King Kante

Possibly, I would say it is like signing Dani Alves in 2007 before you knew what he would go on to do.

Whilst Håland and Hakimi are fantasy signings I am very intrigued to see who we can get rid of this Summer/who will be sold. For me their are five categories of players that I think the club would do business on: Category 1 - Very good players that are surplus/Have buyouts but probably can be sold easily: Tomori - £25m Zouma - £30m+ Tammy - £35m+ Moses - £4m Ugbo - £4m+ Category 2 - Players that the club will keep and use in the first team squad but will sell if good offers come in: Ziyech - £30m Giroud - £5m Category 3 - Players that can be sold if Granny doesn't demand top rates: Emerson - £10m+ Baba - £2m Zappa - £4m+ Mizaga - £3m Category 4 - Players that may be sold if they accept large wage cuts/their actual level and the club accept low fees: Barkley - £8m RLC - £8m Baka - £5m (probably Cat 5 however, hard to place.) Category 5 - The New Age Bograde Posse - only not hanging around if we loan and accept to pay significant proportions of their wage (cat 4 fall into this cat if they do not accept a wage cut/Granny asks for too much) Kepa Drinky Batsh*t What does everyone think, how many of the above list do people think we'll be able to shift. In my opinion, it will be the Cat 1 players with one one or two of Cat 2.

I can see this one being done in the next two weeks.

Maybe. However, they do still need to have some players. Emerson in particular is one where they may view him as a good investment. Buy now for £10m-£12m as he only has a year left, he isn't on mega money and he is of a level where he can help them continue to push for CL qualification. Then they can sell the year after. Fortunately for us, Emerson is quite a big part of the national team so he is still rated in Italy. Personally, I can see a situation where €60m+Emerson may appeal to them more than €70m-€75m cash for Hakimi from PSG.

Yeah, I was being a bit fecious there.

But this is true of everyone, no? Dippers wouldn't have got Alisson/VVD if Barca hadn't have hit the crack pipe and give them €150m for Coutinho. City wouldn't have got Kun if we hadn't have brought Torres. Barca wouldn't have had such an amazing side if they hadn't pumped Messi full of growth hormone at 13. Yeah, we aren't Bayern, Real, Barca or maybe even Utd (who I am not that sure are such a pull these days) but it could be said for a lot of teams. I mean, if we pull of Hakimi and Håland and the squad all gel and continue to develop we could have the next dominate team for a decade. Once you have that, you're pretty much set, especially if you play in one of the big 3 leagues.

If we get it done, does it matter? We've just won the CL and potentially have the following players in our squad next year: James - 21 Hakimi - 21 Mount - 22 Håland - 21 Puli - 22 Havertz - 21 CHO- 20 AC - 24 (CB's mature later and last longer than most outfield positions if they're not reliant on pace.) That is a serious amount of players that could last us 10+ years. On top of that we also have: Billy - 19 Guehi - 20 Ampadu - 20 Liveramento - 18 Bate - 17 Coming though. That is actually pretty fecking insane and that is before we get to players like Werner and Chilwell who are only 25/24 and just had one season in the league/at the club. I mean when did a club have that sort of depth of quality young players all together? Barca 2006-2012 or Utd's class of 92? Not exactly bad company.

I think Henandez would be pulled all over the place in the PL. To be honest, Emerson, Ziyech and Giroud/Tammy would probably be wanted by Inter as well (especially if they start thinking of selling Martinez as well.) For me, Emerson and Ziyech in particular could grease the Hakimi wheels quite nicely.

Maradona took the equivalent of a Everton/West Ham/Leeds/Newcastle to a league title.

Personally I am not sure he has the engine to be a RWB. Tbh, if he plays that rcb/hb position then his crossing is important as he can play that ball to the back post like Dave does when he plays there.

Not sure who gets the better deal in this one. I would edge towards Silva being the better player owing to Saul's form the last 18 months.

To be fair, I did say that I think Håland could be done without those sales owing to CL money. As for the sales I am confident we will see at least 75% of those players sold.

I'd prefer only Tier 1 and even then I would probably only go to about 5 of them.

Yes, I know but I think those players have markets to teams that may spend. Tomori > AC Moses > Spartak Tammy > West Ham / Leicester/ Villa / Newcastle (if the Saudi's get the green light) / Spurs (possibly if Kane does leave) / Dortmund (a possibility if Håland does leave) Emerson > Inter / Roma / Atalanta / Lazio (he has the benefit of not having high wages) Ugbo > Lots of teams from Champo/Belgium/Holland/Austria/Scotland etc. Zouma - Most PL teams outside of the top 6. To be fair, I am not saying they're all likely to be sold 100%, however I do reckon most of them will be. Emerson I am not so sure about and Zouma may get priced out by Granny for instance.

Would not be selling AC.

Yeah, but they also said Lewa and Sancho weren't for sale and neither moved. Tbh, I think Håland will have to kick up a bit of a fuss to get a move, as I thibk Dembele really pushed for that Barca move.

To be fair, the window has only just opened. It will take for a few transfers to happen to grease the wheels.

Let's see we need to clear the decks a little, at some point we need to let a couple of good players go for reasonable money as otherwise we'll end up with 100+ players on the books.

With the CL win and all the extra commercial/prize money, I think we're ok buying Håland if it is £120m-£130m.) As for CB/CM/RWB, I am not sure all of those are needed or cannot be covered by players on loan (CB - Guehi/Ampadu / RWB - Zappa (he actually played really well towards the end of last season.) Also, we have a few players that should raise some dollar without it being too unlikely: Zouma - £30m+ Tomori - £25m Tammy - £35m+ Emerson - £10m (if the club are realistic with the price and not asking for £18m+ as reported.) Moses - £4m Ugbo - £4m

There are a lot of people that will tell you he was a well thought out signing and a top quality GK 🤣

Can see us doing £30m. Problem we have is that we have a lot of AM's and none of them proved consistent enough at scoring last season. Ziyech at his age should have been hitting the ground running. In my opinion, getting our money back (£33.5m) or close to it, with him going to Spain/Italy is a good thing all round. We have hardly lost anything and he gets to play he a league that isn't too physical for him.

Me too. Where I am at the moment is he does stay next year unless we get a £10m+ offer for him. No point selling for under that as he has the potential to turn 1 point into 3 in games where teams sit super deep on us.

Ziyech does look the most likely to be sold from the AM unit. It is probably also better we do this sooner rather than later as one more dud season and he could enter the deadwood realm.

Indeed. At best we have them cover half his wages as I cannot see them paying him £100k/€115k a week.

Another person that knows nothing