Transfer thread for 2016-17 season

Not directly. If you happen to meet their agent at a hotel, fine. Once Ashley Cole turns up in person to claim £65k per week, things get a bit 'tappy uppy'.

 

Billy Ball works in baseball because, in a game of a 1 v 1 matchups, factors besides an individual’s statistics should be secondary. It should work in cricket as well. In football or any other game where all success (except, perhaps, a keeper’s), is the result of a ten man effort, it will not work nearly as well--and yet still has some value.

 

Mauro Icardi for £38 million, I like the looks of this.

 

Rumours in South America of interest in river plate's Lucas Alario, with poch apparently asking for this signing.

Also rumours in Spain that we've been offered Mateo Kovacic for £23m

 

£38m? We lost out on Michy Bats because of the huge fee Marseille demanded. I don't get why these journo's bother to write these stories.

 

This is the Inter Milan who have just been taken over by the Chinese and have untold wealth to spend on players and wages, right? They are said to be very keen on Lamela but come on, this isn't happening and I'd be very pissed off if we are wasting any of our efforts on it.

Kovacic, on the other hand could happen if we have £23m or so spare for another midfielder who will get significant bench time.

 

Kovacic would be a fantastic signing

 

L'Equipe are reporting than Janssen has rejected a move to PSG - and what's more, it;s been reported in the Dutch media that he wasn't involved in AZ's first pre-season friendly yesterday.

 

Sunday mirror claiming Madrid want Lloris for £35m. Their obsession with us is only second to Liverpools obsession with Southampton

 

If £35m is their opening gambit I am sure Daniel can push that up a bit - get somewhere near £50m and I would be very tempted to cash in on a keeper who is very good but has his weaknesses

 

You'd think we were the MP for Islington North the way some of the papers are desperate to stop us being a hindrance to their status quo...

 

If we could get jack Butland I think I would be OK with Lloris going but only if he pushed for a move...if he sees a future with us i want him to stay

 

I'd take £35m for Hugo in a heartbeat.

 

I’d like to keep the team together, but losing a keeper doesn’t have the knock-on effect losing any other player does. He probably won us more points over replacement, as they calculate in baseball, than any other player while he’s been here. But if you were to single out a player at fault for some disappointing results at the end of the season, it was him, beginning with that weak hand to the Sanchez goal against Arsenal, and going through a very soft goal against Southampton. On balance, I’d much rather keep him if he wants to stay. But if he did want to leave, I wouldn’t be terribly upset to get 50 million--if most of it goes for the next Dembélé in midfield, or perhaps a top attacking threat.

 

He would be worth more if he wasn't a mute.

 

Apparently the deal to us will be finalised this week, according to the same media outlet.

As for Hugo, I'd hate to see him go, but hypothetically if he was to be sold, I don't think £35m is enough in this crazy market we're seeing right now. I'd actually feel slightly robbed if that's all we got for him.

 

As I've mentioned elsewhere, and as Dona expressed above in his inimitable style, the biggest negative about Hugo isn't actually of his own making. He was handed the captaincy in what was a correct decision to entice him to remain at the club so that we had at least one top drawer player to help steer us through 2 turbulent years. The dilemma of his retaining the captaincy despite a plethora of class players around him and a vastly improved defence is now the source of multiple problems.

Poch cannot have it both ways - if he wants to take Hansen's 'you can't win anything with kids' to another level, it is crucial that the man wearing the armband is vocal, visible and irrepressibly active in calming the young nerves and settling the tempo on the pitch. Hugo sadly offers none of these things and as such, more so than the blunders you have mentioned, the glaringly obvious lack of an on-pitch field Marshall probably cost us 8-10 stupid points in games that we were completely in control of and then lost our heads later on. The draws against Stoke, West Brom and Chelsea all spring to mind.

I'd love to keep Hugo, but if selling him is what it takes to give the armband to someone who isn't invisible, so be it.

 

If we don't initiate a sale, we are weaker as a result. If players are leaving to improve their lot, then their colleagues will wonder about their own futures. Mauricio Pochettino has put a lot of faith in Hugo. He's quite visible in relation to off the pitch matters. If we are keeping a coveted captain of a top international team, then it gives us status and gravitas as a club.

That said, Jack Butland and £20m in the old 'sky rocket' wouldn't be too awful.

 

If we lose Hugo the we should go and raid Southampton again for that Forster chap. If he'd have been in goal rather than Hart we might still be in the Euros.

 

Oh look, Wet Spam have suddenly decided that Vincent Janssen is a striker they might want to sign...

Lucas Alario suddenly became a much more attractive option as his agent has revealed he has an £11m release clause, which in theory would circumnavigate any third-party shenanigans (such as the ones we'd have to negotiate if we were to sign Jonathan Calleri), while another advantage he has over Calleri is he holds an Italian passport as well as an Argentine one, greatly reducing the hoops we'd have to jump through to get a work permit...although a few new hoops could be added thanks to a bunch of moronic Little Englanders who were apparently born a week last Wednesday.

In other news, Chadli's been linked with Dortmund.