Hes 5ft 10 so yes a little short but in a back three alongside two other tall defenders should be ok.
It’s an obstacle we can get round if we lose just the one, arguably both. “Thankfully” we’re in the ECL this season so the need for a strong senior squad isn’t as essential as it would be for CL or EL, lot of academy players can play their part in this and most won’t need to be registered.
Times are reporting we’ve opened talks with Fiorentina for Vlahovic. Interesting signing, he’d cost upwards of £40m I’d imagine and wouldn’t be a backup to Kane, he’d expect to start. So either we’re buying him as a Kane replacement or looking to play two up top (should this story have genuine substance).
Honestly, delighted to see United spunking this kind of money up the wall for a player who is very good but solves none of their actual problems.
Calcio Mercato claimed we bid £51m a few days back Here's the thing: what we'd actually have to pay is considerably more than £51m as Vlahovic is far closer to Jermaine Defoe than he is to Harry Kane, in other words he's the exact player you need when poking the ball into the area in the hope of a 93rd minute winner but absolutely is not a player who will be sending Sonny on his way to put us 1-0 up in the 3rd minute because passing to teammates is something he does in FIFA but not real life, which means that if we sign him we have to basically sign a large chunk of a midfield to do the passing for him as he;s the guy at the end of the move rather than the middle of one And that's before pointing out that, given he scored 22 goals last season and is pretty much the only reason Fiorentina stayed up, this sounds uncannily like agent talk first and foremost
Yeah I agree he's not in the Kane mould but then I don't think many are. I wouldn't judge the guy (if he joined and Kane left that is) on whether he can do what Kane does/ done. I said before either on this thread or another that we probably need two, possibly three players to replace Kane. Kane is essentially a 30+ goal a season striker and as we saw last season, he became a playmaker too grabbing double digit assists. So replacing him would require something like a 20 goal a season striker, a playmaker who can actually create unlike our current £100m pair and then possibly a Son-type on the right flank (unless Bale comes back again) to cover the burden of what Kane carried. No pressure, Paratici!
As I've said a few times in the past, if we can't find a direct replacement (no pressure, Troy...) what we'd need to do is completely restructure our frontline, and there's various options A target man (i.e. vaccine dodger Wout Weghorst, but preferably not vaccine dodger Wout Weghorst) with Son & Bergwijn buzzing around him Go for straight pace with a poacher through the middle, like Dortmund have with Haaland through the middle An Italian style No10 in the middle bringing in the wide players, like Saltypool with Firmino or Dortmund when they had Reus through the middle The point is all of them require the midfield to be rejigged, at which point I get another fatwa from r/coys for suggesting that we cut our losses on Ndombele again...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portugal_national_under-21_football_team#Current_squad https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/gestifute/beraterfirma/berater/413
I don't think we will get a like for like, if one existed they'd probably already be getting tapped up. I agree on the restructuring, albeit I have a feeling Bergwijn may be a surprise casualty this summer. I'd like to see him given another shot but I just get the impression he won't be first choice going into next season and I think he himself would happily take a move elsewhere if an offer arrived. Already been reports of Ajax interest but so far sounds like they won't pay too much for him.
