Transfer thread for 2016-17 season

FWIW, ITKs suggest he wants us.

Would a Summer of Batshuayi, Janssen and Wanyama be considered good I wonder?

 

Don't see how we could accommodate Batshuayi AND Janssen along with Kane to be honest, would be unbelievable if we did have all three as options but I can't see it. I think if we sign two strikers, it'll be one of those and a younger option (or Harrison promoted as third choice).

I've already said Wanyama is someone I wouldn't want as I think he's too much of a liability, admittedly he can be a beast and a great DM and so I suppose as back up/ competition for Dier it's not a bad option, just risky due to his red card record. I hope we don't overspend on him though.

IF all of those were signed however, I'd consider it a very, very good summer. Strengthens the squad in key areas which we struggled to fill when the first choices didn't play.

 

Janssen, Batshuayi or Lacazette and Nicolas N'Kolou and I'd be very, very happy. Chuck in Yunus Malli and I'd need the Kleenex. We could afford these players. We might have to move on 1 or 2 but what a jump forward it could see!

So, Wanyama and the young Belgian 'keeper it is!

 

For what it's worth, I'd be in favour of looking out for an upgrade on Tommy Carroll. The role that his 'type' of player has in a blood-and-thunder system such as Pochettino's Plan A cannot be underestimated. Whilst it's clear that Tom unfortunately hasn't grown into Modric's heir apparent, I feel that if he does leave this summer we should be looking to replace and upgrade to bring in a deep-lying creative midfielder to really help mix things up against stubborn defenses. I would say that Tom is currently unique to our squad in that regard - Eriksen doesn't work in the pivot, Dembele isn't good enough at passing and Alli is too blood-and-thunder. Since Luka left, I haven't been able to fully reconcile with the fact that we don't really have a player whose job description is simply a picture of Andrea Pirlo. Part of the problem is that those players are so hard to find...

I've always been a fan of Ever Banega and he shone against Liverpool. Was almost available on a free this summer and was rumoured to be headed for Inter Milan until some bizarre clause in his contract was triggered by Sevilla that ties him down for another year - which may just be Sevilla's way of saying 'we'd rather you pay us at least something for the lad'. Either way this indicates that: A) Sevilla are basically willing to sell, B) He won't be expensive and C) Why are La Liga contracts so ****ing complicated?!

Another option is long-term Liverpool target (because pinching their scouts' notes is what we do best ) and former Valencia captain Dani Parejo. Suffered a miserable season under hopelessly-out-of-his-depth Gary Neville and was stripped of the armband by the man with an annoying accent, for underperforming. But there's a cracking player in there somewhere - 2014-15 he was one of the best players in La Liga. Liverpool were rumoured to have bid around £8m for him back in April which is peanuts but this was before Valencia mysteriously extended the contract of one of their most unpopular players (he used to get booed by the fans under Neville) by five years! I doubt they're that keen on keeping hold of him so the contract extension is probably a ruse to increase the 8 to a £28m and hope Liverpool are fleeced alive yet again.

Beyond those two, I can't think of anyone who'd be realistically within our grasp. The rest of the creative playmakers in the world are at far, far bigger clubs than our own. HBIC probably knows of some 18 year old wunderkind playing in the Japanese 3rd division though

 

Youri Tielemans of Anderlecht is the central midfielder I've been hoping we go for pretty much since he was first linked with us in March as he ticks pretty much any box we can throw at him - although he probably wouldn't appreciate us throwing boxes at him until he signs...

 

I think someone who can step in and fill the role Kane plays is a must-have, and a pacy striker is a nice-to-have, especially since Clinton may be a possibility. So I'm all for getting Janssen for the former role. I can't see us spending big on Bats for the second. Nobody or a youth player seems likelier. I also don't like Wanyama. He had two more reds than our whole team put together last year, and he'll go for PL prices. Nevertheless, the one player we most need to replace is Dembele, between him being out for a month to start the year, being injury prone and being 28. But how do you replace the best box to box midfielder in Europe (according to those who gave that award)? It can't be an easy question to answer, but will probably require some cash. Oh, and he also needs to be able to give Dier a breather periodically. Wanyama is an answer, but I don't think he's a good enough answer.

 

Alli is more than capable of playing the box to box role. Sure, it isn't his strongest position - but he made his name doing it for MK Dons and made his breakthrough at us there because Dembele, Mason and Bentaleb were all out injured and we needed a solution. The problem at the end of last season wasn't that Dembele was suspended, it was that him and Alli were out at the same time. Such an event spells disaster for the balance of our midfield. I'd be more than happy seeing Alli next to his best friend for the opening month of the season, with Son or Njie or <insert new signing here> given a run out as part of the '3', thus allowing Eriksen to move back into his strongest position as a central #10.

 

I agree Alli would be a good answer. I wonder if he'll be playing farther back again, for various reasons. On the face of it, pairing Alli with Dier, and leaving Alli's spot for Son, looks like a great solution. Son's preferred role is much closer to Alli's than Lamela's, I think, even though Son looks good on the right.

 

Problem is that Alli probably links up with Kane better than any other midfielder in the squad. I wasn't happy with Eriksen being shifted out wide to accommodate the youngster ('youngster' being a relative term when talking about Spurs ), but facts are facts - Kane and Alli have an almost telepathic understanding on the pitch that performances for England have shown is so strong that you can surround them with bilge and they'll still find eachother.

I see it as no coincidence that Kane only really hit form last season after Dembele returned from injury and Alli subsequently pushed up into the '3'. The first game with those two on the pitch was the 0-0 against Liverpool, where I remember Dembele looking immense and Alli feeling his way into a new position. Kane netted 7 goals in the following 4 matches and his season sky-rocketed.

There were many issues with the last games of the season, but above all they demonstrated how much our system relies on having both Alli and Dembele on the pitch at the same time. Without them, our Plan A slows down drastically, Kane looks isolated, and we cannot cope physically through the middle.

 

Kane and Alli need to be allowed to be physically close to each other, mostly in the centre of the pitch. That works for Spurs and will work for England. Having Danny Rose and Kyle Walker supporting out wide helps that partnership even more. We've dispensed with the Drinkwater/Vardy link (even as an option from the bench), so, it's our best combination.

As we are more or less a scratch team, if we don't lead with it and try to exploit it, then we will be home after the round of 16.

 

Because there weren't enough reasons for us to throw our hands in the air and walk away from Batshuayi while muttering dark oaths under our breath, the latest in a long line of him and Marseilles obviously using us as a means to angle for a move to somebody with more money than sense is him asking for £100k a week wages - which is literally double what he gets at OM.

Even though papers have been quoting a £20m fee for Wanyama for months, now he's apparently available for £11m. From the standpoint it seems like a far more reasonable deal, although there's another option: Milan Badelj has been linked with us pretty much since we played Fiorentina in the Europa League, is apparently available for £8.7m, and comparing the two it has to be said Badelj is a better fit covering Dier and Dembele.

Franco Vasquez has said he will be leaving Palermo this summer, but has said he doesn't know where he'll be playing next season. With that level of enthusiasm, he'd have fit right in at Man City last season...

Lastly, because a summer won't go by without another "Lamela returning to Serie A" story, here's another "Lamala returning to Serie A" story: Inter are offering cash + one of Marcelo Brozovic or Jeison Murillo for his services, somehow believing we'd be in any way interested. A more likely deal would be us offering cash and Chadli for Brozovic - and it wouldn't be a lot of cash.

 

Saw the 100K stuff in the news the other day.
We will have to pay those wages, as the Spanners will undoubtedly offer far more to get the guy.

 

Clickbait at its lowest, aimed at those behind the times.

For those of us fortunate enough to be riding the wave of the present, Erik Lamela has recently been valued at just what we paid for him, and the seven have revealed themselves as good business. http://www.foxsports.com.au/footbal...d/news-story/dec6723f9385aa91a8dcd7860769d6e5. Bale is valued at 62 million, less than two of the seven, and four years older. If we were to sell Lamela and Eriksen (don't hold your breath), we would have the money we got for Bale, plus, what, five million or so, plus Chadli. And that, my friends, is the definition of anticlimactic.

I'm sure the media will talk a lot about how wrong they were in prematurely labelling the 7 as flops. Not to imply that anyone's been saying this day would come from the beginning.

 

And we got about £30m for the other four as well....our transfer dealings for the last four seasons have been excellent.

 

Couple of noteworthy rumours doing the rounds today.

Spurs related, my brother in law just got back from a few days in Italy and apparently a number of newspapers there are reporting that we're hunting Fiorentina's deep lying midfielder Milan Badelj for a fee in the region of £15m, which rose from £12m following his appearance against Turkey and by that reckoning will be £21m by the end of the group stage

Elsewhere, and Stoke have apparently opened negotiations for Saido Berahino at a staggering £5m. I hope Mr Peace hears us laughing at his stubborn idiocy all the way from London.

 

Another rumour doing the rounds is that Man Utd have suddenly decided they would like to sign Vincent Jansson, which doesn't in any way sound like the infuriating habit both they and Moronho have demonstrated over the years of signing players just so other clubs can't.

 

What's your opinion of Badelj? Can't say I know very much about him other than a decent performance the other day...although in fairness Turkey were ****e and even I'd probably look world class playing in that Croatia midfield.

 

If true :

- that will be 2-1 to Levy on striker cost bullets dodged (Damiao + Saido vs Adebayor) .

- to those Baggies who thought Peace is Levy-esque, you don't sell your best talent to PL rivals.

 

We always knew Peace was digging his heels in for the sake of brinkmanship and ego. The player's stock has plummeted since last season and with Pulis in charge is unlikely to rise again any time soon. Even with the crazy TV money flying around, £25m is still a fortune to clubs like WBA and could've provided the foundations of much needed renewal in what is a painfully basic squad.

As for bullets dodged, I make it an even 2-2 (Adebayor + Soldado)

 

Yes, 2-2.

NEW STRIKER seems to be the thing where the cost of failure is highest to a club
(so I back Levy fully when he tries to haggle the payment terms based on the current
financial state of the club) .