Transfer Rumours The Summer Transfer Rumour Thread 2016

Unless Austin was the Pelle replacement rather than the fact he was available at the time. And they may consider Rodriguez like a new signing, but I think we should definitely be looking at at least 1 more forward player.

 

Sam is back in the fold. I'll say this, he does look very fit now. Just don't see us adding a striker. Might well bite us in the arse.

 

You really can't say that yet about Redmond.

 

If we are looking for a new striker, which I think most would agree we really should be, I'd like to see us go for Borja Baston from Atletico. Apparently they're prepared to sell, he's still young and has a very good record so far.

 

The striker question becomes a lot less pressing if we sign a genuine goal threat from wing/number 10 positions. I'm reasonably comfortable with Long/Austin/Rodriguez/Gallagher as options for the one up top (assuming we do play only 1) but we will need to vastly improve the goalscoring options from other areas if we are to be succesful.

A Christian Tello/Walcott type or two makes a lot of sense.

 

I think we need both really, I think Puel likes to play with 2 strikers and a 10 in behind them. I'd be really happy to see Gallagher reach his potential as he has all the physical attributes to be a good Premier League player, but I feel he needs a good loan where he'll get consistent game time.

Tello has gone to Fiorentina IIRC, but yeah we need someone similar to him.

 

If we play two up front then we need another striker. Definately.

Tello has gone nowhere yet

 

He's played front 2 with diamond midfield in preseason games so far. If that is the plan then I agree another striker needed.

What happened to the Bas Dost (?) rumours?

 

I think it's fair to say Redmond is not an immediate replacement for Mane. He's got some way to go before he reaches those levels. IMO Redmond is squad depth at the moment. We need another player to replace Mane this season.

 

Disappointed to see people pretty much writing off Jay already. You may be right but I think it's too early to say yet. Maybe he will adapt his game to become a different type of forward if he doesn't get all his pace back.

 

You may well be right. Will be interesting to see.

I predict he'll be in the England squad by the time the season is finished.

 

I think people are considering Jay as a bonus. We certianly need added quality in the squad in case Rodriguez struggles (form or injury) and if he's brilliant then great (and we can possibly loan Sam out).

 

Tello hasn't signed for any one yet.

 

Yup, just seen that I think he would be a very good signing for us. Would still like us to go for a more central attacking player though, unless Hojberg is going to be that guy for us.

Apparently we're linked with another CM - Recio from Malaga? Can't say I know anything about him, sounds quite similar to Romeu though.

 

Pretty bold.

 

Wouldn't have thought so re Hojbjerg going by pre-season. He's sitting deep in the central playmaker/Morgan role.

 

I mean in the sense that he does not play in the same position as Mane. Redmond fills a hole that we already had last season IMO. At the moment it seems like we are either playing 2 very similar strikers up front, or 3 quite defensive midfielders.

 

Agree with you guys. If we are playing a diamond and two up front, then we could use another striker. But then, I don't know what we do with Redmond. Tadic can move to AMC, but Redmond seems best playing wide, cutting inside.

If we stay with a 4-3-2-1 though, I feel like we need a winger as we lost Mane and I don't think Redmond is ready to fill his boots just yet. A goal-scoring hybrid AMC/striker might be our best bet. They could help us at AMC no matter what formation we play, and could fill in at striker in a pinch.

As for Rodriguez, I'm worried that he will never be as fast as he was pre-injury. But I also feel like he had shown decent improvement in the rest of his game in the month or two before getting injured. And I felt like in either the first or second game back he had a couple of very nice touches that opened my eyes a little. I thought he had also improved his finishing right before he got hurt, we'll see if he still has that.

If he has only lost a bit of speed, but makes up for it with the rest of his game I think he can still be effective. Especially if moved to a central position. But of course if he's lost a lot of speed or can't stay healthy, then we have a big problem. We never really saw Rodriguez last year at anywhere near full match sharpness, so while he didn't look that good I'm writing it off.

 

I have a feeling this may be another Michael Svensson scenario. This is based on nothing but other peoples comments on him and i hope it's not true. Either way we need goals as mentioned for the last 100 ish pages and i trust the club to address this.

 

I wouldn't write Jay Rodriguez off yet but I think relying on a player who's not really played regularly for over 2 years would be foolish.

If we plan to play one up top then I don't think we should rely on just Long, Austin and the possibility that - after being injured for pretty much two years - Rodriguez suddenly starts to play well in a role he's rarely played (and never played particularly well in) for us.

Rodriguez can probably play as one of two strikers but if we plan to play two up front then three senior strikers isn't really enough.

So either way I think we need another striker. We'll see what happens.