Transfer Rumours transfer thread fact and fiction

I certainly don't think it was a well thought out strategy but given that Conte tends to play Emerson more than Doherty and the relative age and contractual position of the two, the choice of which one had to go is hardly surprising. I also think Paratici would have pushed for us to retain his signing over Mourinho's. There is still time for Emerson to come good and is also much more suitable if we switch to four at the back under a future manager.

 

Thought Doherty was a Nuno Signing ?

 

Mourinho was the coach and they both share the same agent - Jorge Mendes. He was also the agent of Gedson Fernandes, Carlos Vinicius and ****ing Nuno.

FFS!

 

Very doubtful. Porro is almost certain to start most matches so long as he doesn’t get any injuries so I can’t see Emerson having many chances to come good, he’s had plenty of chances for that to happen anyway.

Ally Gold also implied in his piece that it was Emerson we wanted rid of but he was reluctant to leave so Doherty then had to make way. I’d say Emerson is just on borrowed time - thankfully. Similar to Sessegnon assuming Udogie comes into the side next season, which he should, Paratici’s implied it.

The summer might actually see us clear out the dross in defence with Sessegnon, Emerson, Sanchez etc hopefully departing whilst also looking to demote the likes of Dier to a squad player with the addition of a new CB or two.

 

Deulofeu's name was mentioned after we got Danjuma across the line (I know, I posted it somewhere on here) - although the sources said that it fell through due to Udinese wanting cash up front or van ffanculo since they're knocking on the door of European qualification this season

 

The Athletic says we’ll target a GK, 2 CBs and a ST in the summer.

Three make obvious sense. The ST though is a weird one, is this as Kane’s replacement, or is this on the basis we’ve come to the conclusion Richarlison’s **** and we’ll bin him off and get another in?

Reports from a Napoli source also claim they won’t pay the option price for Ndombele and will either look for a discounted fee or another loan. I mean I for one am astonished they don’t want to pay for him.

 

They could also mean ‘striker’ in the sense that Conte sometimes says we play with 3 strikers. I suspect the type of player we’ll look at will vary heavily depending on what happens. We’ll need a forward anyway when Lucas goes even if we make Danjuma permanent, a decision will have to me made on Gil too. Obviously if Kane leaves we need a big ticket player to replace him. I’m not as down on Richy as some but he’s not a 20 goal a season striker and his fitness worries me a lot.

Plus the club will have to make a serious decision if Son doesn’t recover.

 

I haven’t seen the actual Athletic article, just the rehashed bit from an aggregator but I’d imagine the Athletic differentiates forwards and strikers to be honest, I think Conte uses the word attackers more so than strikers too, albeit I haven't listened too much to Conte of late as it's jarring listening to him this season, so I could easily be wrong there.

I think another forward/ striker would be dependent on a few factors. If Kane renews, Danjuma signs permanently and Gil is integrated on his return then I'd say we have good numbers, with Son and Danjuma at LW, Kane and Richarlison at ST and Kulu and Gil at RW. We may also have Parrott around the squad too as "the extra". But if Kane leaves, Danjuma doesn't sign and Gil isn't favoured when he's back then we could need multiple attacking players. The decision on Son will be a big one, I've said the same in the past but on reflection I'd backtrack and keep him regardless of his second half of the season, he's done so much for us and helped carry this team for years alongside Kane that if we have to carry him for a while so be it, I just hope Conte grows some balls and benches him if he continues his poor form.

As for Richarlison, I was never sold on him as you all know. I just don't quite get what he does or offers. I don't feel he fits in with our front three whenever he plays either, never seems to be on the same wavelength and he doesn't have the ability our main trio have in terms of being able to turn the game on its head via individual brilliance, he's the type of player that requires a through ball or a cross. We needed another option up top last summer but I think we got it horrendously wrong with him, more so when you look at how much we spent.

 

A RW was certainly mentioned during January, mainly as a Lucas replacement

...ignoring the fact we have one, but he got so pee'd off he went on loan to Sevilla

 

I’m hearing Man U will offer Greenwood as well as the cash for Kane this summer.

Loooool.

yeah sure.

 

Maddest thing is we’ve not even missed Lucas, so his replacement probably wouldn’t have played if he joined. Would’ve been like replacing Njie with Nkoudou, or nobody with Richarlison…

 

Soonsup-Bell supposedly joined us as he saw a better route to the first team here than at Chelsea.

Oh you foolish young man.

 

The most annoying thing about the Richarlison move was that for the same money we could have bought one or perhaps even two CBs to completely transform our back line.

Scoring goals has never been much of a problem, even at our lowest ebb. It shouldn't be with the likes of Kane, Son and Kulusevski around (and with Hojbjerg and Bentancur chipping in from midfield). Conceding goals and especially trying to play a system that requires countering from a low block was always going to be tricky with the likes of Dier and Sanchez around.

I highly doubt we'd be in the position we're in now if Richarlison had been Skriniar plus Bastoni/Hincapie instead. In fact, we'd probably be right on Arsenal's coattails.

 

I've said similar.

I was all for bringing in another forward, especially a backup to Kane but knowing that unless Kane gets injured we rarely rest, rotate or even sub him off, the backup to him could've easily been another journeyman or someone at the tail end of the career, in the Vinicius or Llorente moulds. Spending £60m on someone who can't play RW, is ok at LW and will rarely play in their preferred position of ST, was just another "doh" moment by this football club when it comes to spending large amounts of money, especially when that player is only worth about half of the fee we paid.

Just one £50m+ calibre CB alongside Romero could've made a world of difference.

 

Is this the point where I once again kvetch that we need a Kante-type and Modric-type player in our midfield for the system to effectively work?

...a sentence I have repeated since the summer of 2018?

 

He has not played enough, not has he played in a
formation that best matches his abilities (re Brasil) .

And on the latter, we cannot claim that the Brasil
attack supporting the strikers was orders of magnitude
better than Spurs this season.

 

He likely won't play enough though and that's excluding the fact he's been getting constant injuries. He simply isn't good enough to displace any of Kane, Son (form aside) or Kulusevski from the XI, especially Kane, who plays in his preferred position.

That's part of the gripe people like myself and CK have with spending so much on someone that doesn't improve nor make our strongest XI, we needed someone for the role but we didn't need to make it a record signing when there were more pressing needs that required significant funding.

The harsh reality is, we're likely going to be talking of Richarlison in the same breath as Ndombele, Lo Celso and co within the next 18 months, possibly earlier.