CB Watch Both Tom Barclay and Christian Falk are linking us with Stuttgart's Hiroki Ito, who has a €30m release clause this summer The basic headlines - Left-footed CB - Capable of playing at both CB and LB - Good on the ball and bringing the ball up the pitch - Very good at passing out from the back, plus can ping balls over the top - Utterly rapid pace, as in even faster than Mickey Van - Is not the Japanese player with sexual assault allegations, that's Junya Ito who is currently at Reims At the very least this looks like the classic Paratici play: get Ito on the hook early and then see if we can get the likes of Riccardo Calafiori interested, knowing that if Calafiori isn't interested and/or Bologna dig their heels we can pay £25.5m and get that position sorted PDQ Anyway, here's the highlight reel
Surprising number of tackles with his right foot in that video. Levy would be very happy to corner the East Asian fan market.
Sami Mokbel says we’re one of the clubs interested in Eze and he has a clause of £60m plus add-ons that’ll reach a further £8m. Get that **** done, Tottenham.
Gallagher Watch So the Chavs sold one of their hotels to themselves, which digs them out of the PSR abyss they're in just long enough that they can't be told what bid they're accepting if they want to start next season on 0 points Looks like we're going to see a dramatic reduction in articles linking him to us then...
Totally fine with not signing him. Average player who wouldn't be enough of an improvement on current options to justify a £50m outlay. Not totally fine (simultaneously totally not surprised) to read that Chelsea are back to their old parlour trick financial shenanigans to dig themselves out of the hole they belong in. Well, I say 'dig themselves out' when what they are really doing is covering the top of the hole with a few branches and leaves that aren't meant to be there and saying 'hole? Where? What hole?' No different to the nonsense City have been pulling for years, top of that list being the fact that their main sponsor is owned by the same people who own the actual club, which would be the equivalent of us having ENIC on our shirt and then claiming that all sponsorship money was 'revenue' as opposed to 'capital'. And then with a flourish of a cloak, FFP looks the other way. Hole? What hole?
Chelsea, Newcastle and Everton (why) are backing Man City apparently. I thought Villa might back them too. Either way majority of the league isn’t which is good.
I think Everton are in far deeper trouble than is currently being made public. The collapse of the 777 takeover was well received by fans and probably a good outcome, but it puts them in a hugely precarious position: they are up to their tits in debt due to the stadium build and also have to keep selling off their best players to balance books. They flirt with relegation every year and if that actually happens before the stadium starts paying for itself (4-5 years minimum), I think they'll go the same way as Sunderland, Blackburn and Leeds. The only way out of the mess is for Moshiri to do exactly what City have done, and leverage chunks of his personal wealth into the club via all sorts of dubious sponsorship arrangements in order to make the books look healthier than they are. If City get taken to the cleaners (they won't as no one has the cajones to do it), Everton are screwed.
