There’s always a risk but he trained last week and will have had all the sessions since Burnley too. Doesn’t feel like a rush at that point. Hopefully we can drop in a proper new CB alongside him.
One thing I’ve just noticed is they appointed a new manager three days ago, so I sincerely hope this Phillips deal is one that he’s immediately asked for and not something the two clubs have been working on since before his appointment, because if he never asked for Phillips, we could have potentially sent yet another promising young player to a club whose manager had little to no intent to play them.
CB Watch In the last day or two there's been a few rumours of us signing Loic Balde from Sevilla, albeit not from anyone credible (yet...) At the very least that suggests a contingency if Genoa continue to play silly buggers
Their new manager used to coach the England u20s and said today that he almost took Phillips to the U20 World Cup even though he’d have been a couple of years younger than the other players. So he clearly knows of and rates the player.
With him and Mario Zagallo passing in the same week, I’d suggest Didier Deschamps is feeling very nervous right now
That’s a shame if true. At one point, Bayern were getting Dier and Spurs were getting Dragusin and now Spurs are stuck with Dier
In a weird way it's both He was on Plymouth's radar before the new manager came in, as Plymouth's DoF Neil Dewsnip knows Phillips due to his connections with the England youth setup, but the deal wasn't sorted so the DoF gave the elevator pitch for Phillips when the new manager arrived
Dragusin Watch So either Plettiberk is doing some transfer gamesmanship to force Genoa's hand, or he's about to get Spence'd
Dragusin Watch Because we haven't heard from his (former) agent today, his former agent is now mouthing off to Nicolo Schira that he's agreed personal terms with Bayern Have I mentioned the fact that Dragusin's (former) agent is really pissing me off throughout all of this? Meanwhile, on a completely unrelated note, an hour after the aforementioned blathering from the bunny boiler Mattheus Blij claimed that Bayern have abandoned their bid as they refuse to pay the €30m that Genoa are asking for, yet for some reason nobody on Bavarian Football Works telling Uli Onanist to pay the extra €5m. And the source for this? Nicolo Schira Remember to tune in tomorrow where the bid is €25m and we say "Fine, we'll renegotiate the terms of the deal you signed with us for Dele Alli, happy???"
Ally Gold has said Skipp wants to stay and fight for his place in the team. Admirable, but that is exactly what Winks once said and three years later he still wasn't getting any game time.
Dragusin Watch Note to self: buy a lottery ticket And yes, it really is starting to look like Genoa were playing silly buggers and it backfired I think we knows what needs to happen now... please log in to view this image
I think Skipp was always likely to be a summer departure anyway to be honest. There’s no way we’re potentially selling him and Hojbjerg in this window with Sarr and Bissouma away in Africa. Come summer though I think he’ll know that it’ll be best to move on, doesn’t strike me as being as naive as Winks was in terms of thinking he was genuinely capable of being a regular starter here. I think there’ll be plenty of interest though, he’s definitely Premier League quality and being English and HG will also tick a couple boxes for clubs.
We've got hardly any club trained players though so Skipp can't be replaced in a UEFA squad leaving us one player light. Surely he is a lot better than nothing...
Is it though? There was similar said about Winks over the years. Is a bad player - or a player bad for the system - genuinely better to be kept than nothing? Absolutely not in my opinion. And nothing is used loosely anyway because you have an academy that can be utilised for any spots unable to be filled with a senior player. Next season there’s far more sense in playing Devine in the games Skipp would’ve featured in.
I see Devine as more a cover for Maddison so replaces Lo Celso. Assuming we sell and replace Højbjerg, Skipp becomes our fifth choice in CM. Unless we can get enough from selling him to upgrade one of the non-HG players substantially, I think we should keep him.
