That's an aggressive fee, but it's worth noting that Abraham's per-minute goal numbers with Chelsea are excellent, especially given his age. He scored every 130 minutes in the PL over the past two years...the guy Chelsea just paid a fortune to acquire scored a goal every 125 minutes in two seasons in Serie A, and one every 179 minutes in two seasons with Man Utd. Lukaku's undoubtedly the better all-around player, but Roma's making a not-insensible bet that Abraham's an elite goalscorer whose primary failing is that Chelsea didn't pay a fortune for him, and consequently didn't feel obligated to play him consistently.
That’s a lot of outs so far. Outs: Ryan Bertrand (Leicester), Jake Hesketh (released), Josh Sims (released), David Agbontohoma (released), Lucas Defise (released), Pascal Kpohomouh (released), Kingsley Latham (released), Kameron Ledwidge (released), James Morris (released), Thomas O'Connor (released), Tommy Scott (released), Wesley Hoedt (Anderlecht), Kayne Ramsey (Crewe), Angus Gunn (Norwich), Jake Vokins (Ross County, loan), Alex Jankewitz (Young Boys), Dan Nlundulu (Lincoln, loan), Callum Slattery (Motherwell), Mario Lemina (Nice), Will Ferry (Crawley, loan), Danny Ings (Aston Villa)
Austerity Saints style, have to reduce expenditure in order to stay in business, add Vestergaard to that list too
Obafemi will end up at Blackburn I suspect and agree Shane and Ely aren’t good enough so getting them out on loan will free up a large proportion of their over inflated wages
Not been too many links for central midfielders. Thomas Delaney is a player who although has a cheap transfer fee, will likely attract clubs with higher wage structures. Yangel Herrera could be another loan option, but believe City want a permanent deal.
They may want a permanent deal but the also want 20m (euro or pounds in largely irrelevant) for a player with very limited experience (further highlights the ridiculousness of villas opening JWP bid) As it gets nearer the end of the window they will have a decision to make It is similar to how we would like Long to leave permanently. He is highly unlikely to
PSG need to offload players to get Messi. Idrissa Gueye being one of those, who though not our style of signing would certainly fill that gap.
I think the transfer market business has, to date, gone pretty well considering our dire financial position. Chelsea may actually be a life-saver to us this season. The defence looks slightly more solid with some added depth. Looking ahead to a challenging season; l think the back-four needs solid DM's in front of it, we look light there. I appreciate the need to replace Ings and again Saints have worked hard here, but would welcome a little more attention to CM/DM to plug our leaky defence.
As much as signing the Ox would be good., I think we should be looking at signing Ainsley Maitland-Niles. Would tick a few boxes. Smart signing IMO.
Not if he sulks when played somewhere other than CM - which would only be the case with injuries Not saying that is what he would do but if there is a chance of it you don’t want that from a team spirit perspective
Yes but isn’t he on record as complaining about being played at full back / wing back and “seeing himself as a CM”. I don’t know enough about where he played in his academy days but I struggle to see that a young academy player was crammed into an unfamiliar position the first times he ever played. So surely he had played there before
Maitland-Niles would provide an option at CM and he could also cover full back, so it could be a good move. Not been any links though? Is JWP classed as a 6? We only really have Romeu and Diallo as what I would say are DMs, so we could use another one, but then we only really have one box-to-box type CM in JWP. We could do with someone who can do both.
Pretty certain as a youth player, He was always played as a RB, And that is where he spent most of his time/, It is only in recent seasons.., Started i think when he had a loan with Ipswich a few seasons back he played in CM, But also played as a AM so could play those number 10 roles too.
Yeah so if you develop as a right back you have some nerve to “make it” and then ask to change position. You have to assume he wasn’t good enough as a CM at youth level. To the extent that if he had tried insisting on playing there then he might never have made it as a pro. Or at least had to move away from Arsenal far earlier and have a very different route isn’t he going to Wolves ?
To his credit, From watching him play in the position of a CM he is a decent technical player... Good at passing, Dictating the tempo.. Would be a very good option IMO. perhaps its unfair to criticize him at youth level, We all know we all develop at different speeds. I'm unsure on the Wolves link though, It wouldn't surprise me though., It was more a unlikely thought though as i would imagine Arsenal would want about £20 Million now.. Which seems to be the going rate.
