Bolasie is overpriced. The sooner we start playing this year’s group of young players the better, I think, and picking up another midfielder gets in their way. I don’t even want Berahino, as I think he had a big year last year because he was West Brom’s best option by far. One assist says a lot about him, I think. But Berahino is justifiable, or at least more justifiable, for being a needed striker.
I think Pulis' comments over the past few weeks would answer your question PNP, and I can certainly sympathise with him having watched the likes of Madrid and United dismantle our teams over the years: It's a sympathy-vote - look at us the poor footballing minnows being bullied well after the season has started (something Pulis keeps banging on about) by a larger fish who are unsettling and disrupting our painstakingly assembled pond with derisory bids for our best player. I'd imagine that Levy, being Levy, has firmly requested that this all be kept below board, and that WBA are basically saying 'sod off' via the media. I'd also imagine that the collapse of the Fazio deal had nothing to do with 'personal terms' Either way, this is getting as unpleasant as the Alderweireld saga and we urgently need to identify alternatives as they are being surprisingly robust in their responses. Look at how much grief Chelsea are getting from Everton over Stones - we don't even have a list of our ex-strikers writing op-eds about how Berahino would be a perfect fit at Tottenham! I'm beginning to worry, really worry. Our track record suggests that we'll be digging away at this until midnight on Aug 31st and end up with nothing to show for our efforts.
We employ all these scouts scouring all corners of the globe and the best they can do is Berihno and bolasie a week before the window shuts . I'm in the wrong job. The whole of this transfer window, pre-season and start of the season is a absolute shambles.
I'd guess they're trying to get a bidding war going. Pulis mentioned the other day that 15 teams were interested(my arse!). The narrative seems to be "Berahino wants to go and Spurs want him so anyone else better hurry up". It makes sense as if you leave Levy as the sole bidder he's going to grind you down and get a deal done on his terms. Still it's pretty unprofessional and I doubt it will work but you never know, United might make a move as their hopes of signing other strikers continues to fade.
Well we also went for Werner, Martial and Ings, according to the papers and perhaps there were some others that no one heard about too. Bolasie I'm still not sold on but Berahino's well suited to the league and has a bright future ahead of him. Can't disagree on the timing, we missed out on those players mentioned over a month ago, it shouldn't have taken us this long to find someone else.
A quick overview of our main transfer targets by country, and general status England Trippier (signed for £3.5m) Alderweireld (singed for £11.5m) Berahino (up in the air) Wanyama (up in the air) Wilson (signed new contract with Bournemouth) Schneiderlin (signed for Money Utd) Benteke (signed for Liverpool) Ings (wasting a year of his career on the Liverpool bench) Salah (loaned to Roma) France N'Jie (signed for £8.3m) Rabiot (this year's Leandro Damião) Martial (signed new contract with Monaco) Kondogbia (signed for Inter) Carrasco (signed for Atletico) Veretout (signed for Villa) Germany Wimmer (signed for £4.3m) Werner (up in the air) Bender (up in the air) Kramer (up in the air) Vogt (up in the air) Rode (up in the air) Italy Fernando Llorente (...actually, what did happen with that one?) Destro (signed for Bologna) Ukraine Konoplyanka (signed for Sevilla) Yarmolenko (up in the air) Spain Bartra (we presumably lost interest when signing Wimmer) Brazil Pato (up in the air) Poland Linetty (up in the air/missed) Belgium Mitrovic (signed for Newcastle) Switzerland Embolo (...although I think this one was made up) I'm not sure which is more frustrating from that list: the fact that deals for Martial, Carrasco and Konoplyanka all went tits up within the same week, or the sheer number of times it's unclear if we're pressing on with any of these signings or not.
Berahino is worth paying a big fee for because we desperately need someone like him as a striking option and he's actually good. Bolasie is overhyped IMO because Twitter loves a few stepovers. Hopefully we're well on the road for getting Saido now.
Agreed. Berahino would be as close to a marquee signing as we could ever hope for. One of the few players out there who would instantly improve our team by putting Lamela and Dembele out of their misery at RW.
Berahino has had one impressive season and he may be another flop. However I rate the kid from what I've seen and for this transfer I wouldn't be against us taking a risk considering we need a striker and he has improved as a player under Pulis.
So far I've been accused of being Tom Carrolls dad, Harry Redknapps golfing buddy and now related to Pulis.
Berahino has attributes very similar to Jermain Defoe. He's young, offers something different to Kane and we could develop him. Arguably JD didn't reach his fullest potential, possibly because we didn't work well enough on his mentality (often missing in the 2nd half of the season etc).
I didn’t know Berahino was a realistic option at RM. From what little I know, he’d cut inside and run into Eriksen and Chadli there. Tell me if you disagree. I gather he started up top with Kane on the left for the U-21s. It looks like a 4-4-2 is an option, though, which makes him a much better target, as far as I’m concerned. My instinct is to start Alli, though, and Dembélé too, for that matter.
When they played together for England U21s, they usually played a 4-3-3 with Kane centrally and Berahino on the left, and a proper winger like Redmond on the right, though there was a fair bit of fluidity between them.
Which is what Lamela and Dembele do anyway, just with zero end product. Alli looks bright but definitely not ready for a permanent first team place imo. The beauty of having someone with pace up there is that it would allow Eriksen to drop slightly deeper into pockets of space and allow him to dictate the game from there while protected by Dier and Mason. It's how Barca used Iniesta under Pep and how Ozil used to operate at Madrid - both were extremely difficult to pick up. Right now playing with 3 players around him who aren't blessed with much pace, Eriksen has to be much closer to the 'action' to pick them out, which allows the opposition to mark him out of the game. The arrival of N'jie and hopefully Saido will give us that extra outlet up top that will make us much trickier to defend against. For more tactical analysis, catch me tomorrow for my morning toilet session.
