Leif

If he were to rotate with Costa, it sounds like a lot of firepower, and other fans who're 18 and on Twitter will buy into it also, but mentality is everything, most of us must know it by now. And surely if measured, we'd see both Lukaku & Costa end up at the bottom end of any scale measuring who has/hasn't got an affective mentality. Lukaku & Costa have the same drawbacks, but Costa's positives are twice as positive. They're not in the same league, and even Costa himself isn't in the top tier. It'd be frightening to buy more into sentiment than quality. Especially when it costs over 50m, and costs you competitions, chemistry, morale, versatility. Another Roman signing. Conte would despise this kind of player.

He minces his words to try and make sure he comes off with a halo after anything he says. He doesn't motivate the players around him to play better, he just lambasts the right back when he can't reach him 80 yards away with a pin point pass (lambasting which won't happen here, because he'll want his halo effect. In turn, he's just a fake person.) He still has stamina issues. No way he can play week in week out both in the Premier League & against the best in Europe; - not effectively. His individual game, technique, etc, is poor - he's scored the amount he has simply because that was Everton's goal, as a team, to put the goals through him. He's shown nothing that can benefit us; he simply stayed as far forward as he could each game and hope the defenders made the mistake of being too far forward for a split second, letting him run with average pace to place average shots in the back of the net. If you want this amount of goals from Lukaku again, you have to buy their whole team, play as they do, and suffer as they do. He's shown more obsession and interest in being the next Drogba than the first Lukaku. He's too in his head and not enough in his body. He's not above average for Belgium; he's already shown 0 exceptional chemistry with Hazard. I'm not saying this sums him up entirely, but these are the valid negatives he brings.

cool

You know, there's not much different between him & Robben. Who we also sold too soon, who also went on to become even better, and go from bigger club to bigger club, because everyone but us would feel mad to reject him.

Both stress & genetic predisposition are the main causes of heart attacks. It's a myth that obesity, inactivity, etc, is as bad as they make out. Inactivity may increase your chances of heart attack by 40%, so athletes are safe from that, but stress can put your chances of 'something' to over 200% - it's just Russian Roulette which decides if you're lucky enough to have a breakdown only, or if you go further into heart attack, stroke, or whatever. None of us can escape predisposition though, that's 1 thing I wish more people took to heart. We can do everything in the world, but nature's nature, and we can't control it or our body's future - we can just line up our ducks carefully and hope it improves our chances at health.

well yeah, football changed so the fans adapted. clubs changed their goals so we changed our expectations and criteria.

I was going to say, 80% of Mexico is not somewhere you want to be as a top footballer. But this club relocated to Mexico City, & Mexico City IMO is a top 5 city on earth, way beyond London, lacking only in the young musician scene, and then the food scene too. He'll have cute senoritas around him. So many choices of beans & rice he'll believe his payment has only truly begun now. So much more passion in day to day life vs. Spain too. If he ends up in the Roma Norte nbhd I'll stalk the shit out of him. There's only 3 other places in that city of 20m people where big shots like to live, but for us normal people from outside of Mexico it's so cheap. Because Mexico. Mexico City

This is our most exciting transfer link in years, and we're at 3 pages. He's Juve's best player. Headlines will sway people to believe otherwise, but over the past year, he has been the most consistently brilliant for them. Dybala has a higher ceiling, but he isn't on fire every game yet. Higuain, inconsistent. Bonucci & co. are always solid, but they're not equal to what they were under Conte. It's hard to say that adding any of their central defenders to our team would improve results & performances the same way Alex Sandro would. Pjanic would be broken in half in England. Getting the Serie A champions & Champions League finalists best player? Yes.

Who's our negotiator?

Allegri to headbutt Zidane when the whistle blows.. only for Ronaldo, fueled by triumph..he reaches for the steel chair and runs to his manager like The Flash, and smacks Allegri upwards on the chin, throwing his smooth blue spit into the air as we get a zoom-in on his flustered face

That purple Real Madrid kit would be my favourite of all time if it was ours. It's just simple. A brilliant shade of the most creative colour. Looking at your teammates, and seeing them in purple, it must give you a superiority complex on the field. Not the horrid purple/pink monstrosity Fiorentina go for though.

Eto'o was a superb signing. I'd go for this. There's not a more reliable defender. There is not 1 right back you'd feel safer with in a Champions League final other than Carvajal

Mhm. We rely & aggressively focus on the terrible loan system. Other clubs just use it as a cherry on top of their foundation, a foundation we've not yet created for our young players not yet in the first team. We don't have the integration in place, and despite many loaned players having seasons of their lifetimes, they aren't even watched by our scouts; we don't have 40 top class scouts watching every game of a player. Those clubs who only loan out 5 players, and assign 5 top scouts to their games, are doing it properly. Here, it's just blurred lines. Blurred lines are not the place to prosper. Imagine Hazard tried breaking through at Chelsea instead of directly moving in via a transfer. He would've failed. Because we're set up in a way that squanders 90% of talent; all of which would have been better players had they been nurtured by other clubs. I'm only a season away from being seething about Dasilva & Musonda. Fingers crossed the latter ends up in Spain ASAP with one of the top 3, because it's the only place he should be.

Manchester don't spend more than us due to being richer. They spend more because they partition their funds differently. We spend the same amount - it's just we launder our money by spending 100m across 20 terrible youngsters, selling them all over time, and signing big names via their sales. This is definitely more stressful, time consuming, annoying, many negative things compared to the way the Mancs work, and, that's why we can't just pop out and get 4 stars. We can afford them, but our process takes so much longer. Now, why do we do this, when the Mancs don't? I don't know. Maybe it is as simple as them having a few extra tens of millions, but that shouldn't be it, as Roman can create an additional 100m for himself and the club on a whim, which could be spent on whatever we like. It's just another of the many questions marks regarding how the club is run. Everyone else follows a blueprint; we make it up as we go along, changing policy entirely every 4 or so seasons. Which means we're only a season or 2 away before another Torres signing.

yeah man Moses is way better

Each time I've seen him it's been painful, because it's obvious 80% of his career has been wasted by him not being deployed as much of a goal orientated player. He's learned all the movement and trickery you can learn being a wing player - and taking that up front, and by chance being a very fine finisher, is exciting.

How can you all have such a low bar for quality? What on earth does Matic offer that a random youth player like Chalobah doesn't? Is it his 1 goal per season? It's not his non-existent interceptions or his clumsy tackling. Is it just because he's very tall and doesn't fall down much? It's created the illusion he's a wall of some kind and not a flimsy piece of dead tree? Players get past him every single game. Every single time. Critical thinking is lacking in a world where 'he should be kept as a squad player, he's alright' is good enough to start for Chelsea. Critical thinking is lacking in the suggestion that Matic is demoted to the bench; Is 'alright' good enough when we're feeling the pressure in a Champions League semi-final, and need to bring on a player which gives us some sort of edge? What a waste of space that would be. He doesn't have the ability to do anything from the sub bench other than add fresh legs. You want to reject 40m+ for some fresh legs? You fear United unlocking this player? And what does he do when he starts? As much as Mikel did, but we won't open that bag of worms. We got rid of him for a reason. He got the same exact intensity poured onto him as Matic is having right now for a reason. Because take away 1 wondergoal from Matic a season... what's the difference. Nothing. I thought we were supposed to have upgraded our squad, but every midfield from 2010 has been at least as strong as this one; every one before it being stronger.

Remember when Varane was clearly the next best defender He's taking his time

Lacazette expected to join Atletico, but the transfer ban until January stops this. I think he'll simply leave for elsewhere now, probably England. And it works better this way. He'll be prolific here, but for Atletico he wouldn't be enough. He doesn't offer much. His ability's highly inflated. He could never join the tier of strikers Atletico have been pumping out. I wonder who Atletico, one day, will end up with as their next replacement, for Griezmann.

The only player I can imagine United going in for now is Lacazette. I just can't see who else is available unless Bayern completely change the way they usually work and accept a mega bid for Lewandowski. Or just maybe, they'll go into the season with the exact same strike force, bar a wild card nobody expects to do much. I think those are the most likely scenarios especially when you consider Jason's point about Jose probably not being willing to develop a player.

You mean great

Any player who'll just stand there without going forward will 'free up Pogba' and unlock their midfield. Doesn't matter if it's Matic or Bakayoko, or their own youth player. Man United have to sign somebody, and they'll improve; may as well have the money go to us, lose a player not good enough, and be forced to improve ourselves. It would be very stupid to not sell him, regardless of the interested party. From Cech to Ronaldo, plenty of players have gone to direct rivals before, without necessarily individually improving, nor taking the team they joined to the next level. Last Summer it was 'All Arsenal need is a great goalie.' Now 'All United need is a midfielder'. Like Matic specifically? So scary, I already see him winning awards, chasing down anyone who runs past him & balancing that with good releases of the ball to his teammates If Fellaini doesn't unlock Pogba or 'free' their midfield then Matic wouldn't either. He isn't the player he was at Benfica, and he isn't going back to that player.

If a team like that won the PL it'd be murder. The league would literally sink into the ground, the grounds under the stadiums would shake and crack.

The fact he has to speak to Emenalo, not Conte, shows Conte clearly hasn't expressed desire to keep him around. It also implies it wasn't his idea to bring him back. But good lad Conte; knowing the difference between an average pro footballer & exceptional ones. For us, seeing any youth product become just an average pro footballer is ecstasy, the youth program has succeeded

Unfortunately Roma will soon be ripped apart. Most ever points this season, and that manager has left. They're likely getting in a 'potentially' good manager from Sassuolo who's an ex player of theirs. They'll likely finish behind Juve, Napoli, Inter, and then who knows, I personally think Lazio are about to come on leaps and bounds. It's never been a better time to leave Roma, especially since it's less of a betrayal to fans to leave on top instead of in the Europa League or worse. The only manager who could save, and even transcend them, is Simeone. He'd give them identity. Only he or Ancelotti could take this Roma, and beat this season's points, and win the title. Nobody else will, and they're already wasting their money & time with the transfers they'll splurge on to satisfy their absolutely unproven coach. I so want to see Roma win the title in the next 20 years. Which says a lot - they aren't even close to Juve, despite the 4 points. Nobody in Italy is close.