Transfer Rumours The Summer Transfer Rumour Thread 2016

I thought he was late 30s

 

Any progress or news?

 

Puel again saying no new striker.

 

Soooo this rumour of a record signing is a dud?

 

No, it will be a wide player. Striker is not wide player.

 

Subject to the fitness of Austin and Jay this season, I think a wide player is more important than a striker (although of course I would love, and believe we ideally need, both).

But if we're going to persist with this formation, then surely a striker is more important than a wide player? Would seem illogical to sign with the latter over the former, if we're basically playing two strikers and no wingers. (Similarly I think this formation is crying out for a goalscoring central midfielder, who can nail the odd one from the edge of the box - as well as being very comfortable at giving and receiving the ball in the opponents half - but that's a whole different story. Maybe PEH can be that midfielder, I don't know, but as far as I understand it goalscoring is not his thing?)

 

Let's just hope that we will be using more than one formation this season.

 

*nods*

 

I really am intrigued by this, and have been for days.....

Since Puel arrived:
* We've exclusively played 4-diamond-2 in pre-season and our opening PL fixture with no wide midfielders/wingers and a very narrow midfield.
* He defines Redmond's playing position for the season as being a striker.
* He has also stated in the media that we will not be signing another striker this window.

So I'm trying to work out what this means and there's not many options:
1) We're going to possibly break our transfer record on a player that is best suited to an alternate formation to Puel's favoured 4-diamond-2?
2) Puel's actual favoured formation is one he's not yet used with us, but one that we've used before in the past (e.g. 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3) and he's just used ALL of pre-season to teach our players an alternative?
3) We're signing a player that currently plays on the left side of attack, but plan to convert him into something different? e.g. a #10, or a Redmond style winger-cum-striker. This second option there seems odd unless it's just that we're very intentionally playing it low key in the media as Puel has been very defiant regards our need to sign a striker.
4) The information coming from our ITK's is incorrect, and may even have been intentionally leaked by the club as incorrect just to test the communication channels out for leaks of information that could be deemed too detailed.

Now, while not wanting to start a riot, as the information of a small number of genuinely informed ITK's on both here and SW has been generally pretty damn good, I really can't see which of the first three options above truly make good enough sense to be the case.

Or is there an option 5 that I've missed?

 

Glad to see I'm not the only one a bit confused as to where a wide attacker would fit into our team.

 

I'm having difficulty working out the rationale myself. And what I keep coming back to is that the club is working under the expectation that we'll revert to our preferred formation in short order. That'd be my hope too, for what it's worth.

Regarding the ITKs, anything that comes from Guan is in effect a press release; he has said so himself.

After today, am I the only one who would seriously consider a strong box-to-box midfielder like Sturaro if one was dropped in our lap?

 

You could be playing a diamond because he doesn't think you have the personnel to play 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 at present. Maybe that is why he is looking for a wide left attacker?

 

Nah, whilst people keep going on about the diamond, we've basically been using it in a very fluid manner anyway - we played both 4-3-3 & 4-2-3-1 at times today. Almost all of our players can play multiple formations; We certainly won't be tied to the same one for every game. It'll depend on the opposition. IMO there'll be a lot of rotation this season.

 

That's certainly possible to be true Diego. The only problem I have with that as an option is that if we change to any formation requiring width then we'd have to sign a hell of a lot of players to have two in each position.

E.g. Let's say we went back to 4-2-3-1 again (last seen under Pochettino). We currently have:
Austin/Long who can only play up top.
Rodriguez who can play Left Wing or up top.
Tadic who can play Left Wing or #10.
Redmond who can play Right Wing or up top.

We'd need to sign 3 players (another #10 and a RW as a bare minimum) to have two in each position, and ironically LW is the one that we currently would have two options for.

I may be wrong, but I don't believe we're going 4-3-3 again this season because that was one of the club's biggest concerns regards Koeman going forwards, that we signed the players to play an un-specified formation preferred by the club, that he then didn't play them in as he favoured 4-3-3.

 

tbf you need to be able to change as so many teams do so during the game and you need to counter.

 

Agreed, but as Killer just pointed out formations change quite fluidly, maybe he wants more options to be able to make those changes "in-game"?

 

The midfield diamond eventually faded, and Redmond/Tadic started taking up wide areas, but it was difficult to tell whether that was by design or because the players gravitated toward their comfort zones. The like-for-like swaps suggest that Puel, at least, expected us to retain the setup.

 

I have absolutely no idea what the diamond is or how it is supposed to work. Certainly none the wiser after yesterday. Did we abandon it in the 2nd half? Does anyone know? Looked to me like we didn't have much shape in the middle, but plenty of width. Isn't that the opposite of what a diamond is supposed to be? Confused.

 

Media awash with Fonte rumours suggesting that Mourinho is interested....not that that means we will accept of course. Odd that Fonte didn't feature yesterday....either not fully fit (unlikely as Cedric played), sulking (possibly as he has been largely absent from pre-season interviews....apart from piece in programme and comment on Instagram....not like Fonte at all) or not being played because he's about to move (would we really let him go except for truly stupid money). It may be a combination of both the last 2 reasons....it's up in the air and his mind isn't in the right place.

What do I think of it if he is tempted by a move to United? I understand as a human being that a chance of finishing his career at a top club would look great on his CV and his head has been inflated by the Euros...perhaps he sees himself as learning about being a coach by becoming attached to Mourinho, but I cannot deny I would be bitterly disappointed in him.

What does it mean for us? There is no doubt that we were all beginning to think beyond Fonte...a stalwart in our defence with strong leadership qualities...but for how many more years would he be a certain starter...two? We have a new strong leader in Virgil, so that helps....but can we really let him go at this stage. The money is unlikely to be enough to make up for losing him at this moment.

 

Enough of the waffle. What is the real reason why you believe we should resist letting him leave?