I didn't say he would have "only" flourished in Italy, I said he was tailor made for the Italian game - hence I mentioned the numerous other examples And, realistically, the game isn't international as leagues aren't interchangeable in everything other than the potential wages, as there's still types of players who can do well in one league but not another. This is why Edin Dzeko is on Inter's radar this summer (okay, part of the reason...) because target men have always done well in Italian football (i.e. Zamorano, Vieiri, Higuain, Toni, Morata) and there's value in Inter having him, yet on the other hand target men don't really flourish in Spain because the the Spanish game doesn't tend to play to their strengths And let's be honest, I think our experiences with Villas Boas and the ubermensch mean we are not in a position to suggest that the Portuguese approach to football hasn't negatively affected us, because they most certainly did
A lot of that comes down to two things i.) The Old Firm regularly do to other SPL clubs what Bayern do in the Bundesliga, so if there's a Scottish player doing well at a Hearts or an Aberdeen or whoever it's a matter of time before they swoop in, for example Leigh Griffiths, Craig Gordon, Billy Dodds, Ryan Jack ii.) At the same time the Old Firm clubs have long looked outside the SPL for their key players so the likes of Henrik Larsson, Brian Laudrup, Stiliyan Petrov, Shunsuke Nakamura, Frank & Ronald De Boer et al became the norm by the late 90s I know that sounds like the second is contradicting the first, but that also causes the issue: because the Old Firm are both bringing in talent from abroad while also cherry picking homegrown talent in their league, it causes players coming through their respective youth teams to find less chances to break through - and it is telling that Celtic saw the likes of Kieran Tierney, Callum McGregor, Ryan Christie all break through at a time when they had the SPL to themselves That being said, the fact that in the summer of 1996 you saw Paul Lambert and John Collins leave the SPL for Dortmund and Monaco respectively and by the end of the season Lambert won the Champions league while Collins won Ligue 1, that's something that doesn't happen now
Martinez Watch So it turns out there's another good reason why our attention switched from Dusan Vlahovic to Lautaro Martinez: Inter still owe us €12m for Christian Eriksen Now if I'm reading this right, that's another reason the €60m offered for Martinez is better deal than the €50m Fiorentina wanted for Vlahovic - because if we played it like we did when we signed Defoe, Crouch and Kaboul from Portsmouth, where a good chunk of those fees was made up of monies they owed us for Defoe, Kaboul, Pedro Mendes and Sean Davis that they couldn't pay, then that would mean what we'd be paying is €48m and writing off what they haven't paid for Eriksen Similarly, the fact that Man Utd are still owed €56.5m for Lukaku means that the fees they've received for Hakimi and are set to receive for Lukaku go straight back out the door, and I wouldn't be surprised if a sliver of the Lukaku fee ends up being what they haven't paid for Victor Moses yet, while Inter fans must be cursing the name of Valentino Lazaro because after paying Hertha €22m for him he's mainly been out on loan at either Newcastle or A German Team and is now a €13m drain on their resources Also, just a thought... Skriniar Watch: Summer 2020 Edition ...suddenly our bid for Skriniar being £10m off of Inter's last summer makes a whole lot of sense: Inter's valuation was £40m, so we attempted to offer £30m (which was our reported bid) and the extra £10m would be covered by waiving the remaining installments of the Eriksen transfer Obviously at that time Inter were in a position to say, no, we said £40m - but a year later they very obviously are not
Read this somewhere..bar the ‘rag tag team’ bullshit, I totally see it like this also…good article “Personally, though, as someone who likes his England captains upright and striving, I find the whole thing kind of a downer. Kane at Tottenham is a beautiful underdog story: the best English player of his era struggling to carry a ragtag team to glory. Kane at Man City will be a marginally less compelling story: the best English player of his era spending 40 percent of the season on the bench while coasting to some trophies the club would probably have won anyway. I don’t automatically hate superteams, but there’s a saturation point of talent beyond which a club becomes kind of a dead zone for individual players’ narratives. With the possible exception of John Stones, I can’t think of a single Man City player I wouldn’t be more excited to watch somewhere else. Remember how fun Riyad Mahrez used to be, back when he played for a team that actually needed him? Don’t you feel a little stone in your heart at the thought of what’s about to happen to Jack Grealish?”
I wonder how much of a draw Mourinho is now. After his record with Utd and us, surely top players - especially in forward positions - must be wondering how good for their career he is now. I know money is a factor, but on ambition they've got to think twice now.
Missed all the action over the last 24 hours, lol. Was probably handing the rings to by best mate as he married his beautiful wife around the time Son scored against the goons (my best man speech later on was a success too if I do say so myself!). And now I’ve just gotten home from the hotel and caught up on rumours and seen we’ve been linked with Martinez, albeit it’s sounding like the Lukaku sale may scupper our potential move. Hopefully we can add one or two more this week though, whether they’ll be able to feature against City or not would be another question but getting them in and training and hopefully ready as soon as can be will be good.
Romero is injured, Gil just finished the Olympics and Gollini will probably be on the bench. The starting 11 for City is going to be the same old faces from last season minus Toby, Lamela, Bale and Kane isn’t it
I don't get the Martinez link at all. It seems so strange to be spending that kind of money on a player that's not scoring huge numbers and doesn't offer much physicality. It just doesn't seem a great fit and we still could do with a couple of defenders and a more defensive midfielder if we can get a few moved on too.
succession planning for a departing Kane? Perhaps we want another striker of his mould if Kane stays. If (when) Kane leaves we’ll go in for Vlahovic too?
It strikes me as similar to the Portsmouth bring and buy sale we had a while back: Inter still owe us the majority of the fee for Eriksen and their owners are facing the very real threat of liquidation, so we're looking to write off the money still owed to us by having that count as a chunk of the agreed fee In this case, that would mean the offer we had accepted works out as cheaper than the fee Fiorentina are asking for Vlahovic
I agree, I think Vlahovic would be a better fit. I think Martinez might be an attempt to convince Kane to stay.
It appears that Inter's cash issues are worse that they first appear, given that the Gazetta dello Sport are claiming that even if they made the €185m from the figures being tossed around for Lukaku and Martinez, they'd only have a transfer budget of €35m due to owing tens of millions in installments for the likes of Lukaku, Eriksen and Hakimi https://sempreinter.com/2021/08/09/...e35m-after-cashing-in-e185m-on-lukaku-hakimi/
Just still playing catchup, saw Nuno's comments about Ndombele and not selecting him, that's now 4 managers who at different stages have not selected the guy. The fact Ally Gold also mentioned he may be seeking an exit due to the potential departures of Aurier and Sissoko (piss poor mentality) then we've seriously got to move him up the list of someone that needs shipping out. Hopefully someone with a bit of cash will be dumb enough to buy him, or we can somehow convince Barca to trade him for Coutinho/ Pjanic.
