Pizy

Yeah, it’s going to get crazy. This season will basically be an audition for Noni I guess. There have already been whispers this summer that we’d listen to a big offer. Unless he has a great season I imagine that he’s going to be the one we move a year from now to make room.

Any further AM signing would have me seriously worried about how we’d possibly incorporate Estevão and Paez next summer. Especially another younger one like Sancho who is still only 24. It’s already going to be super tricky even if we move Sterling and Mudryk.

Maresca has been saying in more than one presser that expects the players to be super dedicated to their training and how their effort has to be top level at all times. It’s what he mentioned yesterday about Noni. So imagine what would happen with Sancho who is notoriously poor with this sort of stuff. He seems like the exact opposite sort of guy we’d want.

Loaning Kepa seems like a terrible idea. If he struggles this season he’ll have even fewer suitors next summer. We need to sell him for good no matter how low the fee is. And this Sancho shit needs to die already. All of the stuff about how Felix didn’t make any sense and “there’s nowhere for him to play” which I thought was total bullshit would actually be true with Sancho. He’d be behind Palmer and Noni on the right side and behind Neto, Felix, and Nkunku on the left or #10 areas. There is ZERO space for another AM whatsoever. Even if we miraculously sold both Sterling and Mudryk it still wouldn’t make sense to bring Sancho.

And I think he’d do well there. Just like he would at Villa. Arse are in a position where their team is the finished product and already a title contender. So they can afford having a player like Sterling not being consistent like he always has been.

Having seen the level of finishing from Jackson and Guiu through just these first 2 matches of the season I’m not sure I agree. Do I think Osimhen is increible? No. But do I think he’d fluff his lines with EASY chances like our current forwards repeatedly do? Also no.

Saw a quote from Arteta on my timeline saying that “surprises” could still happen in the window for them. Better not be after Osimhen… 😑

I know. I’m saying he would never go to a small club like a bottom half team or something. Villa is a big club for sure.

I think Sterling would be very good for Villa. Which of course means stiffer competition for us for top 4. But Sterling was never going to move to some small club so this may be our only choice.

Speaking of Merino, why have Arse been so keen on him all summer? They’ve got Rice, Partey, and Jorginho in CM already. Is he purely for depth?

It would be pretty hilarious (in a depressing, “all you can do is laugh” sort of way) if they signed him at the last minute after we’ve been after him and dragging our feet all summer. But Havertz looks to be settling well in that forward role and Arteta seems to really like Jesus still. Osimhen is kind of the opposite type of striker to those two so would Arteta fancy him? Idk. He could be their Haaland I guess. Someone who barely needs a kick all game but can still score you a hat trick.

Chelsea may want it that way but will the player? I guess if his options are Chelsea on loan or rot on the bench until January at Napoli perhaps he’ll agree to it. Maybe that’s what our board are putting all their chips on. The problem with that strategy of course is if another club is also quietly playing the waiting game like we are and offers better, permanent terms rather than a loan proposal and were left with nothing. Or if he just says “fuck this, I’ll just collect my wages and stay until January.”

Fabrizio rehashing the same line about Osimhen we’ve been seeing for like a month now. We are still apparently only willing to do a loan and Osimhen won’t accept that. I really wonder what it is specifically about Osimhen that doesn’t have our board/scouts/sporting directors so hesitant to go all-in with Osimhen. We’ve seen a bunch of times in these 2 years that when they narrow in on a player they like they go big and they get the player decisively. They know the team needs that top striker, there appears to be no real competition for his services from any other top club, and we can offset a large part of the transfer by selling them the one player we want off our books more than any other. This feels like such a straightforward deal to do and yet we seem to have this “eh, if we get him fine, if we don’t, whatever” sort of stance.

It’s an insane amount of money for Guehi. He’s a solid CB but nothing more.

Would Duran even make sense now? We need a striker who comes is the unquestioned #1 option who pushes Jackson to become his backup. Duran doesn’t come in and displace Nico. He’s another project player which isn’t what we need. We have to get someone who from day 1 you slot into the XI and they’re ready to start banging then in. If we get anyone it HAS to be either Osimhen or Toney at this stage. Toney would be really underwhelming for me but makes more sense than Duran for THIS season. We’ve got enough developmental projects. Get the finished article already!

I wonder if Newcastle or Villa will decide they want another “big name” and take a punt on Sterling. They’ve both already got good wide players but he’d still be considered a big signing for either and someone who could really help their depth. Those are really the only 2 PL clubs who I think could both afford to pay him high wages and also that he’d agree to move to. He’d never drop down to the level of like an Everton or something.

Barca are always after the flavor of the month kind of player. They needed a new, flashy toy to give their fans and just bringing Felix back was never going to be enough. Remember they badly wanted Nico Williams, failed, and “settled” for Olmo since they knew their fans would be happy with him after that fantastic tournament he had. They needed someone new to please their fans and show that they want to compete with Real Madrid.

Barca would have ideally liked to keep him from what I’ve seen. But they’re broke as a joke and can only afford like 1 transfer per window these days. They just had to give Gündogan up for free back to City just to be able to register Olmo, ffs. Almost ALL of the Barca fans I see in comments sections across social media really wanted him to come back there.

Disagree. True that Felix isn’t going to be consistently excellent over the course of a 50+ game season or whatever we’ll play but I still think capable of being a match winning quality player much more often than Cherki would be. Tbh, I really don’t know why I see quite a few of our fans complaining about the fee we’ve paid for Felix. If we had spent completely obscene money like £65m or more then yes, that would be insane. But £44m for someone who’s just 24 and has world class talent (not saying he’s a world class player because he hasn’t been consistent enough) is great business in my eyes. You can’t even get slightly above average English attackers from PL clubs for that amount these days. Spuds paid nearly £50m for Brennan Johnson for instance and Felix is 5x the player he is.

Man, I wanted us to sign him badly last summer. And wasn’t there talk of it taking £50m or more? I know his contract has run down since then but it seems like no top team is interested in him at all. I didn’t hear anything about him last season so I’m guessing he didn’t do much? I remember a lot of posters here were skeptical of him and didn’t want us to buy him and it appears they’ve been proven correct.

Holy shit at stripping Sterling of his number just like that lol To do that when he isn’t even close to securing a move away is kinda crazy, isn’t it? What happens if no deal can be agreed for him this window? He just chills at home until January?

It’s getting annoying as fuck now. All the English pundits and press that have slaughtered us for the past couple of seasons for not having top quality are now slaughtering us for wanting to move out the subpar players and get genuine quality. If the players we were trying to get rid of weren’t English then none of these jokers would care. It as if none of these people have watched Sterling or Chilwell over the past 2 years.

These Maresca quotes from the presser make him sound like an absolutely ruthless mob boss. 🤣🤣🤣

Felix is such a massive upgrade to our quality depth. I genuinely feel like there’s now basically no drop off in quality when we rotate our attacking options. I’d feel confident and comfortable when any of Nkunku/Palmer/Noni/Felix/Neto play. Mudryk is the only one now that’s iffy I guess. Elsewhere, it looks like the outgoing activity is finally kicking into overdrive now. Good.

Palace are just about to sell Andersen back to Fulham apparently so I can’t imagine them selling Guehi too. Plus, I think the £65m or whatever they’re asking for him is FAR too much. That’s the kind of kk ey you pay for a VVD level monster who takes you up a level. And Guehi isn’t close to that.