I'd keep Royal. I think there's a player in there. Same goes for Reguilon. Would keep Lucas too for his attitude and effort but strictly as a squad player. The rest of them can go work at Butlins for all I care.
Similar to Alfie and CK, it's tough looking at this squad and feeling a strong connection or being happy with many. There's about 6 I'd simply refuse offers for and about 4 I'd only sell if the offers were huge/ well above market value, so not even a full XI. Untouchables: Lloris, Romero (assuming we buy), Skipp, Son, Kane, Gil (huge hopes for him) Not actively looking to sell, huge offers only: Emerson, Tanganga, Reguilon, Hojbjerg Everyone else I'd either accept market value for well or well below.
GK Watch A few cliff notes Sam Johnstone - 28yo, West Brom, England (3 caps), contracted until 2022 Alex Meret - 24yo, Napoli, Italy (2 caps), contracted until 2023 Alex Remiro - 26yo, Real Sociedad, Spain (U19 only), contracted until 2023 Emiliano Martinez - 29yo, Aston Villa, Argentina (12 caps), contracted until 2024
Sam Johnstone is home grown and on a free. Good signing for a cup keeper but not sure if he’s good enough to be number one.
The obvious advantage of Johnstone is signing him means we're one HG player up - or, to put it another way, we can move one HG player out
We can do that regardless of signing Johnstone and we can probably expect that this January too, I'd be very surprised if Dele's still here beyond the window and Johnstone will likely be a summer signing should it happen. Dele's departure could also open up a chance for White in the ECL as he could start in central midfield and allow Lo Celso to play further forward. Or maybe a spot for Markanday in the front four.
In terms of January, the obvious thing that stands out is we have two Non HG spots left open (but not for Europe, because UEFA) so feasibly we can move on Dele without having to pay English Tax for anyone in January to balance it out
He wouldn't be allowed to play in the Premier League either Most likely he'll be headed back to Ajax, given Daley Blind is allowed to play there
Ligue 1 Rando Watch On the one hand this sounds a lot like agent bullshit, trying to get him a bumper contract from Nantes by throwing a bunch of names around On the other hand he does have similar attributes to Marcus Thuram and Alassana Plea as he's got a combination of good control coupled with enough physicality to hold off defenders trying to get the ball from him, and is capable of creating as many as he scores, and given Paratici was looking at Thuram in the summer this might be a backup option
The main thing to be wary of is hiring an agent who is banned from practising in this country to sort out the deal, then after flying him into the country for the photo ops at the stadium skimp on the cost of a flight back to France to say goodbye to his former teammates and let the first bloke with a single prop plane take care of it Oh wait, last time that happened people just ignored the first three parts...
January Splurge Watch TuttoMercato have been first to nail their colours to the mast and suggests that Conte wants the following in January Stefan de Vrij Marcelo Brozovic Dusan Vlahovic Federico Chiesa Matthijs De Ligt Alessio Romagnoli On the one hand it's reasonably safe to dismiss the majority of that list out of hand as TuttoMercato click farming, but then again... De Vrij - out of contract in 2023 Brozovic - out of contract in 2022 Vlahovic - out of contract in 2023 Chiesa - obligation triggered in 2022 De Ligt - out of contract in 2024 Romagnoli - out of contract in 2022 While it's worth taking the list with a couple of handfuls of salt it's certainly feasible to go in for Brozovic and Romagnoli in January, and in case of Vlahovic a buy-and-loan back does seem feasible if it gets the price down as he's patently running his contract down and Fiorentina might be swayed to sell him to us rather than lose him to Juve next summer But, yeah, Chiesa ain't going to happen
What's the chance of us going to Metz and getting Pape Matar Sarr early in the winter window, surely Conte will want to get his hands on the best available to the club
Posted it in the Conte thread too but: Looks like Conte’s already gonna secure his first signing as reports in Italy are saying we’re close to agreeing terms with Kessie for a free transfer in the summer. If it does get agreed, I wonder if there’ll be intent on our part to do a Holtby-esque type deal and try speeding up the moveby paying a small fee to Milan in January?
