Jase

Any instances? Can't remember many off my head. It would be nice to know the breakdown of chances created or rather key passes from open play and set pieces by Mount.

According to Goal, it's "very unlikely" that Milan can afford to sign Ziyech. Otherwise, as mentioned by others earlier, they want Giroud and Bakayoko.

Think the key point will come if/when we let Abraham go. Right now, if we take Giroud of the equation, we still have 3 players for the ST position - Werner, Havertz and Abraham - even though 2 of them aren't out-and-out #9s.

And places like Twitter, you get both. 😆

For entertainment purposes, Mount winning would be more hilarious. And IF either one wins, it would be something considering we had thought Hazard would win it in the past with us.

As I mentioned, "club and country". Jorginho may have been the player of the tournament so far but he certainly wasn't the best player of the season for us last season. And doesn't the Ballon d'Or award take place later in the year or early next year? Still plenty of time for perceptions to be changed.

We were linked with Pulisic before we signed him and Kepa was more of a panic buy. Either way, for every discreet transfer you mentioned there, there's always one that is public knowledge and we know negotiations are taking place.

One club is gonna get lucky then. 🤪

Am asking a hypothetical question. What if England win the Euros and suddenly there's calls for Mount to win it? Are you gonna support it like you do with Jorginho? I have only seen the calls for Jorginho to win it coming from the Italy camp (what a surprise!) and his "father". Otherwise, I've not seen this being a universal call.

Oh gawd... It's late and too lazy to argue about the 'what ifs'. On hindsight, things haven't turned out too badly for us.

His lack of athleticism aside, think people's main frustration with him is that he doesn't do enough with the ball. He often just passes sideways or backwards (it's fine if we are just trying to kill a game but not when we are trying to break down the opposition) even when there is an opportunity to pass forward and we have seen him play those forward, decisive passes into the final third but he doesn't do it enough. It's a reason why Fabregas, despite having the same weaknesses as Jorginho, was (is) revered much more because of what he does with the ball.

If it's the last one, then it's definitely shit because we didn't sign one. 😉 I have said before that I don't think it's the end of the world if we don't sign Haaland this summer but if we don't sign Haaland, then I'm assuming we'll be strengthening other areas and I guess then we'll see what kind of players we get in.

@NikkiCFC If England win the Euros, are you gonna champion for Mount to win the Ballon d'Or, like you do with Jorginho? 😆

10 great games might be overselling it. TBF, even in a rigid system like Sarri's and one that was supposed to let him shine, his lack of athleticism was (is) also a problem. I said for "club AND country". For argument's sake, even if he has a profound impact for club and country, I don't think he's popular or revered enough globally to win the Ballon d'Or, compared to Modric who of course won it some years ago.

I don't know about Italy but I wouldn't say Jorginho falls into the 'a player we can't do without' category for us.

I don't know what was the turnover of players in each of his season at Napoli but I don't think it was a lot, if any at all. Hence he was able to build the consistency with largely the same group of players. If he had stayed here, would he have been able to build that same consistency? In 2019/20, there was a whole bunch of young players coming through and then last summer, we bought a new bunch of players. How long would he have taken to build that consistency with that amount of turnovers? The ironic thing about saying Sarri built an exciting team at Napoli is he ended up winning nothing. Even Benitez and Gattuso managed to win something. And he didn't win the Europa League here and the Serie A title because of his system or football. He simply won it because he had a peak Hazard and Ronaldo. Even the Serie A title win was hardly convincing compared to their past seasons' success.

If Messi wins the Copa America, am sure he'll be among the final three. Suspect Lewandowski will be there as well. Don't think Jorginho will win it even if he wins the Euros with Italy. His impact hasn't been like super WOW on the Italy squad or he hasn't necessarily had a profound impact on both club and country like Modric did when he controversially(?) won it.

Would say the same to you regarding Mount. 🤪

It's debatable considering he was so rigid and inflexible in his ways. Perhaps am saying this on hindsight but don't it was a bad thing he chose to jump ship to Juventus back then.

It still doesn't mean we aren't prone to making absolute blunders. We made decent signings in 2012, 2014 for example and we had horror shows like in 2015, 2017. And last summer definitely had an element of luck to it. The pandemic happened, clubs' finances were affected and they couldn't spend big while we were sitting on tons of money having sold Hazard and even Morata.

You made as if he's been great for us...

Is this a known fact or what? Maybe my memory has failed me but I don't recall it being mentioned much in past years compared to now, almost as if people are trying to convince themselves something is really happening when it could be like 50-50. Last summer for instance, our pursuit of Havertz and Chilwell was public knowledge and everyone knew negotiations were taking place. Even if we somehow managed to not leak anything out to the media, I would be surprised if the media covering the opposing club didn't get any inkling something is happening. Some may point to the Werner transfer as something that happened out of the blue but he had a release clause and there was no need for long negotiations with Leipzig. Fair point but think we'll only start to feel its impact once we start to ditch the bigger deadwoods.

Who else from Barcelona is on your shopping list? 😆

Not saying people should be whining every day but was touching more on the point that the board deserve patience because of last summer. One good summer window shouldn't suddenly mean the club know what they're doing. It's like earning/losing the trust of someone. You can lose it easily but it's harder to get it back.