Mhsc

Cole Palmer is an interesting shout. Played as a 9 under Pep against some good teams. Played on the wing. Played in midfield. Presses well. He's tall. Lots of boxes ticked. He probably would have got a lot more minutes as striker except they went and bought Haaland and Alvarez. Surprising pick but can sort of see it. Only thing is his best position has probably been RW which is where Sterling has found his form. But like I said, pretty capable in lots of positions.

Probably we'd have to pay him out the full balance of his contract to get rid... Grim situation that he is making more than some of our actually very good players.

Amazing work.

Come on Eghbali and team, time to get personal and gazump the gazumpers. I really like Muani tbh. Obviously, we're not gonna get him but I think he's fantastic and he is so intelligent and unselfish he could play in various positions very effectively, definitely the 9 or 10 positions but I think he'd be potent playing on the left and cutting in too tbh.

This old school model of letting managers spend money is totally insane honestly, given the sums involved. Shame it took us so long to come around to it.

Club was up for loaning him tells him all he needs to know. Tbh I'm not that familiar with Man Utd's current needs but "on paper" Cucurella can cover LB, LCB, and DM. He's a utility player. They might get use out of him over a season but it is a pretty desperate signing, can't imagine what Utd fans are thinking lmao.

Dunno what personal terms needed to be agreed, probably they're covering his wages and...you know..that's it. Guess it REALLY means that he is up for the move, and so are they. Phenomenal work by the directors to clear out the dross.

As I have explained in a couple of posts here before, because of FFP we simply cannot sell Cucu. We cannot afford book losses and his book value is currently about 50m so, maybe in 2 years when his book value is 28m we can sell. He needs a loan or two before he’s gone unfortunately. BEST case. He might not ever be sellable.

It is definitely possible we wont sign anyone imo. I think part of the reason we've been a bit slow on some of the moves and are still looking at it now is that we have a few cooks in the kitchen (at very least PW, LS and Poch but maybe Joe Shields as well) and all of them have to agree to every transfer which means that a lot of players we might otherwise have gone for could be turned away by 1 guy who's not convinced. No doubt some but not all like Vlahovic, Cherki, etc so we ended up not going for them. I agree with us being patient and waiting for the right opportunities - 100% more NJ like opportunities will emerge every window, they always do, new players / value opportunities are coming through all the time so taking our time with the absolutely insanely talented scouting group we've got you just know as the years go on with them working together the squad is going to become insane. BUT it scares me that Broja is our plan B for NJ if he is out atm. I believe the forward player they're talking about who can play across the frontline is more of a Rashford profile than a Cherki, and someone like that would make me feel pretty relaxed about the season and our top 4/5 chances.

Romano wont actually know that though. IMO he is a mouth piece for agents who use him to shop around their players and ultimately to make money. There is no way PW, LS etc or people in their team are giving him info - then he would know WAY more. Whenever he isn't saying something quite concrete, it is just noise to get views that is likely to not turn out to be totally wrong or disprovable later. Hence, he does loads of posts saying kind of nothing, and then when an agent feeds him something more concrete he publishes that and ties it into whatever generic narrative he's been selling previously.

Interesting how secret it is being kept. Wonder if its one of those where the selling club wants to make a signing first and we've got to wait and keep it quiet? In which case any rumour from the last weeks might suddenly just 'happen' one day.

Like Mason he is massively overrated IMO due to where he has come from and the opportunities he has had to play for them. He is worse than Carney imo. Wouldn't take him unless it is for the loan army to try to flip him for money. We need to find a first teamer who can play behind the striker (as a SS or LAM) and at a pinch play as the striker. Smithe Rowe is just more of what we've already got, except worse and injury prone.

Fans are always against selling their academy players, especially so to rivals. Doesn't mean much.

Would only take Smith Rowe if it was for a cheeky £10m.

Cherki looks a lot slower than Hazard, he always had great acceleration to burst away from people over short distances, Cherki probably has a much lower ceiling consequently. Still could become a great player of course. He would be an exciting signing but he 100% has serious flop potential.

He also said he wants experienced players in midfield and we gave him two 19 year olds and a 21 year old. I think the club only listen a little to what Poch wants and he just gets to hard reject anyone he’s dead against.

Lots of players suggested can’t play as a striker so people comfortable if we lose NJ to injury then?

You, uh, actually watching this stuff Vesper?

Wherever he went that’s a risk. Let’s not judge until the lad has had a couple of months there at least. There’s no team we can find for him in a top division that won’t have other, good professional footballers there. He’s got to prove he’s so good he has to play, wherever he goes.

If he is one of the best players in their squad, they'll play him. If he is not, then he is not as good as we thought at all and no where near ready.

The primary purpose of us loaning him is for him to gain Premier League experience, I think. I guess the club feel like if Santos is as good as they think he is then he'll not just break into the Forest lineup but be their key man.

I do not know a lot about this guy, but checked out some scouting reports on him, Youtube and a bit of fbref and he does indeed look like exactly the kind of player we could really use.

To be fair we've not done a lot of pressing so far under Poch, if we dominate possession as we have vs Liverpool, West Ham and Luton it becomes less of a big deal, he said himself that it will be against teams like Man City that we'll see the hardcore pressing because we'll need it. Cherki would for sure not play if we were going up against those sort of teams, unless he developed a lot. But, the argument for Cherki is quite reasonable when you look at the current plan of team's we're playing against, where it is about finessing a goal through the parked bus. He would definitely be a useful squad player, and I think the case for him as risen since we've acquired a very defensively solid midfield (Lavia, Caicedo, Enzo). However, I still think Jonathon David helps us more than Cherki. I think someone that can cover for NJ and play in different positions is really what we're looking for, we're currently SUPER at risk relying on NJ here and he does have a history of hamstring problems - we just don't want to get a pure no.9 who has no purpose when NJ is fit.

Romano is a click engagement genius. Got to respect it. Probably doesn’t know much but knows that it’s very likely we are going to do something, and knows how to milk the views. I have nothing but respect for what a hustler he is.

Hard to say what to do with this. In some way makes sense to play the same-ish team we want to go with on the weekend so they have time together to practice, gel and improve, but of course if anyone gets injured we'll be screaming "why the fuck were they even playing against Wimbledon?" and loads of lads deserve a chance to play that haven't had a decent chance yet. If we went with the same team that beat Luton and they go out and win 8-0 it could be really good for building confidence and cohesion in the team. On balance though given how many injury problems we've got I'd probably prioritise rotation, and give serious minutes to Maatsen, Mudryk (if fit), Madueke, Ugochukwu... Might keep the backline the same for the sake of letting them build together because they could probably use the confidence boost of a couple of back to back clean sheets after the West Ham result? Hard to say... Petrovic after all will want to play. Definitely rest Enzo.