Cristian Ceballos has signed for Charlton, following the expiration of his contract with us. Probably a good signing for them. Showed flashes of real talent at times, despite falling out of favour last season.
Gossip re. Berahino today makes it look like it is on, but it is after all just gossip. He'd be a very good signing though. Hopefully we can use the money we'll save annually on wages once Ade leaves partly to draw in Berahino and partly to offset his transfer fee too. Vlad has been linked to foreign clubs too which is encouraging, hopefully there is some truth in the links.
I'll believe nothing until Ade is officially gone. I figure the last remaining deals, including any striker additions, hinge on that happening. I can even imagine Soldado staying if Ade leaves.
It would be far more encouraging and far more gratifying if he were to move to a fellow premier league club.
Preferably Chelsea to fill the gaping comedy hole David 'Sideshow Bob' Luiz has left there. I seem to remember Chiriches's agent spouting some guff upon joining us that he wanted to eventually move on to Chelsea or something like that. Well go on Vlad - live that dream!
I remember saying after watching Chiriches a couple of times, what a decent signing he looked. That will teach me not to post on here after a few glasses of Rioja.
A good signing for Charlton and a good move for a player who should be capable of doing well at that level.
I think a lot of us thought he looked a player. Unfortunately his defending increasingly started to look like that video of him trying to walk on the ice whilst plastered.
Lots of chatter about Dzeko to Roma, even the beeb have picked up on it. Could we perhaps use our 'special relationship' with Roma (having overpaid for Lamela by 300%) to have a look at Destro or maybe Doumbia? I don't think either would cost a fortune - especially Destro whose contract runs out pretty soon (although I think Milan have first dibs on him). Both have decent scoring records and are quite young, and Doumbia in particular is a very versatile player and can run the wings if necessary.
I can't help but wonder how many of our summer targets we've missed out on, given the list of players we've been linked with going elsewhere: Schneiderlin - Manchester Club with an Oversized Chequebook Benteke - Liverpool Ings - Liverpool Konoplyanka - Sevilla Carrasco - Atletico Suarez - Fiorentina Cabaye - Palace Imbula - Porto Ayew - Swansea Kondogbia - Inter Mitrovic - Newcastle Depay - Manchester Club with an Oversized Chequebook Martial - re-signed with Monaco
I think we are linked with most players though...4 years ago we were linked with over a hundred players and we signed none of them...but did get VDV! The are so many papers and websites chasing stories that rumours get reported as a fact
I guess its because unless we can for certain know that Spurs were seriously interested or even bid for any of those players, they can only be called 'alleged targets', although we mostly ignore that sensibility and rightly so because its a bit naff to say it all the time. We will never know for certain if we actually were interested and to what extent that interest manifested itself in those players, although it seems fairly certain that we were looking at the likes of Ings, Martial, Konoplyanka, Benteke and perhaps Schneiderlin (purely out of hope) too. They're certainly all players you'd have thought the club would like to sign though, particularly the DMs, although I think its fair to presume that with the increasing likelihood of Ade and Vlad and perhaps Soldado and Lennon or Townsend leaving in the next week or so, that we will add players again. I think we'll have the squad sorted by the time the Audi Cup games come around, barring any last minute VdV-esque deals.
My opinion is that Levy is comparison shopping. It may be a combination of seeing what the best deal is for a range of targets, expressing interest in some as a bargaining tactic to drive down the price of others, and playing musical chairs, i.e. seeing who is left with too many players and/or not enough cash when the music stops. The game has its hazards.
It looks like we haven't run out of central midfield targets yet: Jordan Veretout of Nantes is the latest name to be linked with us - although this does seem to imply that the club have decided that any attempt to sign Rabiot is going to lead to a prolonged saga, so it's best to look elsewhere PDQ.
Did we only send our scouts to France last season? Or are they just all trapped there now due to the ongoing problems at Calais, and just sending through reports of French players in order to appear busy!
