Whatever mistakes Vicario has made, it's better he gets it out of his system now as opposed to when the season starts. It's unfair to judge him right now. Also, I'm unsure why loads of people on social media care that much about pre-season results all of a sudden - it never used to be a thing several years back and now it seems to be? It's a time for players to improve their fitness, for the manager to experiment with different formations/tactics, and to bed in new signings. Losing to Man Utd had their fans ripping into us to extreme levels like it was a meaningful game. Very bizarre. I always felt pre-season results are inconsequential. Seems like not everyone feels that way.
The issue with Vicario is the Lunatic Fringe are beating him over the head with his transfer fee I mean, even though it's patently wrong to use it as such, I can at least see the argument of using the large fees paid for the likes of Soldado, Sanchez, Ndombele or Lo Celso as a measuring stick for what's expected, but using a player's reasonable fee to beat them over the head with is utterly bizarre behaviour - as well as asking a question about what the "right" fee is, because paying under £20m is "wrong" and yet if we pay a penny over £40m every mistake and every injury gets scrutinised to insane degrees, which isn't just the case with expensive duds but has certainly crept into the discourse about Romero and Porro in the last six months It's sort of like the Lunatic Fringe of Arsenal fans being utterly weird about the ages of players they're linked with, with their attitude towards signing anybody over the age of 27 sounding uncannily like Leonardo DiCaprio's attitude to dating being remarkably similar to the plot of Logan's Run Then again, as this pre-season has demonstrated, our Lunatic Fringe is deep into "Not Enough" territory, claiming the four games we played is "Not Enough" in spite that a.) Not being correct, we scheduled five b.) Meaning we played the same number of games as Brighton (who we should be emulating) and The Sheikh Mansour Team c.) Meaning we scheduled the same number of games as Liverpool and Chelsea Of course, if they watched the other teams they were comparing us to (or Man Utd, who played more) they might have noticed that their first team players barely featured in 2/3 of their fixtures, as it was reserves and youth players getting minutes
Charlie Eccleshare says Ange is continuing to push for defensive reinforcements but talks for Tapsoba and van de Ven are not at an advanced stage. COYS, Daniel.
Romano's is at least 17 tweets away from a Here We Go, which usually corresponds to about two weeks in real time. So I wait with baited breathe. And Micky is a top prospect but one for the future. What we need is an instant upgrade who will walk into our backline and improve it, much as Jan and Toby did when they joined.
Been saying the same. More or less called that it was likely gonna be van de Ven or Tapsoba rather than van de Ven and Tapsoba. I’d love to be wrong of course but with talk the other day saying we were putting in a bid for Tosin, let’s just say it’s sort of leaning in a certain direction.
If that's true, then Blackburn have acted incredibly stupidly. They were due a higher fee, then pissed around and got it cancelled. Why risk that when there's a clause about to kick in in a few days? Madness.
I really don't get what they were thinking Our offer was reportedly £3m upfront with £2m in add ons, which was accepted and we'd agreed terms...then they suddenly changed their mind and said £5m with £4.5m in add ons, somehow thinking that would fly Either they thought we'd cough up or somebody would come in with the the bigger bid, and they completely ****ed it Of course, I'm sure those screaming about Levy over this will be quick to admit being wrong...
Gvardiol to City confirmed, circa £80m. I'd love us to look into bringing in Laporte. He's had his fair share of injuries but if a decent fee could be agreed, he's a quality left-sided CB with a huge amount of experience (especially in the winning trophies department) and I think he'd suit Ange's style perfectly.
IIRC, Laporte ruled out joining us back in June Then again, with Gvardiol in place, there is the possibility that he could have a sudden change of heart
BILD Watch BILGE are having a normal one, as they've suddenly done a 180 on Harry Kane lambasting him for being unable to play in congested penalty areas, being unable to play in a possession-based team like Robert Lewandowski did, and saying Bayern are only pretending to be interested in him as a publicity stunt capped off with the tear-stained headline "100 million? Too much for old Bone Kane!" - which also takes great umbrage with the suggestion that Mathys Tel would be heading our way Suffice to say that the meeting between Bayern's head brass and Levy went well...
On a side note, prior to Bryan Gil's groin surgery there were hints of Sevilla wanting to sign him back That may tie in to the resurfacing links to Brennan Johnson - although with Bryan having surgery, that's probably off the table now
This is just a guess but it may be that covenants on the stadium loans are limiting our spending. There will certainly be some terms and conditions to protect bondholders but they will be highly confidential. But they might make it very difficult to outspend our revenue which is a constraint that Arsenal and Chelsea don't have. Of course if we hadn't built the stadium we would have had £100m per year less revenue so then we would be spending less.
van de Ven Watch Looks like a nudge further towards the finish line Alfredo Pedulla claims €50m, although that's being rubbished Lilywhite Rose, meanwhile, has suggested that we'd agreed a fee with Wolfsburg weeks ago - but they then tried to increase it after the fact, so we walked away
Ekstra Bladet claim we're looking at Eintracht Frankfurt AM Jesper Lindstrom Just saying, if we wanted a creative midfielder who played for Eintracht last season, Daichi Kamada is available on a free... On the subject of Danes moving, 90mins claim that Atletico Madrid won't pay the £40m asking price for Hojbjerg, but are willing to pay £30m Just saying, Linstrom would eat up most of that fee as Eintracht are expecting €30-40m - and I know somebody who wouldn't cost a penny...
A couple journos reckon we could be set to sign Rosario forward, Alejo Veliz for around £12m. Just 19 years old and has 19 goals in 62 games for Rosario.
I think it's pretty obvious that Kane will leave, Richarlison will """"""replace"""""" him, and we will bring in one or two prospects in the position and hope that one or both turn into the next Kane.
