I hope he's not an alternative to Berahino. We need at least one more striker, even if this does go through.
I might have preferred Yarmolenko + a decent veteran striker. I’m not sure N’Jie is going to be either a suitable backup for Kane, or the pacy RM we could really use. Still, on balance I’d take him. He’s 21, pacy, and did a good job scoring and assisting in limited playing time last year. We clearly need a pacy attacking player or two. And Chadli plus three kids might be a decent front four.
Today's dumb bit of tabloid speculation: Man Utd might not be willing to sell us Hernandez because of our stance on not selling them Kane. Since we're making **** up, shouldn't the story be that we won't be willing to buy Hernandez from them because of their stance of not buying Adebayor?
Lyon are close to reaching an agreement with Tottenham Hotspur for the transfer of Cameroon striker Clinton Njie to the London side, says the French club's president Jean-Michel Aulas. "We are close to an agreement but there's no urgency for us," he told French radio RMC. "We want to complete our own signings first... but I thank [Tottenham chairman] Daniel Levy for making an offer that we now regard as consistent," he added. 12 months or two full seasons before he is viewed as another dud? but being fair I will wait to see him in action as I'm sure the club know what they are doing.
The N’Jie rumors are getting confident enough I tend to think it’s probably happening. The claim is that he’s in London for a medical, that the fee will be 10 million, and that everything is agreed except the fee structure: that Lyon naturally want more up front, and we naturally want more down the road and/or possibly never (performance-based, in other words). Of course, Alderweireld’s medical took four days (whatever could they have done to the poor man? ), and was accompanied by his dad denying anything was happening. On the other hand Hernandez has indicated he himself would rather stay at Man U., so surely it’s not at all likely he’d end up here. The Fail helpfully tell us: "Tottenham are confident a move for Saido Berahino will be wrapped up swiftly if they can agree a fee." Well, yes. But you haven’t told us anything. If we could agree on a fee for anybody, we ought to be confident a move can be wrapped up swiftly. The range is between 18 million and 25 million. My instinct is that 10 million for N’Jie is reasonable, and 25 million for Berahino is scary, even though I’d rather have Berahino. I read a good article, can’t remember where, that points out the number that matters is what we pay and receive each year for transfers, and that the total fee is more or less meaningless.
Up until about 5 years ago we had a very successful strategy of buying a lot of younger players with potential and hoping that some came through. That resulted in Carrick, Bale, Berbatov, Modric, Lennon, Rose who more than made up for the obvious failures such as Bentley, Dos Santos, Taraab. That mysteriously stopped when Harry took over. Instead we tried to spend the Bale and Modric money on mainly established talent. We did well with Lloris, Eriksen and Chadli, okay with Dembele, Dempsey, Capoue and Chiriches, badly with Paulinho and Soldado and I don't know what to make of Lamela. If I was Levy I would be wanting to combine the success of the youth oriented system with the performance we got under Harry
Nathan Oduwa and Dominic Ball have joined Rangers on a year long loan deal. Not sure about this one. It'll be good for them to play first team football, but the Scottish 2nd tier is pretty poor. Mark Warburton got a lot of impressive performances from loanees last season with Brentford, on the other hand. Playing in front of 50,000 supporters at every home game will be a good experience for them, too. Apparently they wanted Harry Winks as well, but were told that he's not available. Looks like he's wanted as part of the first team squad.
ESPN are claiming that Yarmolenko's on our radar, again. Given that Stoke were heavily linked and they've just signed Shaqiri, perhaps this one has some legs? If not, then it's just given me an excuse to link to his 23 goals from last season, with some horrific music to accompany them: Some amazing strikes, the odd tap-in, a handful of penalties and a header. Not bad at all. The Everton goal was probably the best of the bunch, with Howard rooted to the spot.
Terrible move in my opinion, especially for Oduwa. Here's a kid who, in pre-season, has been our stand out player and media sources were linking him to several English Championship clubs which would've been a great move and yet we've sent him to the awful Scottish Championship. Sending him to the SPL would've been bad enough, the league is probably on a par with League 1 and that's being kind, where as it's country's second tier truly is tin-pot. Granted both he and Ball can get experience in front of a large support but the standard of football is probably worse than that of our reserve league. Very, very surprised we've allowed Oduwa to go there, Ball perhaps I can understand as he didn't get an abundance of game time at Cambridge last season and I remember he came back off of a big injury before his loan so his development has stagnated a little, so he should essentially get a good amount of minutes under his belt but I feel really disappointed for Oduwa, can't see him progressing much in such a poor league, he'd have been better off in League 2. For what it's worth I became a fan of Warburton last season after what he done for Brentford so I'm hoping he'll be able to do some good for the pair but I just can't help feeling it's a really poor decision to send two upcoming talents over to a League that really is an embarrassment to professional football.
Yarmolenko has some silky skills too, I think he's be potentially a very good signing indeed. I certainly don't think he'll be going to Stoke now so we've got to be in with a good shout of signing him, if we're serious about it. I quite like the loaning of Oduwa and Ball to Rangers, we seem to have a good relationship with Warburton who weeks to play good football and the experience of playing in what is probably quite a physically demanding league, for a team with a lot of fans who surely expect a promotion this year, will surely do the lads good. You'd hope that they'd get quite a bit of game time up there too as there can't be too much quality in that league. As SoS says we could perhaps have aimed a bit higher for them but if we trust Warburton to bring them on and make them key players in the team like Pritchard was at Brentford, then its not too bad a move.
Mark Warburton did a great job in working with and developing Alex Pritchard. The club, in my opinion, are completely correct in once again trusting him with two of our players. I think it's a terrific opportunity for two players who have genuine talent, yet are naive in the way they play the game, the decisions they make during games, so this will be a valuable learning experience for them both.
Oduwa retweeted it. They're on their way for medicals and contract signing tonight, apparently. Everything's agreed, though.
Glasgow rangers are a huge club, don't overlook that just because they are going through a period of playing in the lower leagues, they will be playing in a packed stadium, previous attendance was 49,216, thats dedication for you, fans paying out of their pocket to attend games in a league that is low in quality, but players still get a taste of what its like to play in front of a demanding crowd, so can't see how this is much of a negative, as if a young player has talent, they will still improve playing in the Scottish league. The opposition may be lacking but rangers are under real pressure to get promoted and their team isn't that great so games will be tight some weeks, especially away and be good experience for young players. Oh, and Charlie Adam isn't doing that bad for a footballer that learnt his trade at Glasgow rangers, I'm sure Paulinho wishes he could have had the impact Adams has had in terms of end product!
From interviews I've read of youngsters in the past it appears that just playing in actual competitive games is a real eye opener and a learning curve for them so I'm not too concerned about what might be considered a low standard of opposition at Rangers. Add to that, as OS points out, Warburton has already done a great job with Pritchard and I think it's a worthwhile place to send them on loan.
He also did a very good job with Jon Toral, as Arsenal youth player who they poached from Barca, as they do.
