Pizy

Gotta be something in the water in North London. Both clubs simply have bottling engrained hard in their DNA.

Can already see that Spuds are going to be a team that gets dominated possession and run of play wise by all the other big PL sides but are setup well enough by Thomas Frank that if you don’t kill them off they’ll always pose a threat on set pieces and counter attacks. Basically, they’ll be a mirror of his Brentford side but with much better players. If they succeed in signing Eze & Savinho they’ll be deadly on the break.

PSG well and truly look like they were just on the beach a few days ago which they were. Incredibly off the pace and making this bang average Spuds team look good. Getting killed on every set piece and extremely sloppy with the ball.

I really expected a big flurry of activity, particularly outgoings, this week as soon as the Milan match was over starting Monday. But it’s the opposite. Things have slowed to glacial speed.

Zero movement or reporting about Jackson at all. Nothing substantive with Nkunku either. Which in turn means more and more time goes by with our incoming business stuck in limbo.

Same. Plus, watching Donnarumma try to play at the edge of his box pinging balls around like Ederson could be pretty comical. Don’t think he’s a guaranteed success at City. Could see Pep getting annoyed if his distribution isn’t sharp enough.

Our big problem with Nkunku & Jackson and why the Xavi deal is dragging on and on is that neither of them are the first choices of any of these clubs who are interested. Which kind of fucks us over and means that we may not be able to sign Xavi until deadline day well after the season starts. Yes, the likes of Newcastle, Bayern, etc may fancy Nkunku or Jackson but only if they can’t land other players. These are fallback options. The confusing part is that we’re apparently pushing through and advancing on Garnacho despite Jackson & Nkunku still being here but can’t finalize Xavi until they’re gone?

Regarding Guehi, I really don’t get the desire to go to Liverpool. Van Dijk isn’t that old and plays at LCB where Guehi plays. They have Konate on the other side who Liverpool fans all call top class as well. Why go there and sit on the bench in a season where he’d ideally want to lock down a starting position for England at the World Cup? He could come here and walk straight into our XI. But I guess we really aren’t even trying for him.

There’s a possibility that both of their best players could be sold by the time this match kicks off. That would be nice!

James Trafford has to feel like an absolute idiot right about now for agreeing to go back to City. The guy is desperate to become the England #1 and could now see City immediately buy a superior keeper who’s only 26. What kind of idiotic move is this from City? If you could design a Pep style keeper in a lab Donnarumma would basically be the exact opposite of that. Really strange.

Copy and pasted the same thing 45 times now. We know, Fab.

Kind of odd how we aren’t hearing any concrete links with Jackson other than him “being considered” by Newcastle. After he has been left out and told he can go you’d expect to start hearing which specific clubs are interested. And Fabrizio has said that numerous clubs do like him. Wonder if the Isak situation is just holding everything up for like 5 different clubs.

He plays on the right side I’m pretty sure not the left, doesn’t he? Plus, there’s got to be a reason he still hasn’t signed a new deal there. His wage demands must be significant and the speculation is that he’s trying to pull a Trent and leave for Madrid on a free which comes with a huge signing bonus

We’re literally going to either completely fund United’s move for Donnarumma which massively improves their team or pay for a massive chunk of Baleba who also dramatically improves their team by giving them £40-50m for Garnacho. All I’ll say is that whoever is pushing this signing within our club better hope this move is Cole Palmer like and Garnacho blossoms into a monster. Because this could go down as a ridiculously stupid transfer in so many ways otherwise.

Fuck sake. We’re actually going to sign Garnacho before getting the Simons deal done. 🤦‍♂️

I’m really trying my hardest to picture the ideal role for Garnacho in this team and I’m struggling hard. I just don’t get what the people here who want him badly see. He excels on the counter running the channels in behind. But we are a side that dominates possession in the overwhelming majority of games and will be playing against loads of parked buses. So is the plan therefor to use Gittens against opponents that sit deep where his dribbling can be put to use and then use Garnacho in the rare matches against your Man City’s, Arsenal’s, or top UCL clubs who may have more of the ball?

Like @Strikementioned, United are basically falling ass first into a crazy good summer window. And tbh it’s not at all because of shrewd operating or masterful planning. It’s seriously just falling into their laps. All of their top targets they’ve essentially got a free run at. No other big 6 clubs competed with them for any of Cunha, Mbeumo, or Sesko. Donnarumma has extremely limited options and will fall into their laps.

Yeah. I remember there was a report a year or so ago about how this new ownership would break the wage structure under special circumstances but for a goalkeeper? Nah, I don’t see it. Especially because we constantly get media briefs about how much Maresca and the club love Sanchez. Also, we like our keeper to play with his feet which is a weakness of Donnarumma. He doesn’t seem like a stylistic fit. You could say that a keepers #1 duty is to stop the ball going into the net which is true, but is Donnarumma that much better as a pure shot stopper than Sanchez? Shot stopping has never been Sanchez’s problem. It’s the terrible decision making.

We backed out of the Maignan deal because Milan wanted 25m, right? Donnarumma will cost more than that I would think and his wage demands will be much higher than Maignan’s.

Yeah, said last night here that Rodrygo makes sense for City. More the type of attacker Pep desires right now. A winger who will stay wide and take players on. Xavi is very much a Pep #10 but they already have Foden and Cherki. Sounds odd to say about such a top player, but I’d be glad if City go for Rodrygo and leave us to Xavi.

Grealish, Savinho, and Mcatee are all going so it makes sense for them to try for Xavi. We should wait for any of the reputable reporters to say anything but it would serve us right if he goes to a direct rival in the span of a couple of days after we’ve been “advanced” and dragging or feet for weeks. Our fanbase will rightly be enraged if we not only miss out on him but to a rival where he could kill us multiple times per season for years. And then to top it all off sign Garnacho…

Yep. I’m good with Trev, Tosin, and Fofana as squad players. All can do a great job coming in as rotation options. But depending on them as every match starters when our ambitions are to compete for the league feels like too much. Comparing our CB pairings + keeper to the other contenders doesn’t exactly fill you with confidence. Would’ve been a different story with Levi in there because I think he was poised to have an amazing season where he took a leap.

Wonder if we’ll now keep Anselmino here after the Colwill injury. The plan had almost certainly been a loan so he can play every week and it surely is still the right decision. But if we don’t go out and buy a top CB I wonder if we keep Jim as an extra body and hope he develops further.

Actually wouldn’t shock me if they went big for Rogers. Though, he really doesn’t strike me as a typical Pep player. But they’re surely going to sign someone if both Grealish and Savinho are going. If it’s true that Vini is asking for €30m per year salary then nobody but the Saudi’s is paying that. Barcola has a firm no sale tag by PSG. I suppose they could rival us for Xavi but you would hope that us negotiating for so long and making such a big push for him would convince him to turn down anyone else. Could see either Rogers or Rodrygo there.

The hell? Feel like I’ve heard Pep rave about him recently and thought he was about to be an important player for them this season. For them to be willing to sell him to a PL club this close to the season you’d imagine they have someone lined up to replace him. Someone big.