teh_Stig

And even if you don't end up making it at the big parent club, like Chelsea, you put yourself on everyone's radar. With so many players and so many young talents in second and third divisions, just having bigger clubs know about you goes a long way to helping forge a proper career.

Surely we could buy him now and loan him back for the rest of the season for a good bit less than 20m?

I agree with this completely. I think Benat would be a smart buy price-wise that would offer us the deep playmaking we could really use. But he's only 5'8" (1.75m) or so, which is kinda small considering the size of the rest of our team. I suppose we could play him most of the time, and then swap him for Luiz or Lamps against more physical sides. Benat, Lampard, Luiz, and Ramires would give us a ton of different strategic options. His height leads into the next question though: if he's too small, who, aside from Fellaini, is big enough, good enough, cheap enough, and available instead?

Especially if they hang on to Agger.

I'm pretty sure if that 39.3 mil Hulk bid is real, this deal will vanish in the next day or two.

They're either going to pay out the ass for him, or Porto might just not sell him at all. I mean, assuming Hulk leaves, maybe they decide they don't want to lose them both in one window. Either way, I'm happy. If we weren't going to get Modric, I'm glad we don't have to keep playing against him.

If we can get him for the right fee and wages, I'm all for it. He's an experienced, solid option, who should be happy to move from 4th choice to competing for 1st choice. He'd have to take a big wage cut to go to a club where he's the outright first choice, so that's a call he'll have to make, I suppose.

We'll get both, that's not going to be an issue. Looking at it as if paying more for Moses means we're prioritizing his position more isn't accurate, I don't think. We're negotiating - obviously we can pay more, but we'll try to pay the minimum we can for each one, and Wigan simply values Moses higher than Azpilicueta's club values him. The more we negotiate hard with teams, the less people will try to stick us with crazy inflated prices. It's surely not reasonable to say that because we're paying 10mil for Moses that we don't want to sign an RB, which is what I was getting out of your comment. Maybe you meant something else...

Yeah, he's definitely coming in to replace Moses.

Well, it is categorically true. I'd wager the stereotype arises from Kenya's, and their neighbors', domination of marathons and longer-distance track events. A major explaination for this is the altitude at which they grow up and train. Get them running at sea level, and oxygen levels are drastically higher, so they're generally able to perform better. If folks in Nepal were more interested in marathons, the stereotype would be about them instead. On topic: I'm really hoping this goes through soon. Though, I am a little concerned by the lack of playing time he gets for his national sides. I'm not going to read too much into it, but perhaps Debuchy isn't such a bad choice since he's proven himself on the international stage. I won't be too torn up if we end up with him instead.

Seriously. Let's just sign Ba. Save $5 a jersey.

This would be even more excellent.

Exactly. He's a talent - I won't deny that. But we spent all last season complaining about how selfish Sturridge is. There's no sense in replacing him at RW with someone that will cost us more than 30mil, with likley a bigger ego, and who's just as selfish with the ball.

I think we can all agree that we'd rather he'd go to Juve. I really don't want to see him and Rooney or him and Aguero 2-3 times a season. That would not be fun.

Well, that really just depends on how much we pay for him. If he's super cheap, we don't really risk anything. Either he develops really nicely, or he's unable to break into the squad in a year or two and we sell him for a small profit.

He's a very young player from a realtively small league - it wouldn't be reasonable to expect him to be an instant starter. That's a lot of pressure. I kind of expected him to go out on loan again anyways. I think Kakuta will be staying around for depth, so between Hazard, Mata, Marin, Kakuta, Ramires, Malouda (hopefully not), and now Oscar, why not get him some EPL experience at a smaller club where he can start more?

If we really need speed down the right, Ramires is still a solid option to approach the game differently too. I think things should work out well - I mean, Oscar's a proper talent, so I'm sure he'll prove himself useful. Whether he proves to be 25mil-worth of useful is another thing entirely.

Get a UK jersey but with Hulk's name and number?

Then his son can buy it and practice running it until he takes over at Chelsea. Quite appropriate actually, haha.

Why don't we just convince Abramovic to buy Porto? Surely we'd facilitate a few transfers then....

Yeah, if 40mil is really his price, and with Moutinho more likely to go to Spurs, Cabaye is our best bet.

I think it's safe to say that starting RB is Ivanovic's to lose. Anyone we bring in, regardless of age will have to expect to come in as second fiddle, and earn the starting role if they can. At least, I think that's what he was getting at. From that perspective, it makes a lot more sense to buy Maicon, since with his age, he should be content with the second choice position. It's not like he's not going to play - Bosingwa played, what, 30 matches last seaon? 20 matches should be more than reasonable for Maicon to play in, and that reduced work load will be enough to keep him in form, but not enough to put him at increased fatigue or injury risk. And, it gives us time to wait a few years for our up and coming talent to develop, since they're not ready yet.

Ah, ok. I see what you meant. I guess, for me, it's not really enough of a reason to doubt his worth as a transfer too much - coaches make all sorts of odd decisions with national team selection. Of course, it would be awesome if he was starting, because we'd all be like, "holy crap, this guy's good!", but we'd also end up paying twice as much for him thanks to his price inflating. Regardless of his ability, we'll pay a lot less because he's not on the field right now.

Well, I haven't watched either closely, but how much do you really want to read into a team that plays without a striker? VDB would probably rather go with a more experienced player - I know that if I had two comparably skilled players, I'd much prefer to play the most experienced one in major tournaments. Besides, saying that Debuchy is better on the grounds that he starts for his national team, whereas Azpilicueta doesn't, is pretty bogus logically. That fails to take into account anything of importance, such as: the quality of the team overall, the depth at that position, the manager's tactics, current fitness, experience, etc., etc.. Don't get me wrong, I think Debuchy would be a great signing, but using his starting for the French team as any justification for liking him isn't really valid.

Well, I guess that sums up my feelings on the matter: as long as we sign one of those guys, I'll be happy. They're all great players, and the only way I'll end up being upset is if none of them get signed. I mean, would any of you guys genuinely be upset if the best we managed to do was Cabaye? (wow, it made me feel greedy typing that...)