Mhsc

Something like 6-9 months to recover from an ACL these days isn't it? So, maybe we see him again in March or April and season ends in May? Grim.

Chalobah definitely has to stay then, glad he wasn't one of the ones we flogged quickly. Him and Silva should be fine for the year. Curious if Bads or Colwill can do a decent job at RCB as well. It would not totally shock me if Colwill could do a very solid job there, would be a bit more surprised if Bads could do it well though.

I have a strong dislike of the idea of paying Inter anything for anyone ever again.

Yeah, a Boehly era fuck up that we're stuck with now, very good player but never should have gone for him until he showed a solid season injury free. Does Fofana have a repeated problem or is it different every time? Wonder if he can just have a surgery to get through whatever it is or if he's just in general got a fragile body. No doubt didn't help that last year we threw away all of our medical staff (another Boehly era move) and evidently didn't take care of the players properly whatsoever.

We are not at risk of pissing them off, this is just how negotiations work, being patient and slowly bidding at sensible amounts is the only way to get the deal done if we want to pay only sensible money for him. The hilarious thing of course is that both sides will be trained negotiators, who know what the other is doing, and will be totally unsurprised and definitely not offended. We're not even doing anything underhanded, like Liverpool seem to be trying with Colwill - what we must not do is speak to the player and tell him to go on strike, or do anything inappropriate. We could only have got this situation resolved quickly if we had overpaid, or already bid our final number and then walked away if they didn't accept. The former is a poor tactic as by definition it means we overpay. The latter is a poor tactic as they will definitely reject an offer that we have not compromised on, and will feel empowered to tell Caicedo that we've not made the kind of serious effort or serious offer that it would take. If we move up from our initial number too quickly then it reveals that it was never serious in the first place, and is not actually an anchor point in the negotiation. We have to be seen to be making every compromise, that we are bending over backwards to make it happen, that we went to every length, until we eventually have gone up a great deal and put down that final offer that they either have to take or leave.

Brighton's whole "sell" to players is that they are the stepping stone club who will grow you and facilitate the move to the Big Time™, they will have to sell at a reasonable offer or jeopardise their entire project and the spirit in the squad for next year. They'll cave if we stick it out. It is just a shame it will come at the expense of a fuller preseason with Caicedo, but there's no way that training time is worth us paying millions extra (and definitely not tens of millions extra). I still think (as others here) it will get done at around the £80m mark, either 75+5 or 80+5 worst case.

Yes, but the theory was that Poch wanted to see him in preseason to decide if we need a striker. Now that he’s not, maybe the decision is de facto made? Well, it’s just a fun theory. Anything that might make our window more fun, been pretty dry for a while…

Saw a suggestion on the Pys twitter that Broja not going to USA maybe means we will be looking for a striker, as Poch won’t even be reviewing if he is good enough perhaps that is already decided. I’ll keep dreaming of Muani.

This would be wonderful, ideally with a sell on clause.

Did you jump from talking about needing a right footed CB to us needing to have more home grown players, or you mean we need to get a right footed CB who is also HG? Aren't we allowed up to 17 non HG players over 21? And aren't we no where near that limit?

It is called anchoring, the key and most basic principle in all negotiations. Both sides establish either an intentionally low or high number, and then refer back to it through the process for how much of a compromise they've made. It also allows both sides to immediately kill any conversation that is totally pointless. Both sides also know that the other is doing this, and enter the process knowing it. They've anchored at £100m and we at £65m. Likely therefore both sides are open minded to a deal in the £85m range.

Maybe they'll offer stupid money to try to turn Bukayo Saka's head. That would be more their style than going for Cherki, I think.

They wanted Azpi last year as well... Barca seem to sign people mostly for the vibes, if they're Spanish, and in Oriol's case he is even Catalonian.

For whatever it is worth, statistically Caicedo either slightly or massively out performs Lavia in almost every single thing that can be measured. But Lavia is 2 years younger and was playing in a shit Southampton side. I think Caicedo is the only one that can be considered a suitable heir to Kante but Lavia is a very promising player and would still be a great signing if we can't get Caicedo.

Worth remembering he is 18, meaning they started playing him in the senior team at 15 and now he's only 18. How many players do you think would have good goal scoring record playing as a 15/16/17 year old in a man's league, albeit not one at the level of PL?

So you want to run a 30 man squad with 1 game a week and have the the same problems as last year all over again?

Forget about this nonsense

Muani would be great, but expensive. Shouldn’t we see what Nicolas Jackson can do first?

We have Nicolas Jackson, Nkunku, and then possibly Broja depending on if Poch views him as serious or not. You want us to sign a 9 and also an AMF/RW (ala Cherki?) or just 1 of those 2? Personally given lack of European football I want us to run a small squad, but do think we currently have a lot of dependence on Nkunku to cover the 9 (rotation), AMF (main option) and RW (rotation). So I think we should sign one of the two but probably not both, save the other for next year if we are back in CL?

Guy will get chewed up and spit out by PSG in 1 year, if him going there facilitates us getting rid of Lukaku then I am happy though.

Will we have full squad ready to play for this one, excl the players who are on the shit list? Really keen to see a bunch of the new lads like Santos, Nkunku, Jackson & Gusto and see what they can cook with the people we've kept from last year.

The only way I can talk myself into him is from the perspective that if it is the way to get Lukaku off the books in something close to a swap deal, with us not spending much money (<£20m?), we replace a player who's career has peaked with a player who is 3-4 years away from peaking, he would have resale value (surely always at least £40m, plus football-inflation) and give us a different profile of player to lots of our other players. He has a clear talent for finishing, and some potential in other areas. He is in my honest opinion clearly a bit worse than Lukaku (the slightly past it Lukaku of today), but if he was here as a rotation option / squad player it would be ok - it just only makes sense from a financial perspective of where to spend our money if it is part of getting rid of Lukaku. Also, if he would take acceptable wages, similar to whatever Nicolas Jackson is on. To get rid of this it surely has to be worth a punt on him:

Tbh, I think this is a result of the data-led approach to recruitment we are using. If you look at Vlahovic from a statistical PoV, he is pretty uninspiring, so you'd be betting on him improving a lot by good coaching. For example, here is him in his last full year at Fiorentina, where he was 'very hot' (top) vs Lukaku last season at Inter (middle) vs Lukaku at Inter in his hot year under Conte (bottom): You can cut the stats in loads of ways, but when normalised by per 90 mins played he really does not look like a player that you should be splurging huge money on. Add to that his injury problems and perceived mental weakness, and you probably don't want to make this guy your main striker if you're a top club, he should be your up and coming promising option who is a sub that you hope can develop into your main man. He should never have joined Juve and gone somewhere that plays football that suits him with a coach that develops young players and spent time there until he was in his mid 20s, when maybe he would grow into a player at Ivan Toney's level but probably not higher. For example a few year stint at a club like Brighton would probably have been amazing for this kid.

There's no way all of this time passing is because of "negotiations", such things would surely be a few meetings over a few days max. Surely either we or them are playing it slow because either they are waiting to sort a replacement, or waiting for more suitors to appear, or we are slow playing it because we are waiting to offload some more, or we're trying to give Poch time to look at Santos? I just don't understand how else it makes sense because there is no way these guys are sitting in a room 9-5 for 4 weeks haggling over a thousand ways to potentially organise payment structure over a deal.