I’ve heard he’s been carrying an injury all season. Hopefully he just needs a proper rest over the summer and he’ll be right. If he can get back to even close to the form he showed when he joined then it’s hard to find better value for 30m in todays market.
He’s an interesting player. If you watch footage of him, my concerns would be that while he’s clearly excellent technically, quick, and quite strong for his size, he’s very one footed and I wonder if that affects his output. If we wanted a 10 he’d be worth a punt IMO at the right price but he’s not the player I’d want us to rely on as a creative force straight away. Ugarte from Sporting also intrigues me. Looks a very good player who does a bit of everything, and does it well. Bit like Bentancur. They’d probably make an excellent double pivot or you could play him where Hojbjerg would want to play in a midfield 3, as a box to box who is aggressive in the press, alongside Bentancur sitting and a more creative player. I doubt we’ll get him though, think it’ll be hot competition.
Ugarte has been linked on and off for a bit, with us reportedly sending scouts to watch him (and Pedro Goncalves) on a couple of occasions in the last 6-8 weeks, and he certainly offers a lot of potential combinations In a midfield two he can partner either Bentancur or Bissouma and give them a base to work from, while if we were playing a midfield three there's various combinations of Bentancur, Bissouma, Skipp and Sarr - with Ugarte, Skipp and Sarr all capable of being the base or one of the more progressive roles - that give us tactical flexibility
Can we have a Alex Meret watch please. And if anyone is surprised to hear me say it- we should be all over selling Lloris to a Saudi team. Whatever we can get for him is pure profit.
We'd have to be linked with him first Currently the goalkeeper pipeline is Giorgi Mamardashvili (Valencia) David Raya (Brentford) Caoimhin Kelleher (Liverpool)
...and right on cue, Gaston Edul says that Emi Martinez is keen to move this summer, and we're one of the teams being linked
Napoli Calcio Live believe Spurs are ready to place a £35m offer on the table, a sum deemed “too tempting to be refused” by those in Naples. In fact, it sounds as if Napoli are ready to accept the bid, as they have already lined up Empoli glovesman Guglielmo Vicario to replace Meret.
Probably the right move for him. Mowbray's picked a lot of youngsters and they've done well. May depend on how the play-offs go, though. There's supposed to be plenty looking at him.
L'Equipe are now getting onboard with Lloris to Saudi Arabia In other news, Fabrizio Romano reports that Unai Emery is pushing to sign Lo Celso this summer There's also some garbage tier talk of us looking at QPR keeper Seny Dieng, with him also interesting Brighton and Brentford...which isn't the first time I've used that sentence in relation to a goalkeeper in the last week
We've also been linked with Gavin Bazunu of Southampton for £15m. I'd like to sign both. If, and that's a big if, we can qualify for Europe, then play the youngster in the cups and U21s. Start Raya/Pickford/Sanchez/whoever in the league and have Forster as third choice.
I still wouldn't mind adding Cow-hen Curlyhair at some point, just to watch the collective meltdown on the Pool board.
