Tomo

If West Ham and AC Milan are the only competition we have for him, then that's probably a sure sign he isn't what he's cracked up to be.

Hopefully he's on the bench Saturday and starting against Spurs.

Because it's a lot more than just £35m for us FFP or not. Firstly, the chances of us getting someone that much better than him with that money in this climate is slim let alone someone who is currently or could eclipse the potential he has got. Secondly he is our homegrown boy and someone who is seen as the next generation at this club, whether the club successfully put this into practice is a totally different matter but the idea going forward is to have James, Ampadu, Mount, RLC, CHO and potentially Sterling, Abraham and Gilmour forming our British HG base, Hudson is the star in the jewell, the others have the potential to be top players, especially Ampadu, but Callum is the one out of them lot that would have the "it" factor. If he's got his heart set on joining Bayern with no scope to change his mind then ultimately there is nothing we will be able to do, but make no mistake we won't roll over and will be doing everything in our power to keep him.

It's funny, i think once a year minimum since the Scolari era we have had rival fans and even our own claim we are heading deep into the abyss, then when i point out it's been said 375 times before it's apparently "different" this time, rinse and repeat.

I'm a bit worried his versatility will be his downfall (relitevely speaking). I'd rather he focused on mastering CB (the position he has got the most potential in for me) instead of going around all over the place like Phil Jones did. Now he (Jones) may be the butt of people's jokes these days but as a teenager he was considered a massive prospect and kept Drogba quiet on his PL debut, he was ruined by never being given a permanent position and i fear Ampadu may "only" be a good player if he's moved about too much.

He will probably get even less game time at Juve than he does here.

Come on now, Cech's a legend but Courtois was the much better keeper by the time he returned from Atletico, that decision was more than justified.

De Gea is a great stopper but lacks too much in other areas to be considered at the level of Cech or Schmeichel.

We can't really lose out with an 18 month loan. Morata will likely leave to make way for him and Giroud will likely leave in the summer when his contract expires, meaning we will sign a new striker regardless of how well Higs does. If he flops/underwhelmes we will sign a new striker and he will see out his time here as a squad player and if he's a success he will be an excellent safety net just incase the new striker doesn't do well or needs time to settle.

Option to buy is probably just a token gesture on our behalf, i very much doubt we would active it.

I remember that move playing out of the back against Caglari (starting at 1:30) was posted here a few years ago and it was followed up by about 3 pages of green eyed monster posts wishing we could do that and now we can it's barely even getting a mention.

Simone's record at buying strikers put ours in the shade. Torres after he flopped at Chelsea and Milan, past his prime Costa, Correa and now Morata. Rumours were he wanted Falcao after his disasters at United and Chelsea also.

Simeone's Atletico usually fall short in title races due to lack of quality and cohesion in attack (compared to Barca and Madrid), they have these awkward draws against the Valladolid's of this world that the latter two simply blow away (not so much this season but in general of recent years). We don't have to play exactly like them but this era of football is wavering towards a more aggressive, possession based game and most importantly, that's what the modern day players enjoy the most.

Not even close, the football now is not great but not even close to how bad it was under Conte and especially Jose at rock bottom. When it was bad under Conte we were playing like a little team even against little teams and under Jose in 15-16 we couldn't even pass the ball properly. This could all change in the blink of the eye but so far so good. Kepa, Jorginho, Kova and Pulisic all fit his style. Plus if we are going down the route of adapting to who is here right now we might as well sack Sarri and bring in a pragmatic manager again, bringing in a manager like Sarri is commiting to a change of direction. Plus, the big pro argument towards reverting back to type in the past was we still had a chance of one or both of the major trophies, this time we ain't even in the CL and have no chance in the PL. Furthermore he has in a way adapted as much as he can without compromising his system (which he shouldn't do, if he starts telling the players to sit back and play on the counter even for a game they will subconsciously hit the comfort zone and not fully commit to the restart, it may sound sensible on paper but in practice it's the opposite), we seem a lot more cautious on the ball than at the beginning of the season which may point to Sarri realising a fair chunk of the players can't go all in on his football without the team looking vulnerable. Can i with 100% assurance say Sarri will be a success? No and if we are still performing like this in October i will be the most vocal wanting a change but all things considered right now he deserves the benefit of the doubt. Yeah,throughout all of this decade pre Sarri it has basically been the sticky plaster route and fair play it's been successful in terms of trophies but we have also been helped by the fact that there was no standout team which allowed us to pounce by putting all our eggs in the "now" basket. Now we have two outstanding teams that look set to get 90 plus points in a season for the foreseeable future so to catch up and keep up we need to try and build something sustainable.

Misleading headline, Sancho told him to do whats best for him.

It doesn't say a lot for the fitness of our squad if they are fatigued already, for the most part this season Sarri has been going from team A in the League at weekends to team B in the Europa/LC in midweeks. The only two players who have featured excessively are Willian and Pedro.

Was he? What i saw for the most part was him pro actively hunting the ball further up with Matic/Danny sweeping up whenever he got caught out. Him playing there would restrict him even more. The reality is, we won't get the very, very best out of Kante in this system where we have 60% possession looking to play on the front foot the Kante role doesn't exist now, so it's about finding out where he can be best in the current line-up and in my opinion where he is playing now is that, think similar to if Ashley Cole was still here in his prime when Conte shown up his position would become non existent so we would have had to have accessed whether he would be more a LWB or LCB. That previous group may have been mentally stronger but quality wise this team are far ahead of 11/12 and not as far away from 08/09 as people make out.

Kante is not and has never been a CDM. He has played in that role six times during his time in England and things like this happened. Look at the gaping space he left in his position by pressing up field.

You seem to get off on and enjoy any struggles at the club. Very strange.

Most if not all clubs have the final say on transfers above the managers these days, the romance of managers having total control left with Fergie. As-long as players that are compatible to the manager's style of play and of the required quality are signed, i don't see the problem.

Mendy was identified by Guardiola and was Pep's man, it's no comparison to Zouma. Kurt was injured and by the time he returned we were playing a back three with an emphasis of playing the ball out of the back, something that he is not remotely suited to. As for Christensen, he wasn't dropped immediately after the Barca game, he was dropped about two months later after he started to systematically cost us points. And as for Willian, he isn't even a starter now when a strikers on form and both Pedro and Hazard are fit.

You can't loan a loanee, if Milan want rid they either have to send him back to Juve or if they can't do that sign him to loan him.

Literally two posts up there's a link confirming Carlo wanted Torres.

Before he started playing false 9 Willian only started if there was something wrong with Hazard or Pedro.

According to who scored Sergio Busquets has a mere 9 goals and 28 assists in 420 games for Barcelona and Spain since the beginning of 09/10, does he not control games?