What's the betting that you'll now have pundits complementing Citeh on how clever they have been to do their business early (they usually do). They'll forget to mention that it's quite easy to do business early if you've got £40m to spend on who might turn out to be the less expensive defender you buy, and that you're happy to pay millions more than any other club would. These clubs certainly get an easy time from the pundits.
Or alternatively City could have identified a target early and made their move as soon as the window opened, some clubs do that City have got a bargain with Ake, before the virus he would have been £50m+ easily. Very good player and comfortable as a CB or LB.
Bargain may be a bit extreme but I'd say they're getting value for money, definitely not overspent though. I'd have liked him at Spurs tbh, would've been a decent Vertonghen replacement what with him being a natural lefty. Wouldn't be surprised if he's not first choice at City though, I've got a feeling they're gonna still push for Koulibaly, especially if Stones and/ or Otamendi go.
I see the UEFA president is in trouble for multi fiddling.I wonder.....did City buy him a chalet on the Riviera to let them play CL next season?
Let's see if I've got this straight... The consortium from our journalist murdering, woman oppressing, 9/11 planning, Yemeni slaughtering "allies" Saudi Arabia take their ball and go home because their bid wasn't accepted according to a timetable of their choosing (and did I mention there's a ****ing pandemic going on?), so in response Twitter is awash with Geordies whinging about the Premier League being corrupt? Have I missed anything?
Nah, they just picked a CAS panel member who works for a firm who represent Etisalat and various interests of the state of Abu Dhabi. Sounds very legal and very cool.
Napoli confirmed the Osimhen signing. €50m fee, 5 year deal. Safe to say that at that price, we were never gonna sign him to initially play behind Kane in the pecking order.
Most agents probably ask “Is Kane leaving?” as their first question whenever we contact them about a striker. The answer and conclusion is an obvious problem for us when it comes to recruitment in that position.
And yet sides like Watford, Bournemouth and Brighton have multiple strikers on their books. We're not going to sign another superstar up front, but that doesn't mean we can't bring somebody in to do a job. Whether that means an older player, a younger one or just someone who's prepared to be a squad player, we need at least one more striker.
Depends on the calibre though I’d imagine. Some strikers at certain stages of their career would happily join a club that’s in Europe as a squad player. Be it a young striker looking for chances, a player who’s played in inferior leagues or a player who’s at the tail end of their career. Someone like Osimhen is just too good to play as a backup to Kane. Even though there’ll no doubt be fans pissed off at Spurs for not signing him. One thing’s for certain though, we absolutely have to bring in someone this window. Was criminal going with one striker the season just gone.
That's exactly what Osimhen's agent said, almost word-for-word in fact, a few months ago I'm convinced that Napoli have begun negotiations on the quiet to sell Koulibaly this summer, though, given they suddenly had €50m lying around
Kane needs competition too, knowing he is guaranteed a game doesn’t seem to affect his amazing goal scoring record but nothing wrong with someone keeping him on his toes and playing in certain games to keep him hungry
We want to be playing about 60 matches next season if we are serious about winning trophies, its completely impossible for us to do that with just one striker. And our negotiating team must be able to sell that to players that we are interesting in signing. We must be able to add a premier league quality striker to our books in this window and someone like a Callum Wilson* should be sold the possibility of winning things and playing plenty of football. *Other strikers are available
We missed out on strikers such as Shane Long for instance who would have been a decent signing a few years ago. As would Deeney or Ings. Last year we missed out by letting Llorente go (from memory he was willing to stay). We need a striker who knows the Premier League, who is hard working, can score a few but who can link up play for the likes of Dele, Moura, Son etc to benefit. Think that strikers like these are around, maybe are not first choice for their current club or are in the last few seasons of their career but we seem hell bent of trying to attract young inexperienced strikers who can not deliver (Janssen) or strikers at their peak...most of these ain't going to be prepared to sit on the bench. We are too late for Ings...as he wants regular game time, I think we are 2 years too late for Long. Personally I would try Troy Deeney as he msy be prepared to be on the bench. His link up play is excellent and he defends from the front really well. But imho most of our fans will not accept that kind of signing even though Gallas (for example) was exactly that and proved to be valuable.
Burnley are an excellent example - Chris Wood, Jay Rodriguez, Ashley Barnes, Matej Vidra - The first 3 would all improve our squad
I was thinking Chris Wood. Big tall fella who could come on and do something that could change the game.
I thought the same thing Smithy but we would run into difficulties with the squad as he's a New Zealander so a home grown would be more desirable
