OhForAGreavsie

The panic buy mentality is what held the Abramovich era back. Calm heads, patience and good decisions is what we need.

Inspiring is what it is. It's what we need to aim to create. I'm not saying we can get to Barca's stature but we can improve on where we are now. This is not the work of a single ownership group mind you. It's taken Barca sixty-years to get where they are and they've had the benefit of great success and many great players, including three of the very, very best footballers who ever lived. It's a cocktail of things which have helped them become what they, Some ingredients of that cocktail we can't match; a one club city (sorry Espaniol), which helps generate a level of passion among the fans that we match in our hearts but not in the stadium, and a reputation for beautiful football, plus a climate and culture which is very attractive to young men. We can't wave a wand and magic up these things tomorrow but we can start trying today.

I'm in favour of making a stand on Fofana and walking away.

This is an easy one I think, Tommy T decides. He knows the player's strengths and weaknesses, the history of the squad's relationship with Chris, and of his own relationship with the Dane. If the boss signs off on this then that's good enough for me.

Having just read that he'd done that, and reverted to his Chelsea bio, I came here to read what people were saying. TB has to be loving this. Compared to running player transactions at a baseball club, this must be like Macbeth and Much Ado About Nothing rolled into one.

Every Paul McCartney needs a John Lennon. PM: #Got to admit it's getting better. Getting better all the time.# JL: #Can't get no worse."

I heard a Dutch journalist speaking about this yesterday. He was absolutely convinced that De Jong has made a commitment to United, and more particularly to Ten Hag. The journo was confident that if FDJ leaves Barca he will be Old Trafford bound.

I wonder if a lot of us have been misreading De Jong? Plenty of us have shared the opinion that he wants to stay in Barcelona, certainly I have, but I'm beginning to wonder if his public stance isn't about something else. I wonder if he's not simply protecting his position with respect to his contract? Outside of winning a bizarre case against the previous management group, Barcelona do not have a leg to stand on legally in relation to what they owe FDJ. If he says all the right things, and does all the right things, they also have no leverage over him morally. Telling him to. "reduce your salary or leave", is just FCB playing to the crowd. The bloke has a contract and tough words aren't going to make that go away. Their best bet is to add a pretty please on the end of that statement. Of course, having said all the good things, and done all the good things, De Jong can later play the knight in shining armour and say he only left Barca to help the club but he can leave on his terms.

OK, we have an honest disagreement then.

Agreed. In a straight shoot out between us and City we were never going to win. In fact I think we could have faced another situation where a player might have accepted a lesser contract than we offered, and chosen to play for someone else instead. We outrank clubs seen as being outside the elite group but, among the elites we are not a preferred destination. Trying to fix this needs to be a key objective for Clearlake.

Good luck lad, and thank you.

Yes overaged players will continue to be allowed for exactly that reason. Eventually this will be restricted to three outfield players per game but, to allow teams to transition from U23 to U21 the allowance this year will be five overaged players. I'm not sure if it goes down to four next season and then to three for the season following that or if it goes straight to three next season.

I like the 'speculative' spending on teenagers but it has to be low cost. I like some of the earlier acquisitions more than Casadei but the principal is sound. It also syncs with the PL2 competition becoming U21 instead of U23. Playing 23 year-olds regularly in your reserve side is just wasting everyone's time. By that age players should be in the first team squad, out on loan, or out of the door.

Another of the great CFCW recruits this summer is Canadian international and five times Champions League winner Kadeisha Buchannan. We've needed a player of Kadeisha's profile at CB for a long time. Powerful in the air, strong defender, great in possession, and good passing. Kadeisha was the second capture of the summer and I thought I had mentioned her arrival before but I'm correcting that now. Really good player.

The women are having a great summer transfer window. Having lost there important players at the end of last season it was possible that this season's squad could be weaker than last term but, with the window still not closed, that definitely won't be the case. We've added four player to the first team squad plus signed a promising youngster who will go on loan. One newcomer is Katerina Svitkova whose move from West Ham was completed a few weeks ago.

I want us to break the cycle of being held over a barrel for players regardless of their individual quality. When the price goes beyond our valuation we have to walk away or we are fuelling the madness.

Time to walk away now.

He wouldn't be the first man of any profession. 😀

It looks like De Jong still has no more interest in leaving than Dembele did. Indeed, it's not unreasonable to suspect that he's in sympathy with Barcelona's plight and is willing to help them in every way, short of giving up the money he is owed or leaving the club. At the very least he seems ready to wait while Barca find and pull every lever they can think of.

You're misunderstanding what I think the 'silliness' is. 🙂 I think the continuing narrative that every evil under the sun is Marina's fault is what's silly. Now, the actual problem, I agree that has happened many, many times. 🙁

No, I don't believe that it has.

You ask that as if you're worried that the club might not have already done this but, if TT is interested, they certainly will already have done exactly that. Mind you, based on the order of priority TT gave in his post game interview yesterday, maybe he isn't interested.

I've said all along that I am not willing to believe that Callum was given a contract worth a basic £6m a year and that if this was the price for keeping him we should have just taken Bayern's money instead. I still do not want to believe he is on that size of deal.

This type of capability is why I'm more excited by this transfer link than I am about any deal we've completed. One or two other links have been as exciting but none that we've actually completed.