible interpretation I agree, but another is that they're confident because they have a contract.

@akgw13is right. If there was a break option in the loan agreement then Juve could simply exercise it; no need for a meeting. A meeting is only necessary to try to reach an agreement when it does not already exist. It's a reasonable guess that such a meeting would involve talk of compensation. You can imagine that Juve would have had lots of cash from the supposed Sandro deal with which to grease Atalanta's palms. There are examples of this from our own deals, and the loaned player himself might have something to say of course. There seems to have been a break clause in Ake's arrangement, Andreas made it clear he would only return if he would be starting, and Juan Cuadrado simply didn't want to return at all.

No you weren't. You are not alone.

Good for us in one way. If Diego was below Lacazette on Atleti's wish list, he isn't now..

Crespo is the player I had in mind.

Thanks I'll get to see that soon then.

Deleted. Comment already addressed.

But do we know that Chelsea were not after Sanchez two months ago? Not getting is not the same as not wanting.

I don't think your assessment of the player is right, but you sound like you know more about him than I do so it would be stupid of me to to challenge your opinion. Thing is, even if you are right, it's a reasonable guess that the club don't think so. Surely if they buy him it will be with the expectation that he will be able to contribute, and not just as a money saving option. If that was the case, if the aim is just to save money, why buy him at all? If the club shared your view that we have equally good players already, then they'd just lob the cash back into the bank wouldn't they? What better way to save money than that?

Very, very slim chance they'll get a ban in my opinion. FIFA & The FA signed off on the deal in the first place, so they clearly thought City's actions were in order. Then they turned down an appeal from the South American club. That means they heard the argument made by the club, presumably investigated, and then ruled in City's favour. After all of that it would seem a bit harsh for the world governing body to turn around and issue a ban and it would have to be FIFA who impose the ban, CAS has no power to do it. The transfer in question concerned a 16 year old kind. As we know players under 18 are not allowed to be transferred internationally unless their family move countries for non-footballing reasons. The only exception is within the EU where EU laws say European citizens are entitled to work in any EU country. And this is where the controversy comes in. The lads family moved to Europe shortly before his 16th birthday where he acquired an Italian passport a few days later so facilitating the move to City. FIFA should have been aware of all of this, so the fact that they waived the transfer through makes hard to see how they can do a u-turn now. Even if CAS find against City, I think the most likely outcome is a fine, not a ban, and financial compensation for the lad's original club. I think it'll be that way not least because I'm sure that's what the South Americans want.A ban for City, and a return of the player's registration is no good to them. They can't force the lad to sign a cntract with them, and if he doesn't he can just walk out of the club anyway. They would not be able to transfer him and profit in that way.

The have relatively new owners with deeper pockets than previous owner Bill Kenwright. They are also a Premier League club. There's a lot of money about in this league.

Gaz & Dave were signed in 2012. The transfer fee in each case was reported to be £7m. In 2012 CFC turnover was £227.3m. In 2016 it was £329.1m. That is roughly a 45% increase. Our turnover will be higher again in 2017. Let's be aggressively ambitious and estimate it at £400m. Roughly speaking that would represent a 76% increase over the 2012 figure. If we add together the two fees paid for Gaz & Dave, then inflate that figure by 76% it comes to much less than £25m. Football finances have changed drastically over the past 5 years, but not as drastically as transfer fees. To be fair you said 'economics', not 'finances' and that is a different thing but I suggest that economics has gone right out of the window and madness has set in.

Good. If Charly really wants to go on tour then I'm glad. In my opinion Charly showed nothing at Betis which suggests that he'll contribute for Chelsea but there's talent there so I want to see him get some tour minutes. If things fall into place, that's a big win for Charly and for the club. If not, little has been lost. Yes, he may have missed the chance to play a Champions League qualifier, but preferring to go on tour with The Blues makes perfect sense to me.

Duplicate

Have to say Marcos didn't surprise me. Rudi on the other hand I don't know anything about but I'm fully on board with everyone who says give that lad a go. I think we will too. After all, people gave Marcos time to win them over so I see no reason why that won't happen again.

He might mean it in the 'I don't know' sense.

Even if there's a story here surely it's an old one. There was stuff in the media a month or more ago about Antonio preferring Belotti, while the club wanted Rom. It was said that they had agreed to target the Everton man and that the manager was on board with that. 'On board' does not necessarily mean happy but at least it was settled. As for the boss preferring Belotti over Rom, it's hardly surprising. After all, Antonio has two eyes and he's heard of football before. I've felt all along that the push for Rom is more about someone trying to justify the original signing, than a cold, hard assessment of the team's needs now. That's assuming the chase is real; remember that after all the fuss last summer, Everton revealed our interest never got as far as actually making an offer. Sadly there is an air of inevitability about it this time. Oh well, at least this isn't going to be a Nandonian car crash. Rom can do stuff, but we should be more ambitious when spending this kind of money.