King Kante

Tbf, that goal was a lot to do with positioning and not being strong enough, same with TAA's. Tbh, if you're short you have to shit house like Dave or Cannavaro and make contact as the player goes up and ensure that you don't get caught ball watching/directly underneath the ball. Not saying short CB's aren't an issue, they are. But those two goals were poor defending more than anything else; although tbf, the Klua ball in for Spuds was excellent.

This is too rich for my liking. He is a good player but this sort of fee should get you a VVD not a kid who was out almost all of last season with a broken leg.

I rate FDJ, however with his wages and the chaos he will cause Barca if he stays and demands his money, I am more tempted to pass on him for now.

Currently CB stands as: Silva K2 Cucurella Dave Trev Sarr Ampadu Imo, we probably need 6 players here as Cucu and Dave play multiple positions. Personally, I would have Ampadu above Sarr and probably on par if not ahead of Trev (on his current form.)

Never understood why people hated him so much; yeah he had limitations but equally he had some top traits. For me he looks like he is off, if so I will wish him luck and thank him for his service.

Another thing I have been thinking about is how much was Cucurella wanted last season by TT? Was he a club deal, that then got scrapped but TT kept an eye on him last season, or was he a player TT wanted but it got veto/abandoned because of Granny/the Board? I would be interested to find out. If he was a player TT wanted and told them to get and they ignored/refused then you can see why they got swept out asap.

I really hope we don't buy PEA. No need to help Barca out by taking a over the hill high wage player from them.

Probably overpriced but he is a very good player and we need those.

Going to be a fire sale surely with our excess players. By my count, we have the following that are knocking around the first team that need to go: Kepa Baba Sarr Alonso Emerson Barkley RLC Ziyech That is before you get to the likes of Pulisic and Werner who you have to believe want to leave.

HR is a bit of a muppet but one thing he isn't is a attention seeking whore like those supposed ITK's on Twitter. I suspect he has actually been told this, however whether it is true or not is another matter.

People complaining about Dave staying need to get a grip. He will fall into the Milner type role where he is a bench player and comes on for 20 mins in tough games where we need to grind out results. Dave is a top, top professional, can play multiple positions and is experienced. Players like that are always valuable.

Requesting €35-€40m for Kepa is just pure insanity if true.

Havertz will be CF1 next season. If people like value betting (know what that means) Havertz at 66/1 for league top scorer is one of the best bets in that market.

Neither of these are happening. Leicester would rape us harder than Z did Marcellus Wallace on price and RBL just got Gvardiol to sign a year contract so that they could keep him this year and sell him for a reasonable fee next year (thus he still gets a decent bonus and wage increase.)

Nah, f*ck Barca. Let FDJ make them pay him the money he is due.

Well it kind of does. TT didn't want him/wasn't completely sold. Only reason people believe it is more is because it appears lots of people believe wanderer is put in front of the on twitter and swallow happily without any questions. This would genuinely be hilarious as my understanding of La Liga FFP rules is that they cannot lever their way out. Want may be interesting is that he (FDJ) could become a loan option. Everton are desperate but surely not that desperate. That said, they do love buying dross. Golden Boot doesn't mean nothing. I prefer to win trophies than have someone with the Golden Boot in the squad. If Depay is the answer, I do not know what the question is.

I don't disagree however, I think we need to think about what James would actually bring to the RCB role. Firstly, I want to say that for me James is going to be a de facto World Class player. Firstly, James at RCB is going to be a very different proposition to AC or Trev. James in that position will do a few things; 1) Bring the ball out of the back with strength and intelligence which will free up space for the RWB. Currently James has had to bring the ball out from the RWB position. If however, he switches to a RCB role, he'll still do it there which means opposition teams will need to tuck someone in on him in attacking phases which will give the RWB more room. Think about how Rudi would do this, which then freed up Chilwell or Alonso. 2) With the overloads TT tries to create, James still has plenty of opportunity to enter the box along with the RWB. For instance if you see a few of Chilwell's goals before his injury Rudi wasn't far behind or was taking up attacking positions. This stopped with Alonso because he hasn't got the legs to get back, thus I think TT was trying to prevent being open wide to counter attacks like we were under SFL. 3) In games were we dominate the ball, James from RCB, can move into DM/CM a lot more easily than he can from RWB, as from that position he would leave the flank free. This then solves the problem in games of high possession of being one short in midfield. 4) James at RCB will get a lot more freedom to spray his long range passing about. This can be seen when Dave played under Conte. When Dave was there and had his legs, he got a lot of freedom to play that back post ball, while being tucked in a bit more, James would have more space either side of him to take up positions to pass/cross; if the RWB is a half decent defender they could even swap in attacking phases. 5) James is physically built like a bull, him with Silva and K2 is a super powerful unit. Then we get to an aspect of James that isn't spoken about enough; he isn't actually that quick. Rather his positional play allows him to pick up yards. If we can find a RWB that is quicker, we can transition the ball quicker on counters. To me, James is too good to be wasted out on the flank with his skills and would actually benefit from being tucked in a little more.

At this point, a RWB with James moving to RCB makes a lot of sense in my book.

I am going to play Devils Advocate here. Personally I was against signing CR7 at all costs at the start of the window but the more I have thought on it, I have seen a way he could work. Firstly, we need to get rid of the Lukaku comparisons. Yes, he probably works less off the ball than Lukaku but equally his in game intelligence, close control and finishing are lightyears ahead of Lukaku. I mean, there really isn't any comparison as it is a bit like comparing someone in the special Olympics to someone in the able bodies Olympics. That said, he doesn't come without issues. The issue he presents is his lack of work off the ball (read this as close to zero) and his ego (absolutely massive.) However, what needs to be remembered is that we actually create a decent amount of chances, particularly against lower opposition that don't get finished which means we get dragged into too many dogfights which is draining on the squad/team. This has now been a problem since Diego left. Theredore, CR7 in his current state is needs to be seen as an Old Skool CF in the ilk of Pipo Inzaghi and Ruud Van Nisteltrooy in that he'll always be in the right place in the box/knows how to shake his marker with clever movement and most importantly takes his chances. This is actually a type of player we need in 60% of our league games and our early games in the FA/EFL Cup and CL. I honestly believe that you put CR7 in our side and we beat the riff raff with much more ease and with more frequency that improves our squad motivation and points accural. The problem is obviously the rest of the time, latter stages of the cups and against the better teams in the league. However, even here CR7 could be useful. For me, if he could accept that he won't be starting all these games (he would start some just due to form/injuries to players/other teams) and could accept a Super sub role, he could be very handy. An example is like last season away to Real, after the 3rd goal, he would've been a great option to bring on, as his experience would've calmed everything down and he would know how to take the sting out of the game. As for games when we then thrown the kitchen sink, who is better than a fresh CR7 for the last 20 minutes to find that space in the box to tap something in? In those instances, we don't need a Kai/Mount/Werner running their b*locks off. This for me, really comes down to what he is expecting as the only issue I see for a year or two of him is his ego getting in the way. However, with his lack of options and his desire to play CL, it may just be we can get it to work. As I said, I wasn't a fan or this transfer and I am still not completely sold. However, if discussions can be had and he can accept that his limitations due to his age, means he has to be played selectively. He could actually be a big positive.

Not that shocking, my abiding memory of him, outside of his time with TT, was when, he ran in a straight line as if he was running against Bolt in the 100m when Bayern were counter attacking us.

I don't think CR7 is that dependent on a playmaker to be fair. His movement in the box and ability to find the correct spaces are essentially second to none still; while he is still a stone cold finisher. The problem with him in 2022 is he is essentially a Pipo Inzaghi which isn't a type of player you see anymore. By this, I mean that he only plays in the 18 yard box and is a complete non-entity when the team in without the ball. Only way he works here is if he accepts that he only starts when we know we will have 65% of the ball and that he'll be a bench option for the rest of the time. However, his ego (which to be fair is a big part of why he is one of the greatest players ever) and desire to continue setting records means he is highly unlikely to do this and be a problem when it happens (see last season at Utd when dropped.)

We only got told that Saint Stevie Me thought that years after it happened. Personally, I do not buy that he has that much vision as this, since he is a guy who goes out uppercutting DJ's because they won't play his favourite Phil Collins song.

The easy answer is De Vissier. He was responsible for the Belgian boys while the others were widely linked to Emenalo. The drop off coincided with the arrival of Granny into the Director position. However, that isn't a popular opinion for some posters; although to be fair we don't have much hard proof she was actually deciding transfers.

I am not going to lose my shit over a pre-season but I have been of the opinion for a while that we were never going to solve our problems in one window and this should be remembered. However, the losing of Rudi, Tomori, Guehi and AC caused us a lot of damage and extended my prediction of how long a rebuild will take us from two windows to three. I say this as where this window should've been focused getting the attack right, followed by a CM and some back up WB's, it has required us to focus on CB. Furthermore, the two key attacking players I had down to really help us kick on where Raphinha and Chiesa. Raph decided to go to Barca, I personally don't blame the club here as I think they did all the could, whilst Chiesa got a massive injury that ruled him out. That left us with Sterling which I think was probably the best option left to us. At this point, I do not see any AM/CF's that we can go out and get this Summer that are going to really improve us. As a result, I think the goal has to be get Mount and James pinned down to long term contracts and make ourselves hard to beat and just stick to getting top 4 as that allows us to continue to build. For me, we need to just get the RCB and a back up WB minimum and hope Kai steps up (I actually think he will due to what I saw him develop last year: his hold up play and ability to fight/stand up to the CB's in the PL.)