Jase

No one said they aren't but Dortmund always do it their way and sell players when they want to.

I don't think our chances of signing Haaland is dependent on whether they sell Sancho or not at all. Plus, given Dortmund's stance on both players, it doesn't seem like they are in desperate need for money as well.

One could argue that at least we have a better squad now than back then to cope with having a silly transfer window of purchases.

But didn't we start negotiations early on and then it just went quiet for however long it was? There was also the Europa League for Leverkusen last summer as a reason for the delay. All we've heard regarding Haaland is that we're exploring the options to sign him and Dortmund's stance is pretty clear. So unless we're planning to break the bank here, would like to think we've started to look elsewhere? Or is everyone on holiday and no one is working? 🤣 Saw London Evening Standard mention that the club are unwilling to the meet the demands that it would take for Dortmund to sell Haaland this summer. Although, I suppose the "fun" will begin next week when pre-season begins...

Didn't know the club post weekly updates on transfers...

I wonder where are we with the whole Haaland thing. Last we heard is the club are exploring options to sign him and that was like 2 weeks ago. Nothing reliable since then. Are things progressing, but slowly and may or may not come to anything or nothing has happened or nothing will happen? Would be nice to know where we are with the striker search...

Possibly but then again, Bayern would be aware of his age and they won't go OTT when it comes to paying wages. It's a reason why Alaba ended up leaving.

It's unlikely that Bayern will sell Lewandowski this summer but this keeps persisting... Sport Witness quoted Sport1 and Bild in that piece.

This is why people should never have high hopes for a transfer to begin with, especially when no one has said anything about us being in at an advanced stage etc. Otherwise, people will just end up disappointed, left cursing others and heck, even resorting to conspiracy theories! Maybe this Hakimi transfer was never really on for us anyway, particularly when you consider the price Inter want. If this club didn't want to pay 60-70 million for Van Dijk, then it's no surprise if the club are reluctant to spend that kind of money on a defender. And regardless of whether we just won the Champions League, are on the up etc, we have no god's given right to just expect players will choose us over others (PSG or not).

I know Real Madrid's financial situation doesn't look great but I would find it hard to believe that Perez won't try to find some way to sign someone big this summer. Apart from Alaba who they got on a free, going two consecutive summers without buying anyone big feels very un-Perez/Real Madrid.

To add onto what @King Kante said, you're talking about a club that chose to let Lewandowski go to Bayern for free as opposed to selling him (they even increased his salary for that final year to get him to stay, IIRC) and a club that could have sold Sancho last year for more money as opposed to this year, albeit not by much it seems. Dortmund are a club that seem to know what they want and when they decide on a stance, they won't budge from it (unless something unforeseen/unexpected happens). The money there may be tempting and Dortmund have suffered a financial hit like everyone else in this pandemic but they aren't in a desperate financial situation, like Inter for example. They are still a club that wants to be competitive - be it winning a domestic cup, ensuring the CL money continues to pour in (finish in the Top 4 more importantly), making a run in the CL and/or maybe challenging/winning the Bundesliga.

Financial factor aside, Real Madrid are gonna have to rebuild that squad sooner or later. It's stale, some of the players are already old (including Benzema) and some are just average. Plus when you look at their struggles last season, it's no surprise they're looking at Haaland (or Mbappe or whoever else). Benzema was their top scorer with 30 goals and their next highest goalscorer is Asensio and Casemiro...on 7 goals. How would Benzema and Haaland coexist? I wouldn't rule out someone like Ancelotti to make it work. This is the same manager that made Ronaldo, Bale and Benzema (remember the famous BBC?) work as a front three with someone like James supporting them from midfield. He always finds a way.

If the negotiations for Tomori were anything to go by, Milan won't get anywhere with this.

Why go for Mbappe this summer when they can get him for free next year?

I don't see what Mane's goals drying up has to do with having a CF or not when that approach has worked for Liverpool under Klopp. It just so happened that Mane suddenly had an average season - in a pandemic season no less - and it's also why Klopp bought another option in Jota but he got injured and missed out for several months. Maybe Kane won't need to drop so deep but it's still known that Guardiola tends to like someone who can drop deep, link up play, create chances for others etc to have that fluidity going forward as opposed to someone just sticking around the box waiting for the ball to come. Missing the point again...

Where did I say Haaland is bad? I was simply disagreeing with MoroccanBlue’s point about the striker not needing to be part of our buildup play and that the striker getting involved in the buildup play was the cause of our poor conversion rate last season. And getting players in and around the box wasn’t a problem last season. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have got to miss so many chances! People only criticized Firmino for not scoring goals last season because Mane’s goals suddenly dried up. No one said anything when Mane and Salah were plundering goals in the seasons before last. As for Kane…

Liverpool do have Salah and Mane to score the goals but the person leading their line - Firmino - is not a #9, is he? As for City, pandemic season or not, no one got close to them at all, just like in their past title winning seasons under Guardiola. They still scored goals and racked up wins (including a run of 15 consecutive league wins in a 19-game unbeaten run), again just like they did in their previous title winning seasons under Guardiola. Regarding Kane, one could argue that he's not much of a typical #9 these days considering his tendency to drop deep to link up play, create chances for others etc. He's more like a half 9, half 10 these days, which may explain why Guardiola is going after him given his tendency to not really play with a typical #9. I know you aren't sold on our current attackers when it comes to converting chances but as demoralizing as seeing countless of chances being wasted last season, I don't know why people just assume that will remain the case forever with our attackers. I don't think it's absurd to think they would contribute at least 5-10 more goals next season (even more so when you look at past numbers of Havertz and Werner for example), given each of the attacker went through different problems last season.