Just on this, how was Ulker funding the club when he was here? Through sponsorship. This was a massive own goal from Acun, losing a guy like that. And Tan as well I didn’t dislike Tan at all, thought he was very good for the club.
Reading between the lines I think we'll sell Pandur and I also think we might lose Palmer or Slater to free up space for a different midfielder. Is that Bistrovic still available, does anyone know? Kalman, Toast?
i was talking to a turkish guy yesterday and he didnt speak highly of Tan, he also said he'd heard from home that the efl were investigating all the transfers we had made to and from turkey
Bistrovic is still available, but we've got Hadziahmetovic coming in and he's had a full pre season. Bistrovic is an upgrade on Slater if he was fully fit, but he's not had much of a pre season and would need a few weeks to hit the ground running. We don't have time for that now. We've had all Summer to sign him and we haven't, so unless Slater does leave, it's unlikely. Palmer might go, which is a shame because when he comes off the bench he looks decent. He just doesn't seem to fit the system when he starts. We'll see, Acun loves deadline day so assuming Pandur and Hughes stay while Hadziahmetovic comes in, it wouldn't be a surprise if we let one of Slater or Palmer go so we can get another body in. Furlong going out might allow for a PL loan of a youngster like Kaide Gordon or Alex Murphy, but we'd need Liverpool or Newcastle to do us a favour. PL sides will be keen to get their youngsters out on deadline day and there's still some quality youngsters that haven't gone out, so if we have a space expect it to be filled. Kaide Gordon/Trent Kone-Doherty at Liverpool Alex Murphy at Newcastle Omar Khedr at Villa Jes Rak Sakyi at Palace (again) Luke Mbete and Mamadou Susoho at Man City Victor Musa at Man U There's plenty, it just comes down to whether they are willing to waive any fee in favour of their player getting game time. And of course, there's Millar and Matazo to come back too.
He is but like Toast said, he hasn’t had a pre-season with a club so would be rusty, similar to Alzate when we signed him last season. In terms of his player profile, I think he’s similar to Torp at Coventry i.e. a powerful box-to-box midfielder who likes to shoot from distance. I have no idea if we were even in for him to begin with. If we were, it would’ve made sense to sign him when we were out in Turkey for pre-season. He’s miles better than Slater though and I don’t think he’d struggle with the physicality of English football. He’s played in Eredivisie before and the physical aspect isn’t too dissimilar to English football.
Darko Gyabi midfielder from L**ds, on loan at Plymouth last season has been linked with us. We managed to get Gelhardt from them without paying a loan fee so guess he's a possibility.
Thanks Toast and Kalman. I mainly suggested him with him being a free transfer and fitting the potential profile of someone the gaffer would want. I also remember Toast saying he'd heard we were close to a Croatian midfielder ages ago, so wondered if he'd been on the back burner. Only issue with loans is we're close to five for the match day squad aren't we? Once Amir is in that leaves one slot which will presumably be Laalaoui? So decent quality frees seem to be the best option. I suppose we don't need to register a free before the end of the window, so might give us more time to review who is suitable were we to let Palmer go?
Probably convenience lol. He’s due to sign with a team called Akron. Now you mention it though, I do wonder if players playing in Russia have some sort of stigma attached to their name in global football. When Russia’s national team and their league were suspended by FIFA and UEFA in 2022, FIFA said any player under contract with a Russian club could unilaterally terminate their contract and sign for a non-Russian club. Wouldn’t surprise me if players who continued to play in Russia were seen as ‘collaborators’ by other European clubs and agents and that’s hindered their prospects.
Wonder if it’s worth keeping a loan spot free for January? That’ll be a real test as you’d assume any decent free agent would already be at a club so loans would be our only option.
Basically rules out getting anyone else this window though, which might be impossible if we sell Pandur or Palmer etc. I wonder if we try and get Zambrano on loan in Jan with a view to a perm next summer. Will get messy with matchday squads though like when Marco Silva came in and had to keep leaving one out!
Letting go of Simons was complete madness. It constant churn just doesn't make sense any more, we're getting nowhere and leaving ourselves short.
In order to finish mid table, you have to lose some games. Some people claim to be happy witth mid table but then react like the world is ending when we lose a couple of games. Ipswich are a parachute club, nailed on automatic promotion candidates by most experts yet they are below us on the table and only got a point today due to a soft penalty. Simons was not the answer unless the answer was that we wanted to be a league one team.
Trying to get Darko Gyabi on loan from Leeds. https://x.com/bazdjcooper/status/1962036379552006543?s=46&t=-vppaEoLxubIVT3akmMGDg