Especially considering who it's against. A win against Chelsea could transform our wembley form from the disorganised mess we saw last season to something quite formidable. It's all in the mind.
If he does, we might as well forfeit the game and just move on. No point risking injuries and suspensions for a foregone conclusion.
I agree, the much more obvious, if we are at all in any way interested, is that Mawson is Wimmer's replacement and Jan's cover. I'd be very surprised if Alderweireld goes anywhere.
I can't remember Levy ever being accused of a marquee signing before.....but there must have been something weird going on as that signing is an outlier on many levels.
There's certainly been a few examples of this in Levy's time: Modric, van der Vaart, Vertonghen and the attempt to sign Arshavin certainly fall into this category, especially as Levy was the mover and shaker in at least three of those deals - although a lot of Levy's marquee signings have been off the pitch, such as Santini, Ramos and Baldini...and that's a colelction of names no Spurs fan wants to see in the same sentence.
Can't believe the journos haven't picked up on the fact that Ronaldo suddenly wanted to leave Real the moment Sonny got an injury. In other news, Josh King's name has popped up again, had a good 16/17 season, different attributes to Harry, I'd welcome that if we pursued. City interested in Alves is intriguing, I wonder if the tweet claiming Walker was staying is truly legit and therefore City may now bring in Alves to potentially help another fellow Brazilian (Sidibe) settle easier in the country. EDIT: Not Sidibe, as PNP quite rightly pointed out, he's French! Meant Fabinho.
Given that we're in the middle of a rampantly upward moving transfer market investing any 'spare cash' in players should have made lots of sense. Prices have risen significantly on last summer's levels. If we sell Vinnie or GKN we'll get our money back, no matter that they've been failures based on last season. Unfortunately, we also bought the duffer. Even then, we may get back more of our money than Sissoko's performances deserve. I think we got a good deal on the payment terms and having missed out on Isco and Zaha we thought we'd take a punt and probably not lose out if it didn't work out. A bit like Pienaar from Everton a few years back but a lot more expensive. If he'd fitted in, we thought that we could clean up when we sold him. It reminds me of Liverpool buying Balotelli. Levy probably thought there was a profit in it as he was undervalued given his performances for France. As we all knew on TDD, there just wasn't because the bloke's a fraud.
The Alves to City links are a breath of fresh air and have stymied the swarms of journos who have spent the last month saying that Walker is as good as gone. As for King, I would love us to make a move for him but prices so far this window have made me very, very nervous. He has only had one really convincing season in his entire career (last year), and whilst all the attributes seem to be there for Poch to turn him into a consistent performer (strong, quick burst of pace, hard working, comfortable with either foot), if the price is any higher than £15m, I'd be a bit nervous to go with it.
I'd probably be 'happy' to see the club go up to £25m for him. Reality is £25m-£30m is now the £10m-£15m of two or three seasons ago and so I can't see Bournemouth letting their best player go for a measly £15m when considering a relegated CB just went for £17m (although I rate Maguire very highly). King has only had one great season but he's shown enough to warrant a move for him in my opinion. Like I've said the different attributes to Harry is ideal, he's got electric pace that I think our attacking mids could use to exploit opposition defences when Plan A may not be working. With King at 25, theoretically he's entering his best footballing years and so if we can get the guy of last season to repeat that sort of form for us for a fee of around £20m-£25m, I'd be well happy with that.
Those four players don't really qualify as any sane manager would have wanted them.....which is not the case with Sissoko.
If we could throw in a loan deal for Janssen that would be ideal imo. The lad desperately needs PL experience and B'mouth are one of the few teams in the league who play the game the right way. Could also be a sweetener to keep the price down a bit.
Not really the type of striker they like, he's too slow. Seems we're being linked a fair bit with Lemar. Not sure why we're in for a winger, to be honest. Anyway, I rate our chances 50/50
We've been on a futile hunt for a Lennon upgrade since the little speed merchant left. Townsend, N'Jie, N'koudou and Sissoko have all failed to provide that upgrade. Son is the closest thing we have to him but he certainly isn't a 'winger' in the conventional sense of the word. Lemar would be a dream signing and definitely a big statement of intent for a club of our means. Mbappe and the like are well beyond those means but with Arsenal and Pool reportedly very, very interested too, nabbing him from under their noses would be a real coup. Hugo essentially confirmed we're in for him when he recently said: ‘You are right to ask the question, but I cannot reply,’ when asked by a reporter if an approach has been made. Thanks to the likely sky-high price, speculation surrounding Mbappe, Bakayoko, Sidibe, Mendy etc., and stiff competition, this is the sort of deal that could drag on to deadline day and still amount to nothing. I would also be astounded if Monaco allowed Silva, Mbappe and Lemar to leave in a single window.
Sidibe? The Monaco fullback? He's French. Ederson, the new keeper, is Brazilian. Is that who you meant? I'm not really familiar with him, either.
So what should we offer Los Ladrones for the Oily Rat? Sissoko and Levy's word that he won't mention any of their shady payments to try and say they didn't break their FFP allowance when signing Gareth Bale?
