King Kante

It's only just begun.....

True the club are fair to the players.

Personally, if we don't get Håland (Kane/Lewa are never happening) then I would seriously prefer to stick Kai as the No.9 and have Tammy and Giroud as back-ups (although Giroud is obviously going.) Tbh, I much prefer to stick to what we know than buy some second choice CF as these have always been a disaster for us. DCL is someone I rate, but when you're probably talking £80m+ to get hold of him I am out. For me, I actually think, even if we don't get Håland this year, we could still get him next year. Barca are fecked, Real have to live within their means, PSG seem to hold no attraction to him (owing to playing in France presumably) so I also feel, if he isn't over the line we could get him next Summer. Only issue with that would be Bayern, who will obviously come to the table at that point. The Serbian kid could be great, but as I haven't seen much of him, I won't recommend him as I only recommend players I have seen in at least 10+ full 90 minute games. Additionally, I worry about Serie A CF's as you get a lot of Piatek types.

Along with his decidication and play style, one of the key reasons why I see him still being here for years as he will take rolling one year contracts.

Well I didn't mean cull everyone regardless. I actually rate Giroud as one of the best options for a CF3 in Europe, I get his wages are highish but I think a €2m fee, or a £7.5m saving overall isn't worth it unless we are 100% getting Håland. I mean, if things go tits up and we have to panic buy someone to replace him, it is going to cost a lot more than €2m/£7.5m for the year.

I count Mbappe as a LWF and I worry about CF's in a purple patch in Serie A. Remember when everyone was saying Piatek would be a great signing? The kid could be great, but I have seen too many Serie A CF's crash and burn after a good 12 months or so to want to put all my eggs in their basket.

Outside of Lewa, Håland and Kane (and even him I have doubts about owing to his ankles) I'd rather just stick with what we had last season.

Tbf, Real have actually cut back quite a lot, they're in a bit of trouble but should fine fine as they only rank in at about 30th in the net spend table for the last five years and they got rid of CR7 when he started talking about multi-millions a week. I think they may actually be under the cap atm. I think this is one of the reasons Ramos left. Obviously they still have Bale making €600k a week but that is only for one more year. After that I think it is Hazard at around €400k which is manageable for them in the current situation. Juve will also be fine imo, they're not too indebted and they keep getting CL. Only issue for them is if they drop out of the CL from what I understand.

Looks like he is off to Milan for €2m. Personally, I don't see the point, I'd rather keep him than recieve €2m.

Barca are so fecked, like 'proper fecked'. Currently they have to shave €200m+ off their wage bill before being allowed to register Messi, Kun, Depay, Royal and Garcia. Then they have a €715m loan that is about to mature that hasn't been touched by the €525m one they took for JPMorgan just to keep the lights on. The funniest part about this is that they cannot even shift that €200m as the players they want to shift are on insane wages that no-one else would pay even on a loan. I mean look at some of these reported mental numbers (these must have a slight truth to them as their current bill is over €650m): Coutinho - €380k a week Dembele - €280k a week Roberto - €210k a week Umiti - €280k a week Pjanic - €220k a week Lenget - €180k a week Alba - €230k a week Those players above account for roughly 30% of their wage bill. After that, they do have some sellable assets on big wages but these wages are so insane they'll have to take a massive hit on the fee or give them away for free: Griezmann - €800k a week (there are even some reports the is fecking net 🤣) De Jong - €400k a week Ter Stegen - €280k a week After that however, you get into Pedri/Fati territory but even then they have an issue of them only having 1 year deals left and they don't earn good money so it doesn't even really affect their wage bill (although a decent fee would increase their wage cap, owing to it flexing to income; hence why they're in this position.) Then we get to Messi, unbelievably, his last contract was about €650m over 4 years, which works out to approx €3m a week. He has said he will take a 50% cut, but that is still €78m for the year which is about 20-25% of their wage cap. However, to top this farcical situation off, a lot of their commercial deals have reportedly been signed with a Messi clause ranging from 10-50% of their value. Thus, if Messi cannot be signed, their wage cap will go down further drastically as the La Liga wage bill cap is directly tied to income 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

If we buy Lukaku, then everything good I have said about the board for the last 15 months gets taken back immediately.

Most of those clubs can do those sort of prices and have done in the past. West Ham have numerous, Palace did £30m on Benteke. Ok, Newcastle and Brighton haven't but Brighton are a 15+ goal a season striker away from being a comfortable PL team, Tammy is a pretty sure bet to get you that. £35m for isn't completely out of the realms of possibility, especially if they have £50m+ plus in the back pocket for White.

Yeah, makes more sense. However, he would have to play the CCB role and that is currently occupied by Silva and AC. It may be better to wait until next season for Rice as he will have a year less on his contract.

Yeah, I am sure he would literally die for the club. However, is lack of ability to break the lines either through his running or passing is a major concern. For sure, he would be handy against the likes of a Fat Sam team when they start targeting Jorgi's lack of physical and athletic ability, but does anyone really want him ahead of Jorgi/Kova/Kante when we're playing the likes of City, Utd, Real etc? Not sure. For me, with us playing a 3atb, a pure DMF is only really need in special situations. A much better fit for us would be a CM who can score/assist and is ideally not lightweight. I am not totally against Rice, but at £70m+ there is a lot better value out there.

Indeed. I am sure there are some people who still believe RLC is better than Mount at everything.

Yeah, times are tough when your own comes from a Trillionaire family.

There had better be a fee involved.

Well it depends how you look at things. The transfers such as Werner and Pulisic were linked but it looked like they were going elsewhere. Hence, a load of posts about the board not knowing what they were doing, then boom, done deal. So, I think this is a slight semantics issue, no the club aren't so discreet that absolutely nothing gets reported (although they have done on occasion) but they work in a way were it seems like we're behind others and/or not doing much. My issue with posts here is that there are some people losing their sh*t over not having a signing yet. However, for all we know they could be working hard on Håland. Thus, if Håland was announced in four weeks time, people wouldn't class it as discreet as it was reported, however to do a deal like that would mean constant negotiations for months. So, if we do, then we have been discreet currently as there aren't constant updates (like Werner for instance were most of the noise was to the Dippers.) Watkins raised £35m last season with zero PL experience. Tammy, despite his flaws, is a proven regular scorer in England, is young and has the English tax factor. £35m+ is quite achievable imo as there are plenty of middle PL clubs that need a goal scorer (Brighton, Palace, Newcastle, West Ham etc.) Does TT really want Rice? The guy isn't very good at breaking the lines with either his passing or running. Imo, if he does come it won't be long before he is converted to a CB role; especially in a 3.

Personally if we're going for a young CM I'd rather we just roll with Gallagher for CM4 and try and get Bellingham in a year or two. If not Gallagher then get someone like SMS who can actually score goals and provide assists from CM. In my opinion, with a 3atb system the need for a DM is limited (only reason I buy the Rice rumours is because he can also play CB.)

Well the thing with Werner was that everyone knew about the buyout and hardly anyone linked us. He was apparently nailed on for the Dippers. Ypu could add Pulisic to the list of discreet deals (also with Dortmund), Kepa (who was tracked for months if you believe the club; I don't on that one), Kovacic was also quietly done. If you go back further you have examples like Bosingwa who had no links at all then was announced on the website one day. So, yeah, I would say, when compared to other clubs were discreet (when placed in the context of world football industry.)

Well it is lucky 3atb is here to stay with us then.

I'd rather bring Shearer out of retirement than spend €100m+ on fecking Lukaku.

Who is to say that we're not negotiating? Negotiates can be kept pretty discreet and we're probably the most discreet top club. No, they probably don't, but the fact of the matter is we have something like 70 players so the cull has to start somewhere and normally the easiest ones to be rid of are the first to go. As for the culling, the real issue is more wages than fees, so it is kind of a case of every little helps.

I think there are a few issues at play here. 1) Last Summer we had a mega blow out. Now the squad is ridiculously bloated and we need to sell/loan before we buy. This is starting to happen: Tomori (£25m), Moses (£4m), Van Ginkle (free), Izzy Brown (free), Pantic (Free), Gilmour (loan.) However, we're probably going to need to do quite a bit more before we buy. 2) Chelsea are a very, very active club on social media. Apparently, we have the most interactions of any club in world football by a good distance. Chelsea is something like 210m, whereas Barca, who are second, have 180m. In my opinion, there is absolutely zero chance Chelsea announce a signing like Håland during the middle of International football competitions (Euros/Copa + doubly so with England in the Semi's) and other big Summer tournaments (Wimbledon / Olympics; although not sure much can be done to avoid the Olympics.) 3) A deal like Håland is going to take all Summer. Dortmund are going to need to look like they've done everything to keep him and squeezed maximum value from any club that buys him. So, again it isn't getting done early. People will point to Sancho and Hakimi but they're slightly different situations. First is that Sancho's deal actually took a year to complete and Inter had to sell Hakimi early to cover costs. 4) We have a few renewals we need to do fairly quickly. Rudi and AC. I can see the club wanting to get those done first as to not increase their demands when any new players start walking through the doors with bumper contracts. That said, why we haven't got a GK2/GK3 is a mystery. That position is one where a player is 100% needed and it isn't a type of signing that is affecting by the above. Only way this may make sense is if the club are targeting a player under contract and/or are seriously trying to shift Kepa and don't want to weaken their hand. Lastly, Håland has always seemed like a very unlikely deal. I have always maintained that he is something like a, at best, 20% shot. My only hope however is that we don't panic. If we cannot get him, then I would rather roll with Tammy and Giroud than start buying players like Ings and Belotti who all have potential future dreg written all over them. Griezmann is on €800k a week and has tailed off in the last 12 months. Even on a wage only deal he is €41.6m a year or €20.8m on half wages. I personally would go nowhere near that deal when negotiating contracts with a couple of important players; Rudi and AC.

https://www.goal.com/es/amp/noticias/barcelona-y-el-limite-salarial-salidas-y-rebajas-urgentes/mvup2tawaf8t11iaypt198hi5?__twitter_impression=true This article gives a bit of an idea about Barca's situation. However, it doesn't cover the €700m+ debt that is due to mature soon.