Transfer Rumours JANUARY TRANSFER THREAD

I’m still unconvinced with Vestergaard. He was awful vs Derby, but better vs Everton. Seems he’s better when he is in a back 3 and had Bednarek next to him. I’d be much more happy to have a back 3 of Bednarek, Stephens and Yoshida when we can. Just my own opinion ......
As you say, though, the less said about Elyounoussi - I think Ralph has sussed him out now.

 

It's a pity that Yoshi is away....not just for us, but for him. He is a player that definitely gets better when played...he'll have to start again and may find himself not going straight back into the side.

 

He’s playing quite a bit Fran, he won’t have any issues with match fitness. Japan play Vietnam tomorrow in the quarter finals of the Asian Cup, and he’ll be captain.

 

I'd agree that the names in bold were 'flops'. Boufal would be a quality player under the right manager (which we now finally have). I don't think you can really count players like Hassan and Caceres as flops as they were bought in on loans. Gardos was mostly injured, and as for Clasie, well he was signed in 2015!! In the same window as Clasie we bought Van Dijk, Romeu, Cedric, and since then, Redmond, Hojbjerg, McCarthy, Bednarek.

I think the farce of last January's window has definitely besmirched our otherwise fairly decent history of transfer dealings.

 

Was thinking the same thing when people mentioned Boufal, would like to see what Ralph can do with him, he is his type of player.

 

If we can get a loan signing or one of the youngsters we are being linked with then thats great but I think we have enough in our existing squad to hold our own and get up to mid table as long as we don't incur too many long term injuries to key players
There are some pretty dreadful clubs in the Premiership at the moment and feel we have enough to survive until the summer when we will have to slash out for Ings, flog a good number our existing squad and bring in RH's targets
It is a gamble but looking at Huddersfield, Fulham and Cardiff (+ Palace, Newcastle & Burnley) I think we will be OK

 

Boufal and his potential under a different manager is all very much conjecture though and no one knows for sure. Clasie, okay, a signing from a few years back now, but the main point I’m making (and relating it back to my first point about recent signings being flops) is that we’ve spent/wasted a whole load of money without having benefitted our own team. And we continue to do so on some of the loaned out players, too.

Now it seems we’re struggling a bit for funds until the summer, which as Schad mentioned, shouldn’t be the case. I’ve got faith our squad is strong enough to survive and now we’re out the cups, we can probably wait until the summer. But we have a great manager in charge and it would be nice to have a few of his own signings, but previous transfer flops seem to be stopping that.

 

I’d suggest that a big reason for the majority of these ‘flops’ has been that we’ve found ourselves too often in a position where managers have felt the need to panic buy – either because of league position or the nature of the squad they have inherited (or both). It’s why I’m very comfortable with Ralph just sticking with the players he trusts for now, and cutting some of the deadwood, unless there is someone which he and the club both agree is the right player at the right price.

 

Our squad is short on real quality. But for exactly that reason, there is absolutely no point bringing in a couple of journeymen who won’t improve the depth of quality.

On the other hand, if Ralph was allowed to bring in a couple of players he knows and likes from the Bundesliga - like Koeman did from the Eredivisie, with Tadic and Pelle - imagine what he could do with that?

 

I think given recent examples of how drastically perceptions of some of these signings can change, it kind of shows how it's not quite as simple as face value. Not long ago Redmond would have been considered a failure, now he completely redefines our attacking potency. Hojbjerg would have been a 'pretty good' buy, could get better. Now he looks like an absolute gem. People were calling Vestergaard disastrously hopeless, now he's getting his feet under him. All just because of changes of circumstance. There's a lot of moving parts and the process of 'finding, recruiting, buying, assimilating and getting products on the pitch' can break down in any number of places more detailed than that brief description. We have/had a few players who (to the best analysis of our outside information) have had things go awry somewhere along that process, but I think just where exactly along that process things have broken down is not universal and indicative of a glaring singular failure. The translation of our overall vision onto the pitch got blurred, caused a wobble, and the wobble triggered panic stations. Things were messy for a while, but we found the man to right the ship and now we're seeing something much closer to that vision on the pitch.

I'd also bet if you went and looked through the transfers of other clubs there'd be plenty of ugly ones in them as well, even if there's some we're jealous of too. I think that's just the nature of the Premier League at the moment. At one stage our recruitment was utterly miraculous. Then it was only good. Then other circumstances changed and everything was viewed through a lens of ****e, and it all looked pretty terrible. Now it's looking pretty alright again, minus a few ugly ones that all comparable teams have. Let's see how it looks at the end of the season.

 

Even top clubs spend good money on players who just disappear from view...you forget all about them after their high profile signing until news they have been sold to another team after playing only a handful of games.

I always supported Redmond...he showed flashes of flair in a poorly performing side. He was for a while the only player that I thought could pull something from nothing....sadly didn't happen often....but we are seeing it now. Think it was just me and Guardiola

 

Yeah, to be honest I'm not in all-out disagreement with you. We've made some horrible purchases of late. I just think we all got stuck in this sulky mood about the transfers at the beginning of the season, when actually, they haven't turned out as bad as first thought.

 

In a masochistic kind of way, I hope we don`t sign anyone. We`ll see what a good manager can do with essentially the same reasonably good squad of players that MP2 and Sparky couldn`t get a tune out of. 15 games to go, and 4 wins and 4 draws would probably be enough to see us safe.

 

For the first time since Poch, I think the youth/reserve players have a clear sight of a path to the first team. We're back to the days under Poch where one seat on the bench was always filled by a youth player to get them in and around the first team squad, maybe even get them minutes on the pitch. Gives them something to train and work for and means we can start to build from the academy again. Personally, I love that! Would much rather we gave them a chance and shipped them out if not up to it rather than continue to pay for development that doesn't come and buy in short-term fixes that just upset the squad dynamic.

Loving the passion and energy in the club and the fact we're seeing some of these youngsters get a chance and thrive. Who really thought we'd be sitting here with someone like Valery in the team looking every part a seasoned pro...?

The message from Ralph is clear like it used to be under Poch/Cortese - you're either on the bus (work hard, train hard, understand the ethos) or you're gone and that applies from top to bottom including the youth players.

Nice to have something positive to say and think about for a change after the past couple of years.

Not sure we need anyone this window, would rather he ran the rule over everyone (and kpt us up) then had some money to buy in the right players...

 

The words ‘Ralph’ and ‘long term’ being used together make me happy.

 

Yeah not too fussed if we sign anyone this window. In the summer we should hopefully be able to raise some funds through sales of the players out on loan and some of the fringe players, plus probably Hojbjerg to let Hassenhuttl add some of his own players and re-mould the squad a bit

 

I don't want to lose Hojbjerg! Been a revelation under Ralph and shows the sort of passion and commitment I want in the team. He should keep the captaincy too

 

I get the feeling he is wanted by some other clubs (sure I read on here from someone reliable that some of the bigger teams were following him, may even have been a quote from Ralph). He will have 2 years left on his deal come the summer and if he won't sign a new one the club may think it is the right time to cash in. They could take the Clyne/Wanyama approach and sell him with one year left but you lose out on a lot of money that way and with our model being as it is and a new manager I think they might prefer to take the larger amount this summer and let him invest it.

 

If I was a betting woman (which I ain't), I'd lay good money that we won't sell Pierre next season....unless Ralph knows someone better. Selling with one year on the contract hits the balance between keeping good players and hoping for a decent return on them. Selling with two years on the contract is risible.

 

Wouldn't really call it risible, the difference between 2 years and 1 year is pretty big. We got less than what we paid for Wanyama when he had one year left, Clyne we received £12.5m for a young England player. I think we could have doubled those figures if we'd sold them one year previously.

If our model is to spend what we receive then I don't think it is too ridiculous to think this may happen in the summer. That is before even considering the fact that Hojbjerg may want the move and try and force the issue like most players do.