Well I guess we should be thankful that : - he is not yet good enough for Liverpool - Chelsea wouldn’t sell him to them if he was
You never know, they could offer him for £5m and in our price range (but only if the buy back is £10m)
Sounds daft but could work. Especially if we were able to but a delay on the activation. Then it just becomes a loan that we actually get paid for and without using up a loan spot - both in general and a Chelsea loan slot For all those reasons it is clearly too good to be true
Is Broja definitely ours for the whole season? Listening to the commentary, for the Palace game, they were talking about a clause in Conor Gallagher’s loan, which allowed Chelsea to recall him if he didn’t start a certain number of games, a clause they can’t invoke because he has started too many times for Palace. Hoping that Broja doesn’t have a similar clause.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t have one like that since he was further from the first team reckoning than Gallagher We’ll likely know by the end of January as most transfer related activity including recalls can’t seem to occur outside the transfer windows
That doesn't make a difference to Chelsea. Lukaku notched almost 20 goals on loan to West Brom, including a hat trick on the final day to beat Man U, and Chelsea still didn't play him - and in fact loaned him back out again, where he bagged 15 for Everton, and Chelsea promptly sold him to them. Think they'd prefer to sell Broja, and buy him back for £100m before they'd feel good playing him. Though he'd likely have more suitors than just us, unfortunately.
There used to be a time where we'd be at the head of such a queue, or at least in with a fighting chance. As with everything right now, it all depends on someone sensible coming in and buying us.
Johnstone is out of contract in the summer so will be dead cheap unlike Henderson who will cost a fortune as he comes from United and I think he is mid contract
If Johnstone wants guaranteed first team football green we are an obvious choice as we don’t have any competition
Henderson would be my preference, on the basis that I am a confident that he is a good all-round keeper - and, more importantly, better than what we already have. I have my doubts over Johnstone. Weren't WBA the only side to concede more than us last season? Yes he made some great, and regular saves. But any keeper - including both our current two - will do that when facing such an enormous volume of shots. Furthermore, due to a lack of watching WBA matches from start to finish (rather than merely highlights), I couldn't say whether Johnstone is any good with his feet or not. Even more so when you consider that Big Sam was his manager for most of last season, followed by Ismael this season; they're not exactly Pep. Essentially, I'm saying that I don't know enough about Johnstone to say whether he's even better than what we've got, letter alone whether he's better than Henderson.
I live in the Midlands with Baggie fans as friends, they rate him really highly and think if it wasn’t for him they would have let in double the goals last year
Johnstone is far closer to our budget in both fee and wages than Henderson Pretty sure Henderson is on like 100k. Johnstone will not really be able to command that And Henderson will require at least an eight figure transfer fee. And likely outside our usual 10-15m range Henderson needs to be the blocker for Johnstone. So he goes to West Ham so they drop out of the race for Johnstone Thing is it seems Spurs and Newcastle also want keepers Also I don’t see Man United loaning him to West Ham. But I also don’t think they will accept 50% wages for him. I can’t picture a scenario where we can afford Henderson long term.
That proviso could be added to any such rumour! I’d still suggest that the total investment in Johnstone will be better overall if we assume for example that Henderson will be 100k a week and a 20m fee vs no fee and 60-70k. More than double the investment for someone who isn’t twice the keeper in my view Even if we were bought I’d sooner see the difference go towards elsewhere. A number 10 who can make the difference. A proper partner for Salisu etc
A good summary of their dealings with Lukaku. I thought it was madness that they sold him. And absolutely insane that they then paid so much to bring him back!
I see Ely and Chauke are being linked with moves to Arsenal and Man City again Tbh I wouldn’t loose sleep about either and might bring in a few quid to allow us to afford a purchase