Pizy

Yeah, he simply isn’t worth that much. If Brighton demand any more than £75m AFTER add-ons then I wouldn’t do a deal. He’s not a world class player yet. I want him here, I’d be happy if we got him, but if Brighton demand mega money then walk away. We could probably easily convince Inter to sell Barella for around that much and he’s better than Caicedo at this moment in time.

I just want a couple of super high quality midfielders, ffs. Whether it’s Caicedo or others I don’t even care at this point. It would be hugely embarrassing if we miss out in BOTH of the new manager’s top midfield choices so early in the window. Especially if it’s self inflicted in this case where we haggle over a few million £.

Meanwhile we signed yet another teenager. Feels like we’re just stockpiling the biggest teenaged talents in hopes that a couple of them hit it big 5 years from now. It’s smart, I guess, but it’s almost getting to the point where it feels like we’re wasting money that could go to helping the first team right now which is more important.

Personal terms “almost agreed” is the key phrase for me. If United decide to walk away from negotiations for Mount and Arse lose the Rice race to City suddenly that’s two clubs that will likely go hard for Caicedo as an alternative.

Ben Jacobs and Fabrizio just keep repeated the same exact thing over and over and have done so for like a month. ‘Chelsea really want Caicedo, Caicedo himself wants Chelsea, but Chelsea haven’t bid yet.” Surely it’ll finally happen this coming week after we receive the Havertz, Kova, and Koulibaly/Ziyech/Mendy money? All of those deals seem to be in the medical & final paperwork phase so should be done this weekend. We wait any longer and other clubs could swoop in and turn his head with monster wages that our new regime is hesitant now to offer.

I’d like to think that if Caicedo is as keen on coming here as reports say and that he has all but agreed personal terms he wouldn’t then agree to go to United if they walk away from Mount. And I’d also like to think that our club negotiators won’t fuck us out of our primary midfield target by overplaying their hand in these negotiations.

RedCafe is in absolute meltdown. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Seriously, though, I wonder what the plan is if they do decide to walk away. If Mount sticks to his guns without wavering and absolutely refuses to sign a new contract in order to walk for free it does fuck us pretty hard. We may want to bleed them for £60m but the £50m they offered this morning is still better than £0 next summer. And that’s £50m of pure profit on the books.

Let’s hope United don’t walk and buy one of our targets with that cash instead 🤣🤣🤣

If Lukaku is so dead set on Inter and only Inter, the dude can go to Saudi for a year and then come back next summer.

Don’t think they were either. I think we would’ve eventually settled on another loan deal when every other option didn’t work out.

Thuram leaning towards Inter now according to Fab. Again, I hope this doesn’t mean no more Lukaku move.

Maybe. But Lukaku is also quite a famous and popular player amongst other footballers. Watching a club treat such a high profile player like an outcast could sour future transfer targets on a move here. He’d be able to play the victim card.

Fabrizio says that Inter have put in a proposal to Marcus Thurman to rival Milan’s proposal. Do we not have to be careful with the Lukaku situation here? If Inter get a new striker in and drop their Lukaku interest there’s not really anywhere else to send his ass. I know Dzeko left so perhaps Thurman would be a replacement for him but it still feels like we have to be delicate in demanding too much for Lukaku.

Think it was @Special Juan who mentioned Wirtz and Szoboslai yesterday as a replacement for Mount. We should absolutely try for one of those. If Poch wants his new version of prime Eriksen then Wirtz is perfect to play that role. If he wants an explosive attacker who can assist and score from midfield then we can reunite Nkunku with his Leipzig mate. I believe both have somewhat reasonable prices on their heads too.

I’ll just wait to see what the overall plan is for attacking signings this window. If he (plus Nkunku finally coming in) are our only 2 attacking signings after we lose Mount, Havertz, Auba, Ziyech, and Pulisic then I’ll be nervous entering the season. You’d have to imagine 1 more is being bought. Whether that’s another forward or an attacking mid that can score goals.

It almost feels like we’re in constant contact and negotiation with Inter for various players but we never really hear about us going hard at their players. If the relationship between the clubs is so good why are we not insisting on them? Lautaro, Onana, Barella. We should at least be hearing reports that we’re pushing for Barella.

At least it’s a small fee and clearly someone picked by the manager. It’s almost kind of comforting that we aren’t going out and spending mega money on Osimhen who isn’t nailed on to be a smash hit. We’ve tried the flashy big name striker thing so many times with horrible results. I’m fine taking a punt on one who will have less expectation.

Nice. Wasn’t too excited about Jackson initially but the more I watch of him on YouTube the more I’m convinced he could be solid. I just wonder if he’s our primary and only striker this summer.

Think we should cool it with all these expensive teenagers.

Think Gallagher will be kept as a second half sub and cup competition player. Which I guess I’m fine with as long as we sign 2 new CM’s.

Our squad is going to be so different this season it’s going to be insane. It’s going to be impossible to predict how we’re going to do when like 15 players are no longer going to be here. 🤣

I know Mbappe is the king of doublespeak recently but he seemed pretty definitive and adamant that he’ll be at PSG for this season. He wants to go to Madrid on a free so he can get that massive signing bonus.

Yeah, not sure why people keep bringing up Tchouameni. There’s not a chance Real Madrid would let him go with Modric and Kroos about to play their final seasons there. He’s going to be a Madrid player for a long time. If we want to be super ambitious and target a pie in the sky midfielder then again, it should be Barella. And that’s in addition to Caicedo. At least we know Inter are in a dire financial situation and could be persuaded to sell for the right price. I can’t imagine them rejecting €75-80m for him. Especially if we give them another Lukaku deal.

If Inter are THAT bad off financially why are we not going SUPER hard at Barella? And even Onana? If Milan can be forced to sell their life long Milan fan golden boy Tonali because they need the money then surely Inter aren’t in a position to say no to a huge offer for their midfielder?

So is Strasbourg going to be our Vitesse basically? A place where we can send a bunch of our young players to get experience at a high level?