Pizy

Seems like all the top Italian clubs are the same. They demand mega fees when you want to buy their players but then they’re unbelievably cheap bastards when they’re trying to sign players themselves. It’s always loans or payment installments.

Looks like United will win the Battle of the Tortoises against us and sign players before we do. 🤦‍♂️

De Jong is being hugely overrated by United fans. Reading RedCafe or Twitter you’d think they were signing prime Busquets or Kroos. He’s a solid player but nothing more right now. Maybe he can take the big step up everyone expected when he moved to Barca now that he’s with Ten Hag. That being said, even if De Jong is merely solid he’s still a massive upgrade on McTominay/Fred/Matic.

I’d assume as a rotation option behind Chilly. But in that case I’m not sure why he’d want to come here and be in the same role he’s at with City. He surely thinks it’s time for him to go somewhere and be a starter. He’d be in the bench just as often here as he was at City. Anyway, in regards to potentially signing both Sterling & Dembele, I just wonder how that would work with the formation we play. It leaves our player of the season Mason Mount the odd man out. That’s something we haven’t really thought about. And if we switch formations to a 4-3-3 to fit him into the team we screw up the CB situation. Playing in a back 3 has been the primary reason Silva has been so comfortable even at age 37/38.

Koundé for sure. Much higher ceiling I think. Aké is perhaps less of a risk since he both knows the league and knows the club but I don’t think he’s got world class potential like Koundé does.

Oh, wow. The City fans on Bluemoon are adamant that Aké should stay. Apparently he came into their side last season and was extremely good? Must admit I didn’t watch them at all when he was in the team.

True, that’s why we’re in the drivers seat for sure. Maguire would be basically impossible to move unless they practically gave him away for peanuts. But if for whatever reason Ten Hag didn’t fancy Varane there’s always a chance de Ligt would be an option if we haven’t sealed it.

The optics just look shit. As you say, he’s behind better defenders at City. A club whose level in the league we’re trying to reach and yet we are going to buy a defender who can’t get into their side? I was one of those people who was keen on buying him back from Bournemouth before he went to City. But buying him now after he has stagnated in the bench for ages sounds so risky.

Really hope we get de Ligt done quickly (as in this week) before United sew up de Jong. They’re so focused on him for now but if they wrap that up I could see them going hard for de Ligt. He’s probably great mates with Frenkie and with the obvious Ten Hag/Ajax connection, de Ligt would probably give them very serious consideration over us. All of that and United would be silly enough to offer him wages we probably wouldn’t touch. If we can have Sterling & de Ligt done this week and also finally have complete clarity one way or the other in Dembele’s situation that would be lovely.

Preparing Offer FC

It would be pretty hilarious to see two of the most physical and aggressive CB’s around in de Ligt and Skriniar beat the hell out of opposition attackers. In terms of their playing styles they’re tailor made for the PL. But they are also both kind of slow and lumbering.

Other than that random, inexplicable line across the chest area I actually don’t mind it. And as always, these kits always tend to look much better when they’re actually on the players than they do in grainy pics on hangers. Strange collar apart I appreciate how clean and simple it is. After last seasons utter abomination I’ll take it.

What an unbelievably poor summer that would be 🤣 That reads like a list of targets for Everton.

Speaking of kits, wtf is up with our new ones? They’re normally unveiled during the previous season and worn on the last match day, right? The sanctions ended ages ago now and there have been leaked photos of our shirts for weeks, if not months. What is the club waiting for I wonder? Main kit sponsor isn’t changing so that’s not it.

The best attacker we could turn to if Dembele doesn’t happen is Gnabry if we don’t want to spend £65m on Raphinha but there aren’t any links to him at all. In fact I haven’t really heard anything about him leaving Bayern lately.

This latest Dembele reporting on Twitter I’m seeing makes zero sense. The entire reason there have even been rumors of him wanting out of Barca is because they cannot afford his wages and want him to take a dramatic pay cut which he didn’t want to do. But now all of a sudden he will accept a pay cut? Will be a massive shame if it’s true because signing him on a free would’ve helped us in a major way. The money saved without a gigantic transfer fee could’ve been used elsewhere in the team. Now we’re probably going to do something stupid like paying £60m for Richarlison instead.

Have a bad feeling that after all the talk of us getting him Dembele will end up extending with Barca. So I hope that whoever is handling transfers at our club now has told Raphinha to hold off on his decision until next week when Dembele will have made his choice. Because if we strike out on Dembele and Raphinha has already signed for Arse we’re kinda screwed. Sterling is nice but not enough. We’ll need another attacker.

Jesus, man. So we now have a brand new owner who isn’t well versed in how everything works in European football handling everything? Surely a new sporting director etc will be put in place soon. At what other club anywhere is the billionaire owner himself negotiating transfers? No wonder everything is taking forever.

If we can manage to sign De Ligt (which I’m still very skeptical about) I’m still very curious which other CB we’ll target. The Koundé link feels like it totally disappeared and that he’ll go to Barca. Buying Nathan Aké back, who isn’t good enough to get a game for a rival we’re trying to catch, would be extremely anticlimactic. Embarrassing as well after selling him in the first place.

If they sign Raphinha, yeah, I think they’ll be formidable. Front 3 of Jesus flanked by Saka and Raphinha looks extremely tricky and dangerous.

As much as it annoys the hell out of me to say, Arse are building a side that should be formidable. Still mediocre in central midfield, CB, and fullback but they should make a very strong push for 3rd or 4th next season.

Feels like swap deals almost never happen with players from PL clubs. So whenever I see rumors about us swapping so and so with one of our players I just never believe it.

Definitely would be here in Todd’s home country. Chelsea is already huge here in America and CR7 would take us up another level commercially. I just hope he isn’t the sort of owner who thinks that way. It’s very Glazer like. Buying for names rather than team fit.

Difference is CR7 knows his time at the summit of European football is just about over and he seems desperate to have one last go at the CL. So he won’t be downing tools like Rom and he’s actually a proper footballer. Still, this would be a totally nonsensical signing.

Now that would be a good signing.