Pizy

Feel like all these Italian clubs are so broke that Milan can’t really afford to turn down a fee for Maignan and have him then leave for nothing next summer, right? We’ll probably eventually get there and sign him.

Yeah, watching footage of him and it’s almost scary how similar he looks to Nico Williams. Though, Williams has proven on a bigger stage that he is elite with Spain. Be interesting to see if Gittens can do it in the PL.

Gittens feels like he’s only going to see full usefulness against certain opponents. The rare opponents that are able to dominate possession against us and pin us back. His extreme pace can then be used on the break. Unfortunately for him thats not too often. How is going to cope in a much tougher league against teams that park the bus and get super physical with him?

Gittens has the skills, technical ability and the talent to be great. But he’s not better than what we have/had at this time.

Gittens + another would be tolerable. Gittens as our #1 LW signing and mew starter? Yikes.

So about all that reporting saying we badly wanted to get the bulk of our transfer business done before the CWC… Sure doesn’t seem like anyone but Delap is going to happen before then.

Newcastle would crumble if they sold Isak. No chance of that. And even if he were available I don’t think Liverpool could afford him after they’re about to spend £115m on Wirtz. I was thinking about their lack of width as well but then remembered that Amorim plays with wingbacks in a back 3 so they would provide their width. Their issue is that their wingbacks are shite. And I don’t know how you play Cunha and Bruno in the same team since they play best in the same space.

They may legitimately have the best transfer window of any of the big PL clubs in terms of attacking signings. Of course, all of these players will have to gel and they’re still dogshit in the middle of the pitch, at goalkeeper, and LWB. Feels kind of ill advised for United to be doing all of their money in attack.

Not concerned about Spuds at all as a threat to the top clubs if they appoint Thomas Frank. But if they get Marco Silva I think he can genuinely build them into a respectable side within a a couple of transfer windows. Not top 4 good, but good enough to be annoying to play against like in their prime Poch days.

I get flop vibes from Ekitike. Just something about him when I watch his highlights. Maybe flop is harsh, but he definitely looks like a talent who will come nowhere close to living up to a monster transfer fee. You see Florian Wirtz who is going to cost over 100m and he absolutely looks like a 100m talent. Ekitike doesn’t look anywhere near that level. He looks like a player who at 50m you can take a chance on and hope he blows up and eventually becomes top class.

True. And that’s clearly why we haven’t just gone out and bought a couple of top players. If guys like Gyokeres or Osimhen or Nico Williams would accept wages in the area of £120-150k they’d probably already be Chelsea players even with a £75m transfer fee. But these guys are all asking for twice that much per week at least. So we will instead be forced to continue gambling on all these signings in hopes we strike gold again.

It’s clear that our club will try to look like the smartest, most clever guys in the room by getting Gittens for £30m instead of going and getting Rodrygo or Williams for twice the price.

Another thing that’s weird about any Kudus link is that he’s the exact sort of player that Maresca has failed to really find a role for like Nkunku & Felix. These guys are not wingers and they’re not classic 10’s. They’re maverick types who kind of float all around. So Kudus coming in for huge money feels like it would end the same way. With Maresca not trusting him to provide width like Madueke and Nero do and not dropping Palmer for him centrally. So what’s point?

Feel like I’ve watched a different player. Kudus is SUPER skilled technically. He’s a brilliant dribbler. I do agree with you that we should be in for him now. Not AT ALL the profile of player we need.

Ehh, I don’t know about that. He looked awesome his first season with West Ham. Skipping past players for fun, scoring quite a few bangers, powerful and quick carrier of the ball. I remember fans of most of the big clubs being regretful that they didn’t get him before he went to WH. That’s how good he looked that first season. But again, I don’t see a place for him in our setup with Estevão coming in who I assume will rotate with Palmer at #10.

Form what I’ve just been reading he plays as mostly a second striker or in the #10 area. That really doesn’t feel like what we need at all. Any other big money attacker we bring in should be a natural wide player for me. I’d much rather throw money at Morgan Rogers than Kudus.

I know he look really good that first season for WH but I feel like I didn’t hear much about him this last season. Did he regress?

Sanchez has always been fine as a shot stopper. It’s the horrid ball distribution and decision making that I can’t handle for another season. Watching him repeatedly play that straight pass along the floor directly up the middle of the pitch to the other team is rage inducing. Or kicking the ball directly out of play over and over.

I think the reporting from right as the Maignan to Chelsea stuff broke yesterday was that Milan have been hoping to get him to sign a new contract and keep him. So I guess if Allegri comes in and convinces him that he wants him he could sign a new deal. From our POV we need to hope his head has been turned and that our wage offer is far beyond what Milan can offer.

DiMarzio says Max Allegri has blocked Maignan from leaving. Guess we can safely assume Sanchez remains our #1 next season.

Nice. New kit looks a million times better than the last few abominations Nike have made for us. Best one we’ve had in several years. Seeing Delap scrapping and fighting for us rather than against us should be good. Hope he causes everyone massive headaches and runs them ragged.

So weird. It’s becoming a theme with us these past few windows. We reportedly sign a player and then don’t announce them for like a week.

Osimhen being offered 30m per season by Saudi. No wonder we nor anyone else in Europe are going near him.

The problem with this youth led strategy is that it’s not as easy for us to get UCL football every year as it used to be in the Roman era. We used to be able to just take it for granted. When you now legitimately have around 8-10 clubs that could realistically fight for a UCL place you need to supplement your squad with proven quality. Having a team of only kids whilst the other big clubs are buying finished products is just not going to take us where we want to be. The names were being linked with this summer tell us once again that this ownership is not yet ambitious about taking the club to title challenger status and are content with “achieving” 4th again next season.

Reijnders is more of a #8 I think. Cherki looks to be their Gibbs-White alternative.