Magic Lamps

I am not saying that the way he sounds has any relevance for his success. It is just that this signing has felt like the Drinkwater & Barkley ones from the very beginning and this corny interview very much adds to that. I obvoiusly hope he will turn out better. No one was talking about appearance tho.

Goalie confidence does not just come and go like for outfield positions. Esp at top clubs even Kepa will have quite a few clean sheets without having to make a real save. This does not build confidence. Keeper confidence builds of weeks of making crucial interventions and commanding respect from teammates and opponents. And a single error wil undo these weeks of success. I never praised Kepa and never will (as a player overall ofc) cos he is just a bang average goalie at best. If and that is a big if he gets going on form again we have an average goalie on good form, which is still a lot worse than having Alisson or Ederson or even Dubravka or Guaita on average form. Kepa is just one of thousands of poor goalies who were flattered by some decent form and once their confidence is shot are exposed as the average duds they are. In short, he is not just worth the hassle to get him back to form cos we will concede dozens of goals in the process bc of him with no guarantee of success. He is an average goalie even on top form bc of his average to poor natural athletic ability, his average two feet and his batshit saving/jumping technique, which a proper gk coach should have bludgeoned out of him early in his career, now its too late.

Our first epl game is just 4 days after the last NL game. There will hardly be any first team trainign with the whole squad together. So disgusting how int'l football is intetnionally harming the quality of club football by prohibiting any kind of meaningful preseason.

Maignan sure would be the better deal. Younger and better handling. Also not African. But he would be a risk as well. Mendy suits our play style slightly better with his aerial prowess and slightly better passing. We will get a capable goalie either way I think

It’s half their yearly turnover . still, imagine him in a midfield with kovacic and billy. Very lightweight but incredible technique. Will cut through parked buses like a freshly forged katana

Heard from Leverkusen fans they are already opening the champagne today. They are fairly confident they got the better end of the deal. 100m is max they could have got out of the deal anytime anyway so they are satisfied their management didn’t budge. The only way we could have gotten a few more pennies out of them is if we had dragged it on longer thus disrupting their preseason squad planning even more. Schick will replace Volland. Havertz will be replaced by the 17 yo Florian Wirtz. The remaining 75 will go into youth and development facilities mostly. Leverkusen are in a relatively healthy financial position thanks to the deal as their tiny stadium doesn’t generate much income anyway and they source most of their personnel from within

i would bite their hand off but i doubt we will be able to sell him for anything close this window. Also, I see us struggling to get enough of our deadwood shifted to just shift a fraction of our host of dregs. Then again it might be smarter to hold on to some of them and get better prices in a year or so.

Spox reported we would be wiling to part for 80m pounds. sounds more like it but i doubt anyone can pay that. maybe psg

I think that tall player statement was a bit of a smokescreen to take pressure of our players and distract from our shit tactics when defenidng set pieces. I think Jason's point hits the nail on the head. Aerial ability is a mix of height, physicality, leap and movement. Havertz for example is tall and has great leap but i dont he will help defending set pieces too much because he is very slight. On the other hand when Germany played Spain in the 2010 world cup we had just 2 players below 6ft and still managed to concede from a set piece with 178cm puyol somehow escaping players like mertesacker with a 20cm height advantage.

I hope he doesn’t need to quarantine after arriving -.-

Would Rennes be that much of a step up for Boga tho? Maybe we can renounce that sell on clause for Sassulo to command a lower fee to cut some deal for Mendy

Apparently we can’t get rid of him. We shot ourselves in the knee there with a rocket launcher panic buying him for 80m€ on a fat ass contract. That deal will cripple our long term plans for the whole decade. Worse than Torres

The way mcarthur and milibojevic have declined they would be dumb not to. But then again it’s Woy so who knows

German national team players are expected to show up in Stuttgart on Sunday to prepare for tomorrow’s training session. If Kai Havertz had excused himself surely that would have been noted.

I think if we sign Mendy it means we still have not given up on Kepa and only bring him as a no.2 who is at the peak of his powers that can seamlessly fit in and challenge if kepa is as shit as last season. Maignan would probably be signed as a no.1 given he is basically same age as kepa and needs to play.

Messi himself has choked in the CL for 5years now. I could so see them go out in the quarter finals to some shitty opposition again lol. Especially becausi think the way they play is not gonna improve with Messi. Messi is more playing like a classic no.10 the older he gets. and City dont really play like that more with players in behind running at crossfield passes. But maybe he is gonna play the bernardo/david silva role. Anyway, Messi's freekicks and shots from the edge of the area will always be dangerous. they sure will win at least 2 more leagues with him. I hope Barcelona holds strong, drags this through all courts so that messi cant switch this window bc of the holdup and massively declines in the meantime.

no. tests have more than 99% accuracy even before there are any possible symptoms. I think the whole procedure is BS. We used to do this 14 day quarantine before we hadtests available for everybody in Germany. But now we just est everyone and only the sick are quarantined. I guess UK still has not figured the shit out.

I actually think Rice is probably taller than 185cm. English players heights are for some reason always a bit off. He has been listed at that height since he was 18 and i doubt he just stopped growing there. also he does at least an inch taller than barkley who is listed at 1,86m (which i think is BS, Barkley is 6ft flat max, looks hardly taller than Azpi when they stand next to each other).

Good debut. Surprised me a little with his link up play. Passing is actually not his forte but he has massively improved here the last few months. But it looks like he feels comfortable with the team and in our shirt. Blue is really his color, the kit suits him perfectly

Honestly if we don’t get Havertz I, we should not sign another midfielder at all. First choice or nothing. We are in for Havertz bc we believe he is a generational talent and not bc we think we desperately need a player like him. We could easily roll with a Kovacic Mount Kante midfield. I could also see ziyech as more of a no. 10. Then we have tons of mids Like anjorin coming to through development side. that being said I still think havertz deal will be done

I hope no one comes out Blaming Lamps training sessions for the injuries today. But both really looked like they won’t stop anyone from starting the season. Still should make them miss international duty (hopefully). Could be a blessing in disguise really, same as the COVID guys not going on intl duty just before the season starts instead training with frank and the guys in Conham. anyway I think not signing another right winger Is a massive show of faith in CHO. Not just aLl the youth players, all players will have to raise their level. competition this season is crazy. Of all of last seasons starters I think only Pulisic, Kante and und RJ/Azpi will be nailed on starters this season.

It’s the main reasons we stagnated after our last 2 title wins beside the manager failing to manage properly big time. We did not sign any real reinforcement and players got just that little bit more complacent

Great passing. Looked a bit slow and rusty in the dribbling tho. Hopefully he can shrug that off

Still can’t stand Arteta has already won 2 albeit shitty titles with Arse. Arsenal don’t win titles that’s not their thing

RLC is done as a top level player. His injury wrecked him. Tammy never was starting material. Mount and CHO (who also looks done rn but at least has age on his side) will start plenty of games. Tomori remains to be see . We only bought types of players we need and we also have here was a lot of outflux so I don’t mind at all. And the last thing this match was is and indication for the success of our transfer business