Pizy

Fabrizio more or less saying that the holdup in the Simons deal (and probably Garnacho as well) is that we are trying to sell/loan some attacking players first.

Yep, I’ve fully resigned myself to the reality that Garnacho will be a Chelsea player. This latest brief sealed it. The whole “they’ve done background checks on him” stuff is something the club made sure gets out there to soothe the concerns about his attitude from the fans. I really, really don’t rate him as anything other than a decent player but I guess we just have to hope that he follows a growing number of players who leave that mess of a United side and flourish elsewhere. As for the Xavi Simons bit of Matt Law’s piece, it’s as I figured. The move isn’t nearly as close as has been made out. Yes, we’re still in for him but in terms of getting a deal clinched it may still drag on for a while.

When just 1 guy with an extremely sketchy track record is the only one to tweet something is done for hours you know it’s bullshit. Especially someone who isn’t connected to either German football or Chelsea.

Tough choice if true. Getting him PL experience would be huge and Sunderland are having a very strong transfer window. Strong enough to probably stay up. But because they’re having such a good window and are splurging money everywhere there’s a risk of Guiu getting the Andrey Santos treatment when he was at Forest. They were so crazy in the window that he didn’t even play there if I remember correctly. On the other hand, Leipzig are amazing at developing and churning out quality goal scorers. Plus it could help in the Simons negotiations.

Donnarumma going to Saudi at his age when he’s still considered one of the best in the world would be mad.

Nice, that’s the easy one done. Now onto Simons who can hopefully complete our incomings. I can’t help but notice that we seem to be regularly inserting sell-on clauses in these big transfer now. Something we never saw under previous ownership, right? Feel like it’s not really something huge clubs like ourselves agree to, only smaller clubs losing their key players to one of the big boys. It’s weird that we do it but I’m sure it massively helps in negotiations.

So United formally moving for Sesko now. A situation that I hope doesn’t fuck over our move for Simons. Don’t want Leipzig to do what Brentford are currently doing with Wissa after they sold Mbeumo and not want to lose both. This scenario is why I had hoped we would’ve had it wrapped up by now. As for Sesko to United, I’m actually glad he’s the striker they’ve chosen. I think he’ll be no better than Hojlund. He’s gonna flop for them at least in his first season. I think they would look FAR more dangerous with Ollie Watkins leading their line. Or even Jackson.

Only so many “wonderkids” we can stockpile in our youth system before some of them decide they have a better pathway to the big stage elsewhere. If I recall correctly, we made a real effort to keep this kid but Liverpool must have really turned his head with the prospect of playing for their first team. Let’s hope this kid isn’t the next Musiala or something who slipped through our fingers.

Speaking of Ornstein btw, we never have had a tweet from him about Simons like all of the other reporters. But he has tweeted about the Hato deal. Also haven’t heard anything from Plettenberg who was the first on the Simons story in a while either. Like I said earlier, it feels a bit fishy around that deal. Like the reporters may have jumped the gun saying how advanced or close any deal is.

The reason Ornstein is the best is that he isn’t in this business to be a “brand.” He never tries to make himself the story or tries to steadily build hype by tweeting a play by play of every deal. I like and respect Fabrizio but him tweeting 15 times about the Simons deal for example basically saying the same thing gets tedious.

Yeah, this sounds plausible and I hope it’s the case. But I’m almost getting Maignan vibes from the Simons deal. The club were given the impression by someone that a deal could be done for a low price, we bid said amount with genuine desire from the player to move, but then the selling club say nope, we want much more.

Does feel a bit odd how long we’ve gone in “advanced” negotiations without actually completing these deals. Hato seems nailed on at this point judging by what Fabrizio said last night but something feels off with Simons. I don’t feel confident at all right now that we’ll get Simons done. I suspect what’s taking so long is that both sides are digging their heels in deeply at their hardline valuations and neither are budging. So I can see us walking away and just getting fucking Garnacho.

We haven’t gotten our daily “Xavi Simons and Hato are advancing well after the clubs talked again today” tweets from Fabrizio & Ben Jacobs YT today.

That’s two sales now that we anticipated being far more difficult than they actually ended up being in Felix & Madueke. Bit concerning that pretty much all of the Nkunku links have died. Bayern are getting Diaz, United got their two new #10’s and don’t need him anymore. Those were the two clubs we repeatedly heard about being interested. If Simons comes in and we’re interested in Garnacho then there’s zero place for Nkunku at all. Then there’s the actual anchors that will take some kind of magic to move in Sterling, Chilly, and Disasi. How we’re going to move them I have no clue.

I’d be shocked if an Italian club pays what we’re asking. These cheap bastards will probably offer a loan.

Doesn’t Quenda play almost always on the right side? Not that it’s going to be any easier to get into our team over there either… That might become Jackson’s only possible destination if we sell him this summer. If they sell Isak and United pip them to Sesko there really isn’t another notable option out there. They may be desperate enough to pay what we’re asking for.

In theory, Garnacho only makes sense of you consider the club wants 2 players for each AM position and that Xavi would be seen exclusively as a #10 rather than a LW. Gittens + Garnacho LW, Palmer + Xavi #10, and Neto + Estevão RW.

My goodness, I see the Garnacho links STILL haven’t died even with Xavi potentially coming in?!

I get the vibe that Hato will probably be done tomorrow and Xavi by the end of the week. Here’s hoping! Would be awesome to have all of our incoming business done well before the deadline.

Yeah, I’m not worried that either deal will collapse or anything. Just had hoped we’d maybe get reports that the deals were done today. But seems like we’re still negotiating for both and will be for at least another few days.

Sounds like we’re still days away from actually completing these moves.

You knew it was gonna happen the moment Donnarumma was linked with a move away. PSG weren’t gonna let him out of France.

Yep. As Maresca said after the final, he’s the heart and soul of the team. Unsellable now. He seems to love playing here as well.

Feels like we’ve heard some variation of this same thing everyday this week. Surely by now Leipzig have told us the price range. Don’t know what can still be happenening in these discussions. Perhaps this’ll be one of those saga’s where we don’t even hear of bids and just get an announcement from Ornstein that a deal is sealed.

He’s really good but he isn’t amazing or anything. They’ll probably go big for Rodrygo now.