Pizy

Buying just a striker isn’t going heavy on attack. Striker, midfielder, and maybe a defender of some sort. Just 3 signings and we can compete for the title.

I’m not sure Giroud would settle for sitting in the bench for a whole season again. He can move to Italy and play most weeks. Reading Twitter, it seems like this extension was triggered months ago with the promise to Oli that he could go for a small fee if someone comes in for him. I doubt he’s going to stay. Let’s hope not or we’re going to struggle to achieve top 4. And then we have no shot at him. Never mind waiting means a hell of a lot more competition.

Club covering their asses in case they fail to bring in a new striker, I guess?

Every option is going to be off the table pretty quickly by the look of it. Any teeny, tiny sliver of hope for Haaland will be gone if they sell Sancho to United. So that’ll be literally every striker we’ve been linked with (Aguero, Kane, Lukaku, Haaland) out of reach before we’ve really even got started. Is that kid from Fiorentina good enough to take a punt on?

I rate Danny Ings as a decent striker for a small team. But the champions of Europe turning to Danny Ings to solve our striker problem would be pretty embarrassing. He’s not going to worry any of our domestic or CL rivals, is he? Aubameyang makes little sense to me either. He plays best in the same exact areas that Werner plays and has a pretty much identical skill set. Never mind the fact that, like Harry Kane, he’s a hated rivals’ best player so it would never happen. Lewandowski would be amazing on a 2 year deal but Bayern couldn’t replace him this summer. He’ll probably move next summer when Bayern make a play for Haaland. I’m beginning to warm to the idea of Sancho. Rotate Havertz and Werner up top and hope they really step up. Very risky but it could work. A fluid front 4 would really confuse and unsettle opponents.

Tbf, they gave Man United a clear valuation for Sancho and they fucked about all summer trying to get a discount. If they had just payed what was asked Sancho would’ve been in a red shirt already. We have to at least try here. If they say no they say no.

True, but maybe that was out of principal. Taking a stand against a domestic rival trying to take their best player. Maybe it’ll be easier to take from a foreign club? Especially during pandemic affected times. Honestly, we’re kind of fucked here in terms of options. The irony of our club being in its best position and potential in like a decade and there are no strikers available. 😂😂😂

Welp. Looks like it’s Haaland or bust, then. Kane was always impossible, Lukaku is happy being the king in Italy where he’s the main man and free of the English media criticizing him. We can now either make Dortmund an offer they can’t refuse (£150m now I think they’d reluctantly sell rather than for his small release clause next summer) or we go the Sancho route, play Havertz up top, and extend Giroud for another year. Our options are even more threadbare now.

Seeing a manager I love at a club I utterly despise. 🤢🤢🤢 Spuds are literally the opposite kind of club that suits Conte, though. How is he going to work with Levy, I wonder? No CL football to lure top players (not that they would’ve gone there anyways) and a very restrictive budget even in the best of times. This feels like the same sort of Mourinho-like desperation gamble from Spuds. Where they get themselves a top manager who is just not the correct fit for their club model. Suppose they’ll have a considerably better shot at keeping hold of Kane with Conte, though. And maybe Bale will stay another season.

Linked with Adama and Hakimi shows that Tuchel must see RJ’s long term future as a CB/RB hybrid I guess? And he wants an absolutely lightning quick RWB. I guess I’d be fine with Adama in that role if the price is right. No defense wants to see him running at them.

Needs to have a word with Mbappe there 😉

You really hate him, huh?

For me that would be a great summer. We already have a great squad so don’t need to buy 5 world class players this summer. We need quality in a couple of areas and we’re a complete team. Anyone hoping we go out and buy a bunch of galacticos is going to be disappointed.

Honestly, winning the CL has zapped any worry or concern I had about our summer window. As long as we get our striker I’m not stressing anything else. Additional players would be a bonus. Will say though that these are some really weird names we’re being linked to. Adama had a really good season last year but wasn’t he terrible this season? He went like 90% of the season without scoring a single goal or something. I suppose for a cheap price he could be an interesting rotation option. Seeing that beast come on against tired legs is always scary and being in a much better team could benefit him. Then there’s this Hoffmann guy who I admittedly never heard of until we were linked a week ago. He basically looks like a slightly more attacking Jorginho to me on YouTube. And he’s the wrong age profile for us. Doesn’t make sense at all to me. Finally, if Inter dig their heels in and refuse to sell Lukaku I wonder what we’d do. Doesn’t look like Levy will even be considering selling us Kane. Whatever happens I hope it does so soon before the Euro’s. Or else prices can jump.

As we’ve also seen, when Thiago is out AC or Zouma can step in and adequately cover for him. Or Azpi if we’re desperate. Spending big this summer on a CB would be a waste I think. Wait until this time next summer when Silva leaves. Do we truly need a silky playmaker up front or just a dude who will put the chances away that we always create? Having a striker who is a baller technically would be nice but there really isn’t one out there that’s top class and available.

Really not sure why we’d be after any defenders at all. We’re pretty set there. Striker and cover for Kante are our only real needs. We definitely don’t need a new CB as I’ve seen lots of rumors about. As for Lukaku, again I’d be happy if we ended up with him but I hope we at least kick the tires on Kane and Haaland. If both of those are impossible Lukaku is a great fallback.

Say what you will about the giant “3” on the front (I actually don’t mind it) but going from this years beautiful, simple kit to that monstrosity we’ll be wearing next season is a disgrace. 😂

Reece and Mason have been monsters so far. Havertz playing very intelligently and calmly. Jorginho and Kante not troubled too much in that half surprisingly with that City attack. If Timo was in form and confident we’d have at least 2 goals right now. Far, FAR from over.

I’m not religious in the slightest but I just had to say a little prayer. 😂 The historical significance of being a multiple European Cup winner as opposed to a 1 time winner is massive. So this is so important for our club. I haven’t been so desperate for us to win a match in years. COME ON!!!!!

The biggest concern with City playing all those attackers is the likes of Azpi, Jorginho, Kante, RJ etc when they are pressed high. None really react well when they’re rushed. We cannot allow them to do that or they’ll rip us to shreds. We have to force them back and be physical with their little munchkin players.

If our lads are at it 100% we should be able to dominate the midfield. That’s an extremely bold selection from Pep not to have any sort of defensive minded midfielder. They’re going all out intricate attack. They’re going to try to blitz us, I think.

If we are to lose in the end I hope we at least put in a top performance and give a great account of ourselves. Getting battered with the whole world watching or seeing City just be completely bulldoze us would suck. As has been mentioned, we basically need every player from front to back to be perfect in order to win. City can often be in cruise control and blow teams away still. We especially need a Kante masterclass to break up and disrupt Foden/KDB/Gündogan. We let them just ping it around and we have no chance.

I think by far the toughest decision for TT is how he sets up our midfield. Does he dare start Jorginho in such a game where keeping things tight is paramount? Also wonder if we’re going to go the counter attacking route or we take them head on and go all out aggressive pressing. You know Pep will pull some random tactical wrinkle out of his hat for this one. And you know TT could do the same. I just hope he discontinues this experiment with Azpi as the wingback and RJ as a CB.

Feels like Liverpool have made about 5 CB signings in the last couple of windows.

We need a striker who can reliably bully and score goals against the fodder of the PL. To put away the seemingly countless chances we create that go wasted. Lukaku can 100% do that and he did even when he was at United. He has improved quite a bit from that time. If Rom is our “fallback” option in case Haaland is impossible I’d be fine with it. Is he a “sexy” footballer who will wow us with skill? No. But is he a mammoth upgrade on what we’ve had since Diego left? Absolutely. No PL or CL defense is going to want to see the pace of Werner and the freight train that is Lukaku running at them in full flow.