The thing with Origi is he wasn't some obscure gem, as he was a full international who'd been at Lille for a few years and I remember a couple of posters on here raving about him in the 2014 World Cup, right before he went to Anfield for a pretty cheap fee Slightly off topic, yet at the same time remaining on topic, I remember a piece in WSC about five years ago discussing how the biggest flaw of so many clubs is that, when one or two gems are unearthed in a league, every club promptly sends their scouts to that league to see if they can uncover any more, for example scouts have been scouring Ligue 1 for the next N'golo Kante for a few years, with Eduardo Camavinga the latest New Kante from a long list of New Kantes - but that's the opposite of what scouts should be doing, so for example if the rest of the top six have scouts scouring Ligue 1 we should have scouts looking at the Eredivisie - and that's why we got Bergwijn (and, in the past, Eriksen) sorted so quickly as we effectively had a free run at them as clubs were tripping over one another looking elsewhere That's why we need to be smarter in our scouting, because we got burned with both Batshuayi and Negredo precisely because we were scouting the same leagues that clubs with bigger chequebooks (and a habit of hoarding players...) were lurking in
Our lack of a back up for H K , who do we go for in the summer if we had a wish list but who do you think we will end up with ?
Danny Ings is the sort of striker we should be looking at as he's an all-rounder who has a poacher's half yard of pace but also the aerial ability to make himself a real handful, and he has the advantages of being a known quantity and HG so there will be a much shorter bedding-in period
Soumare Watch Steve Bruce has said that Newcastle made a late bid to sign Boubakary Soumare, only for Soumare to turn down the bid and stay put This one's going to run until the inevitable Napoli unveiling video, isn't it?
Ideally I’d personally prefer someone domestic. Doesn’t have to be English or HG but someone who knows the league. I wouldn’t mind taking a punt on Pukki if Norwich do down, he’s 29/30 I think and so wouldn’t stand in the way of Parrott’s development, ideally Parrott will go on loan in the summer too. Giroud could still be an option, he’s more or less a carbon copy of Llorente. Ings would be a great signing but I think he’d be too pricey as Saints definitely wouldn’t wanna sell and I’m unsure if he’d want a role similar to what he had at Liverpool. Im a huge fan of Ollie Watkins. Slightly biased towards him as I take a small interest in Exeter due to having family in Devon so I’ve followed him since his Exeter days. He can also play anywhere across the front three.
I’m hoping that Jose will be forced to use Troy Parrott and he will show everyone he’s ready to play PL football and that next season he will be used a lot more.
There were numerous reports in the French media that 7 different sides expressed interest in him but the player had his heart set on joining another PL club in the summer. Oh, we weren't one of the 7 clubs mentioned. Problem is fecking Newcastle actually bid for him which means negotiations in the summer would open at the £42m they put on the table. So another £50m+ fee is most likely.
Who’s this Ollie Watkins, you’ve never mentioned him before... I was keen on Bowen last year for similar reasons, though admittedly I don’t think he plays centrally very often and he’d be a very different kind of 9 to Kane or Llorente. I think we did well to pick up Steve for a similar fee which Bowen went for in the end TBH. Son is a better option than Bowen as a striker (if we’re going to play a goal scoring winger there as a backup) and Steve gives us quality on either flank to make up for Sonny being in the middle and Lucas being Lucas.
Ahh I don’t like bringing him up too often . Basically though, Ollie’s the new Super Jack, mate. A DH “must sign” player. Hopefully Spurs listen to me on this one.
It does, unlikely he will sign a new contract though so he’ll probably be sold in the summer for around £50million
Okay, here's something I don't get: for months both Transfermarkt (and this year's Football Manager) have said the same thing: his contract expires at the end of the season, yet now Transfermarkt says his contract expires in 2022 even though there's been no reports of him signing a new contract So either there was a clause in his contract that allowed Lille to extend his contract by two years, or somehow a lot of people got his contract status wrong for several months
Bale's agent on Talksport On Bale returning to Spurs when his contract is up? No, does not see it happening On whether Levy went to Madrid to try to sort out a Loan deal? Maybe he did, but Bale is not interested in moving because his family is settled. "Maybe" suggests Levy did go because he was quite quick in his response to Bale's motives in 2.5 years yet he's not quite sure about what happened last month, hmmm
