Mhsc

Hmm, the more I see about Vlahovic's groin problem the less interested I am. Seems like a long standing issue that has not been solved, and he was made to play through it a lot. Really not worth getting involved unless the deal is extremely favourable, which I don't think it will be.

Come on, Broja is not a serious first teamer yet, he is a youth prospect that may make it in the top flight but we’ve no idea at what level. It’s more likely he has a career like Bamford than a career like Vlahovic.

I think City have pretty much always had two strikers for one spot where one is clearly way too good to be on the bench, during all of their success. My only question is whether Vlahovic is the man.

Worse than NJ's for sure, in pretty much every way you can slice it. He would be coming here to be competition and cover.

I mean it would be in fitting with the "two quality players per position" approach, 22 man squad etc - he is way better than Broja lets be real, Broja's ceiling is below Vlahovic's bottom level probably. Of the many downsides, his injury record is not great, his salary is way too high compared to the reality of his level (and doubt he wants to take a paycut?). Juve have to be looking at losing big on this guy after spending big on him and him flopping this year - we should not be bailing them out. He can play only one position which these days we have almost no players like this, what use will he be when NJ is in form through the middle? Sub for last 4 mins? He is also surprisingly shit scoring with his head, ok not a big part of Poch-ball but still, at 190cm and athletic as he is, he should have learnt to be a beast in the air. And lastly and arguably most worrying, he doesn't know how to press or is too lazy to press. We'd be taking a gamble on Poch developing the hell out of the kid and his injury record clearing up, and a bit of confidence coming back to him to bring him back to the level he was at before - and we've rarely done well gambling on that before. On the plus sides, even in his terrible season he out performed Hojlund for goals and assists I think. It is also reasonably likely a large part of his fall from grace is down to Allegri and his jihadi-ball tactics, as the Juve fans call it. He is a world class finisher, and would probably be the player we would want the ball to fall to in the box over any of our current crop. He is a decent target man for the rest of the lads to play off of, when he's in form. And of course, it gets Lukaku the fuck out of here. In general feels like a Roman era signing and all in all a bit weird? I guess I am on balance in favour if it is something like Lukaku out for €45m and Vlahovic in for €55m - the strikers market IS crazy, after all, and the club can only pull off so many NJ's.

I have pitched in this thread a couple of times that this swap deal could make sense - but only in the context of a swap deal, taking Lukaku out of the situation it would be an unnecessary risk to look at this guy, but if it solves that situation and gives us a young player who could still improve... The problem though is that was before I saw so much of Nicolas Jackson. Vlahovic if he comes is coming to be Plan B, which should not be what he is after and wont be great for the confidence he needs to get back to reach his prior level. I would say no at this point. Lukaku will give in and go to Saudi.

His primary objective has always been money

Nothing is impossible. If we suddenly get an 80+5 bid for Caicedo agreed and simultaneously a deal for £25m on Sanchez it gonna look pretty sus.

I don't like that way of comparing players as most of those stats are not normalised by minutes played, so players who played more games get a lot of green bars. What website is that? Does it have an option to look at stats normalised by per90, like Fbref? That is more helpful imo. That said, some of those charts have players with similar games and he comes out favourably. I'm curious about his poor passing %, I wonder if that is because he is taking on very direct risky passes instead of keeping it simpler? He is supposedly extremely aggressive, so it could be. Honestly be surprised if he doesn't bench Kepa if we get him, he is much more Chelsea shaped GK than Kepa imo, we've always had a big man in goal in all of our successful periods.

Article on Sanchez from a couple years ago https://theathletic.com/2921703/2021/11/01/a-year-of-robert-sanchez-analysing-the-brighton-keepers-aggressive-style-and-huge-potential/ The aggressive style certainly feels like a Poch kind of guy. His ability to come for balls in the air and commanding the box would already insta-drop Kepa IMO. Whatever, I'm on board, lets get him if the price quoted is sensible.

Robert Sanchez is 1.97m apparently, 6cm taller than me, and I am pretty damn tall myself. Can't pretend I know a tonne about the guy but interestingly obviously our goal keeper coach and recruitment staff do as they all worked with him and know him well. If they think he is the right move I am down, as long as the fee from Brighton is for once sensible.

These clips coming out of Saudi are fucking killing me. Here's one of KK putting in some defensive work:

Mbappe on a multi year deal would completely transform us back into a side that regularly wins all sorts of trophies, and that absolutely everyone is shit scared of playing - well worth it imo, but we living fantasies if we think it is doable. Money involved alone makes it impossible. And he already has a sweet deal lined up where he makes a fortune from PSG and goes to Real for insane money. Had to gamble on him before PSG did in the first place if we ever wanted him here.

Yeah honestly think the club is doing an amazing job now, took them time to get the right people in place but the people doing transfers now really know what they're doing. It may take another year to get the squad at the level needed but IMO no way it will be more than that, but the direction of travel here is clear - we are going to be a team contending for the title every year again at some point soon.

As long as they keep buying players better than the players we have, we'll be back. We have to beat them at their own game. On the flip side, if you are signing a contract with Brighton, based on their current behaviour you just know you got to force a release clause in there - otherwise they can and will fuck over your career. They are in a difficult and very dangerous spot now because they are trying to transition from being the stepping stone club that know what they are about to being a club that throws its weight around at the big boys table and keeps their good players, but for that to work they have to actually hold it down, and push into top 4. Spurs managed it for a long time by forcing the like of Kane into staying and they could set themselves up for a similar run, or it could just all implode and they destroy everything they've built. Unlike Spurs they don't have a generational goal scorer carrying them so I am betting on the latter.

Money and a belief he could win the no.1 spot I guess. I'm hoping it is just talk though. Got to be better options.

So in your world you've disappeared Cucu? What's the plan? He is almost unsellable, and Poch has used him a lot in preseason. Think it is obvious he is staying?

So in an ideal world remaining business would probably be GK, DM and RW/CAM? Kepa/? Reese/Gusto - Disasi/Thiago - Colwill/Badiashille - Chilwell/Cucu ? - Enzo Madueke/? - Nkunku/Gallagher - Mudryk/Sterling Jackson + Santos, Hall, Maatsen, Broja, Casedei, Angelo all in consideration for who stays and who loans? If they all stayed that would give us 25 players, which is the very upper end of what Poch wants. This is what Poch was eluding to in terms of tough choices as all of them have a solid case to stay. Personally I'd probably keep Santos, Maatsen and Broja. Keep Angelo only if we're not buying a RW/CAM. That would give us a squad size of 22 which I think is what Poch is angling for - but a far cry from what we're used to!

OG

Timo is the only one from that list I wish was still with us. Cut that man and he bleeds blue, even now. Legend.

If Sterling and Chuk start against Liverpool I'm done

This time hopefully none of us can say we're making more than our signing Or drinks are on you forever whoever says otherwise

Also, this should make us stop and fucking pause about how much we really know about the Caicedo talks. Literally not a single fucking person saw either of our last signings coming, and it would not surprise me if a lot of the Caicedo talk we've been seeing is Brighton PR. It is clear that on our side we are tight as FUCK and do not let shit out anymore, running shit like fucking MI6 over here after the clear out in the club of everyone not trusted beyond any question.

Yeah Chalobah surely out now. Not sure if our scouts are some kind of specialists in recruiting from Ligue 1 or if as it is considered a 'top' league the data collection there is better than in other countries, but seems like we've been doing a lot of recruitment there this year.