Pizy

Decent workout, that. We grew into the game. Gusto held up well against Mitoma which is encouraging. Chilly looks very sharp going forward. Colwill looks like an absolute gem with those long passes. Nkunku looks lively. Only genuine concern was how our midfield 3 looked very poor and shaken against the aggressive Brighton press. BUT that’s to be expected with Gallagher and a couple of teenagers making up the midfield. With Enzo, Caicedo hopefully, and a 3rd midfielder (Kudus?) that will dramatically improve.

Santos looks a bit overwhelmed against PL opposition.

The talent discrepancy on the pitch is unreal and yet Brighton look miles and miles more comfortable on the ball. They’re popping it around like prime Barca and we can’t get a touch. Our midfield has been invisible so far.

I’ve been watching the match. He was pretty invisible. Arse fans trying to convince themselves that Havertz was suddenly going to be able to morph into an all round midfielder who does a bit of everything are in for a rude awakening.

Mudryk & Enzo still not ready for action, huh? And it looks like Maatsen really is going to be thought of as a LW rather than a fullback?

I’d say so. One who plays with a solid base of two CM’s behind him. From all the highlights I’ve just watched he does almost all of his damage in the #10 area but is versatile enough to move all around the forward spots. With Madueke and Sterling here I doubt we’d be targeting Kudus or any other AM to play on the right. And I assume Mudryk and Nkunku are the left sided options.

I’m just glad the club are indeed not just looking for a deeper midfielder but also a more advanced one who is great in tight spaces, on the half-turn, and at carrying the ball from the center of the pitch into the box. Whether it’s Kudus, Cherki, Veiga. I don’t even care that much so long as it’s someone Poch wants.

Kudus’s long range shot and finishing are absurd for a small attacking midfielder, btw. That has got to factor into our interest in him. A midfielder that gets you goals.

We’re correct to be weary about Ajax players from recent years but unlike Ziyech, Kudus is actually a phenomenal athlete and can run all day. He’s not a lazy bastard. And he’s also got excellent pace to beat players with the ball at his feet.

Think the rumor when he was linked with Arse/United/Liverpool earlier in this window was like £40m. I could be wrong.

I’d personally prefer Cherki because I think his potential/ceiling is higher but Kudus is the sort machine-like athlete that should suit the PL instantly.

WOAH! An Ornstein bomb out of the blue like I hoped for a week ago. Kudus is an outstanding young talent who I would assume is an either/or option with Cherki. If you play with 3 in midfield he’s perfect for that #10 sort of area.

Obviously any manager can and should fight to keep their best players but there’s a way of doing so without being disrespectful. Poch has never, ever mentioned Caicedo by name, we’ve never tapped him up, we’ve been extremely quiet in negotiations behind the scenes. Yet De Zerbi has now repeatedly come out in public and taken a jab at us as a club and has name dropped OUR player repeatedly. There are some things you just don’t do. Hope we get Caicedo even more now and hope Brighton really come crashing down this season. They’ve gotten too big for their britches now after having 1 spectacular season.

De Zerbi is really acting like a clown now. He had one breakout season with everyone praising him and now he thinks he’s a big shot.

As I said, he wouldn’t sign a contract longer than a year. So no, you wouldn’t be able to sell him on. He’d be in the exact position for a new club that he is in now with PSG which is leaving to Madrid in summer 2024 on a free.

Anywhere Mbappe goes other than Real Madrid it’s to use that club as his Real Madrid waiting room for a year. So with that in mind, why would any club other than a Saudi one pay £150m+ to literally rent him for a year? He won’t sign any deal with a club for longer than 1 year surely.

With La Liga’s financial rules I don’t know if Madrid can buy Mbappe but that’s the only club he’d probably agree to go to. So what’s the solution here II wonder? Him agreeing another short term deal at PSG makes no sense because they’ll be in this exact same situation again. Even if he did somehow end up there what do they do with Vini Jr who is arguably the best LW in the world currently? I suppose Madrid could offer one chunk of the fee now and another big chunk next summer.

Looks like PSG are deadly serious about selling Mbappe this summer rather than losing him for free next. Left out of their preseason tour. Since it doesn’t appear that Real Madrid have the £150m+ it would take this summer and we’re clearly planning to take him for free next summer I wonder what happens. Would Mbappe be willing to come to a PL club? Or would PSG be willing to accept installment payments from Real Madrid? In theory, only City and ourselves can realistically afford him, right? But City have Grealish in his position and we’ve just bought Mudryk who we still have high hopes for. United ordinarily could absolutely afford him but have the ownership stuff happening. If the Qatari’s can quickly get brought in then I think they 100% get Mbappe as their new crown jewel/statement of intent. But then again, they have their golden boy Rashford on the left whose contract they just extended. Arse have just spent £200m and are also set in attack. Liverpool are set in attack and would never spend £150m on a single player. Newcastle are apparently still heavily under FFP scrutiny and are on a strict budget according to Eddie Howe himself 2 days ago. So if not Madrid, what possible options are there for him?

Feels like the Rice transfer fee really just hardened their stance. After he went for over £100m the Brighton hierarchy have just told themselves that that is the benchmark they’re sticking to. They’re now probably hoping we get desperate and pay it. What they have to understand is that nobody is paying anywhere near Rice money for a player who had 1 single great season. Enzo was a World Cup winning star and Rice has been playing at a high level in the PL for multiple years. Caicedo has had 1 really solid year. He’s simply not close to a £100m player. If this move doesn’t happen by midweek next week we should move on while there are still some quality options on the board. Or at least address other areas of the squad and revisit Caicedo later in the window.

I mean, what else would their manager say? He’s been told that unless we pay what they want he stays. He hasn’t said definitively that Caicedo will 100% stay no matter what. Basically reaffirms what we’ve known for months. Pay up or shut up.

Even though he doesn’t have the resume of the elite managers he just seems to really command the respect of players. I bet you it’s probably a night and day difference in training between Poch and Potter. Whereas Potter seemed from day 1 like he knew he was in over his head and just trying to be everyone’s friend, Poch is apparently almost military-like with his training sessions. And that’s what this underperforming group needed desperately. To kick their asses into shape and most importantly actually have patterns and tactics. I hope that he can have a similar effect on our team that Ten Hag did last season where he completely turned them around over the course of just 1 season. United had the talent but were managed by a totally clueless amateur in Solskjaer. Then a proper coach came in and those same players that were embarrassingly poor were almost all transformed. It SHOULD be the same for us. We have some ridiculously talented footballers. It doesn’t have to take that long to turn us around if the players fully buy in to the coach. Which they clearly didn’t with Potter.

We’ve been “weighing up,” “considering,” and “talking directly with Brighton” for weeks now. These journalists may as well not even say these things if nothing has changed. They’re just repeating themselves a hundred times. I saw someone remark how strange it was that we went crazy buying loads of players that we may not have needed the last couple of windows and had no issue putting up the huge fees. Now there’s a player that we desperately need and we’ve been haggling for ages. That’s what’s most frustrating about the Caicedo saga. If the club wants to haggle and play stubborn hardball for targets in positions we’re steady in that’s all fine and good. But our midfield has 1 top class player + a bunch of literal teenagers currently. So why are we dragging our feet on the most important position in the team?

As someone who absolutely hated the new kit I must admit that it looks MUCH better actually on the players than it does on a hanger or in promo shots. Maybe it’s just because the No sponsor look is really classy. Hopefully now we don’t ruin it with a shit sponsor logo.

Yes, but they now have Emery’s favorite competition to contend with which he will obviously take VERY seriously. They will be very solid, no doubt, but they’ll have a real juggling act to maintain their levels in so many competitions. Clubs that overachieve like they did tend to struggle the next season when they have Europa League football.

Yep. Very good signings for them so far. They’ll be a genuine top 6 threat.