Hi lads, long time no see, hope all is well.. Now, more than a month gone, less than a month to go, and we've not signed a single player for next season, and my patience has finally been broken. It wouldn't be so bad if our start to the season wasn't the most difficult in Premier League history. The thought of going up against the likes of City, Chelsea and even Arsenal with Carrick, the only midfielder we can truly rely on is daunting. Anderson is not good enough and should be shown the door, Cleverley is a good squad player but will never long term hold down a starting spot, and god help us if we have Giggs or Jones back in there. I thought we'd see a change under Moyes after Fergies outright refusal to fix the midfield problem. But it seems to be the same old story, and now Moyes has reminded us "just how good we are anyway", getting his excuses in already. As he did when he claimed "I've only been in the job 3 weeks". Officially, yes. But he would have been in contact with the board about strengthening for the upcoming season the moment the final whistle went at WBA. Most of the ground work and foundation for any transfers should have been done immediately. It's not like Pellegrini or Mourinho have such problems. Regardless, it doesn't take 5 weeks from the start of July to make no progress on any deal whatsoever! Chelsea, Spurs, City and dare I say Liverpool have all strengthened, and seem to get their deals done in a reasonable amount of time, so what the **** are we playing at? Finishing 10/11 points ahead last season means nothing. We won the league in-spite of our midfield and wingers, not because of them. That's a testament to Fergie. We can't win the league in the first few weeks, but we can definitely lose it, and the performances pre-season have hardly helped to ease my concern about Moyes ability for the job. Someone at the club needs to pull their ****ing finger and stop pissing about. It's completely reminiscent of City last summer, and we all know how that turned out.
No point in signing inferior players than what we've already got just to appease fans and bloat the squad. That's City's job.
Varela was signed at the end of last season, and is not a summer signing. Neither is Zaha. And neither solve our midfield problem.
And given the choice, I would still rather have someone else at the club. Doesn't mean I won't support him. People harp on about how him and Fergie are "made from the same cloth" Bollocks. Why? Because of their accent? Fergie broke up the Celtic/Rangers dominance as well as beat Real Madrid in a European final. The two aren't even comparable. P.S. Don't think any Chelsea supporter should be questioning the support of other clubs fans after Benitez. Also see you're still camped on this board like you live here. Why hasn't someone banned this **** already?
Who would you sign then jordan? Who would really improve our midfield? Fabregas? Thiago? Who have we missed who was available in this window and we weren't in for?
Martino: "I've talked to Cesc, I explained him my idea. Of course we want him to stay, he's one of our best players. It's up to him." Looks like you could be getting cesc. The new coach doesn't seem to confident he'll stay.
It's not who we missed out on, but the length of time it's taken to get where we are, which is no-where. Some say we were in for Thiago, Thiago himself says we weren't. So I wonder why we waited until mid to late June to go for Fabregas. Surely it should have been done whilst Thiago was still at Barca to give us the biggest possible chance of landing him. There seems to be a complete lack of planning and preparation for this summer. We put one bid in for Baines that was never likely to succeed, it was rejected, and nothing has been done since. Fellaini (not ideal but certainly an improvement over Ando and Cleverley) would stop us being so easily overrun in midfield. We could have gone for Illaramendi, Kondogbia or Verrati. All players that would breath new life into a completely lifeless midfield.
Yeah, but its strange though, it was only a week ago he was saying they wouldn't be selling Fabregas.
As much as I want to see movement on the transfer front, I also want us to get real quality in. City have made a lot of purchases, but will probably be looking to alter their playing style somewhat and so they were always going to be looking to make a few signings. I don't think there is that much wrong with our squad, but agree that we need to address the CM position. It's pointless signing players who are only going to be squad members though as that will only limit the opportunities for some of the promising youth we have coming through. We just need to be patient as I do believe that a big signing will happen soon.
If you believe the rumours, we were in for Fabregas before Thiago, then switched our interest when it became clear Thiago had a release clause. And Thiago is directly contradicted by his agent (and father) who claims he was very close to agreeing a deal with Utd. There's also no real rush with Fellaini - if his release clause lasts until mid August as is rumoured, then we can grab him if the Fabregas deal falls through. To be honest I'd rather we spent our time going after top quality targets, rather than just chasing anyone we can on the basis that they might give us some new life. The 'let's get someone new and shake it up a bit' was probably the thinking behind Kleberson and the Djemba twins.
He actually said he "guessed" they wouldn't sell him. Like I've said before, all these denials by people with no connection to the decision, half hearted comments by people who are connected, and complete lack of comments from the actual decision makers implies that there is a good chance he may leave. Seems like the club is willing to sell for the right price, but that there are people within the club who don't want to sell and are commenting and leaking to try and derail the deal. I do wonder how much of a stumbling block this first refusal clause for Arsenal is.
Don't think the first refusal that Arsenal have will make any difference. Nothing has changed since he left, they're still trophyless, they again sneaked into the top 4 and they've since sold van Persie. And I thought the fellaini clause was only until the 7th?
I doubt it will make any difference, but it may worry Barca. They will be concerned that if they agree to sell to us for £35 million there is always the chance that Fabregas will then agree to return to Arsenal and they will be contractually obliged to sell him for £25 million. Even if there's only a 5% chance of that happening, it might still be enough to stop the deal happening. True, but if you believe the rumours that money is already earmarked for Luiz, Agger or another CB.
