Magic Lamps

Westham signed cornet Will be interesting if they use him as lb or lw

Azpi runs the danger of damaging his legacy if stays here and performs poorly but he should definitely be allowed. He has been a great servant and deserves to see out his career here under the right conditions I.e. reduced role and salary. In no way should he ever play rwb again tho . And also not a back 3 with Thiago and Cucurella

Cucurella played lb whenever Brighton played back four and has his played both lcb and lwb in a back 5 quite a number of times. But when he played lcb he interpreted the role quite wide and had 2 huge cbs behind him. We can only afford those shenanigans with one fun sized cb and have to compensate at set pieces etc by playing taller players elsewhere. Having lost mostly tall players this window I hope if we buy another CB and/or rwb they are tall like fofana and Dumfries

Fabrizio’s first big blunder?

Doubt 52m would be enough to get Theo. Also did he not repeatedly state he wants to stay in Milan. Phonsie is obviously a pipe dream. I am not really sure on mendy, esp if CA is playing Rüdiger in his position. Jose Gaya is absolute pants. zero idea why that dud is always ranked among the best LBs. Bang average player. But you are right. I think we could have got a ton of LBs for half the price. Cucurella is good but is he really twice as good as Borna Sosa, Raum or Zinchenko? One more thing i read about the little chap is that he wants to return to Barca one day. Tha's probably why we gave him a 6y contract. They can have him when he is 30.

We are finally being ruthless what a crazy price tag tho damn This signals we have little confidence in Chilwell resurgence

No objections to the player but how does fdj fit in? Surley have to sell Jorginho but can’t see it happening . 6cm for 2 positions is overkill even with the obligatory injuries for kova and Kante

Carney and slonina hopefully a return to the scouting & transfer strategy of the early 2010s Both look quality for their age and come for reasonable prices

Pls no kwp is terrible

Not opposing either signing but can’t state often enough how massively risky both are. We are overpaying 80% on each Fofana broke bone and medial ligament of his right ankle (he is right footed). While it is possible to regain full athleticism as that ligament can be patched together we will not know for sure for months Cucurella is perfectly ok but there are so many players with similar ability available for half the money… really hope we get this right also pls don’t offer crazy wages

Baku is talented but has been badly out of form for months now. Doubt we would go in for him in such negative momentum

What is annoying about Dumfries, Cucurella etc. is that they were bought for cheap a year ago, played one so-so season in a better league and now we are quoted 3x the price. They are basically still the same player and were available last year when we already needed wb cover. We should have bought them back then ffs. Serious doubts over our scouting department.

Cornet was really good at Lyon and is a great athlete. Would not mind him at all. Pl proven as well. Borna sosa would be a gamble. I like his technique and attacking drive. Better than Raum imo. But not as fast. Sosa is a deluxe version of Alonso. Which is not bad at all. My feeling is we go for Cucurella bc he is the best defender out of those . Not sure if that is the correct strategy given we lack goals but we will see what cucu does with better players around him. personally I find all of maehle, cornet, sosa, Raum more exciting (and relatively much better deals) than Cucurella, still I am ok with that dwarf RLC is such a frustrating case. He has played every single outfield position for us and never looked bad. Never really convinced apart from that Sarri purple patch but also never looked out of his depth anywhere. Crazy athleticism, size, strength , silky touch. Just not smart, decisive, durable and energetic enough. Like that smart kid in school who never bothered to learn or speak up and ended up working for their Dad. So much wasted potential.

From Ake to Kounde to Cucurella. We are determined to bring in the shortest possible LCB cover lol Let’s just hope it never comes to this would like to see Cucurella’s sharp running and ability on the ball rather than his inability to defend crosses

Good. Kepa and Lukaku were the sort of transfers that made me doubt we are any smarter than Barca in the market. Probably slonina as no 2 then. It’s good the club plans ahead if so. Mendy is not exactly young anymore

We have disagreed on this before and I respect you opinion but I think you are overly harsh here. Chilly has been really good for most of his time here IMO. He was brilliant in our Cl run last year and was scoring for fun in the first half of last season. RJ makes him look a bit ordinary but compared to other players in his position Chilwell is still quality. And that is not just my opinion. Despite a collapse in market value as a consequence of his i jury he is still ranked as 7th most valuable lb . would be no. 4 if not for his injury would consider chilly comfortably in the top 10 for both best lb and lwb in world football. saw another poster saying chilly was slow. That is also objectively not the case. At least pre injury. Chilwell was recorded in the top 15 of fastest PL players in 2019. He has consistently clocked over 34 kmh which is very decent. anyway it does not even matter. Unless chilly returns seriously wrecked from that injury there will not even be a clear upgrade out there. Maybe phonzie or Theo for 100m+ but that’s it. Not sure either. My best guess is that Raum is seriously questionable in defence and has only had one top flight season in his career at 24. However he is absolutely brilliant going forward I wager it is one of this PL proven cases. We signed baba Rahman after a similar Bundesliga season as David Raum and it backfired. Then we went for chilly over regoilon and it paid off. cucurella now is a lot more experienced at top level despite being a bit younger, much better defensively and more comfortable on the ball. Raum would have been comparatively cheap and worth a punt tho. With his superior pace, energy and directness he would be brilliant as an offensive lwb in PL. cucurella is the more conventional option. Imo it only makes sense to buy him for 50m if he would start I.e Chilly being indeed seriously damaged or him being planned as lcb . Mich better decision to spend the same dough on that slacker Ake tho

Isn’t cucurella too defensive? Only works as wb in a lopsided system like brightons. his only assist ever in PL was against us ofc obv too short and weak for lcb not completely against buying him but 50m is too much.

That would be sensible - if Sarr could actually be considered a defender. Honestly clinging on to deadwood just bc we have to sign replacements first is one of the reasons we have so much of it getting rid of players with nothing to offer should be a priority just as getting absolute quality in. We can always replace guys like sarr with youth without a drop in quality. But we might only get the chance to ship him once. Take it.

Another endless saga. Highly doubt he will ever end up here . But always liked how spectacular and Intimidating the guy looks. Can wreak havoc into defences by stepping onto the pitch alone. But we play vs packed defences mostly so his pace will not be of much use and when he gets behind he still is wasteful with the ball. Anyway we could do worse for rwb backup. Never gonna happen tho

thank fk we did not buy Ake (still might but improbable) Rewatched CS and was completely vindicated. Trent’s goal was virtually 100% on that poor Ake deflection. (A taller or more intelligent defender could have easily blocked that. He also played Nunez and salah onside countless times. What a pathetic excuse of a cb . also Haaland had blatant difficulties to play in peeps system. His technical deficiencies were obvious. jury still out nunez on the other hand wasted a ton of great chances but still scored. Not convinced of him yet but he has age on his side and definitely bought I to Klopps philosophy , doing lots of donkey work and li k up play

We regressed, esp relatively to our competition, but I don't think we dropped from 3rd to midtable. Most of our players are not top 4 quality that's true but you need to factor in Arteta is a choker. Spurs under Conte are a threat, but their first XI is still mediocre, Son is ageing, Kane wants out. In short, we might still somehow scrape it. One of the NL duo is gonna choke for sure,they always do. If we can avoid a mourinho 2015 collapse with morale breaking down completely, if i sum up the winnable fixtures with a few fandom fk ups after int breaks factored in, we can still get 65-70 points easily. Also big plus: only 2 PL games in november and december respectively. Also how is 31 old for a cb? Thiago is 37 and still world class, imagine we had got him aged 31. Sure i would have preferred to get in proper players and have a fresh start but the new board are literally still noobs so it is natural the club will stagnate a bit. No point crying about it now. We will see what the season brings. I will reserve my ultimate prediction till after mw 3.

apparently Sevilla are gonna replace or rather upgrade Kounde with Thilo Kehrer. Surely worth a punt but TT will have his reasons for not reconnecting

For Kounde, if the ruours are true, then yes we left him hanging to dry after last summer. Same as we are doing with Slonina right now But for Raphinha we pretty much bid in a bid once we were sorted and knew he was available. It was the player who dragged things out forever to wait for Barca. Anyway, it does not really matter now. If it remains with Sterling and K2 as signings, it will still be a half decent window. I expected far worse tbh. Most important thing It will be struggle to finish top 4, we should not expect any titles but if we can stay relatively injury free and at least one of the academy graduates is a hit there is not too much to worry about in terms of keeping status quo. Obviously not a great situation to be in but I feel getting 2 mentally weak players in AC and the donkey out of the club and getting 2 mentality monsters in instantly improves us. My major gripe is that apart from not plugging the holes in the cb department we have started to look for wb backups way too late again. Most likely our season will again hinge on RJ and Chilly (provided he even comes back properly provided he suffered a potentially career-wrecking ACL) staying fit. Finally, refreshing the sqauad is also necessary to keep morale and motivation high. A demanding coach like TT will burn out some players sooner or later. What is worrying is that, in the absence of new signings, TT is handing minutes to players we all know have nothing to give to this club anymore. Minutes which would have been put to better us by players from the academy who did not go on tour or were prematurely sent home. I really don't get it. Right now this has a feeling of mourinho in late 2015 with how TT is brooding. Difference is we dont have trigger happy Roman anymore. As a consequence, chances are Todd is gonna keep TT around for some time since he is relying on him a lot for his introduction into football. If that is for better or for worse we will see.

Would not mind maehle as backup at all Perfect age, very quick , tall, can attack and defend a bit, can play at a high tempo. Has gone off the pace a bit in Serie a so Atalanta would not be desperate to keep him I guess. Not a world beater but can see him succeed here if he has time to acclimatise

40-50 for guehi, 65-80 for Tomori I would wager