Transfer Rumours transfer thread fact and fiction

Casual bit of racism there

 

I thought Townsend was hoofed out because we wanted to demonstrate to him what his shooting technique was like...

 

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Evans is a punt because he looked good in Pulis' ultra defensive set up. He was ordinary for most of his United career and he's never really played in a set up like ours. Could go either way, I suppose but I see him being more of a Lovren going to Liverpool than a Toby going to Spurs, in terms of being able to cope with the higher risk defending.

Yeah, Dembele's a troubling one. At the start of the season he was all over the place, but he's been really good since the turn of the year, right up until the United game imo. Unless someone amazing becomes available I think we should keep him even if it means him running down his contract.

I feel like fans are too hard on Aurier. He'd had a lot of dodgy moments but he's produced some excellent ones too. The only time I've seen us really get done over is against quick wingers when Trippier and Davies are in the side. That's why I'd let Trippier move on and promote KWP. We need different options upfront but consistent options at the back, switching from quick strong fullbacks to slow and steady ones doesn't help us imo.

Bale's been floated as a signing but obviously that's very unlikely given how much he'd cost. Hopefully Martial might become a possibility, he'd suit us down to the ground imo.

 

Hang on... what the hell happened to Christopher Samba?!

 

For me, Trippier is a solid RB. But he lacks a lot of the attributes that I think we need. There’s nothing wrong with the guy, but when our two options are him and aurier, I feel we lack so much in that position from both players. I wouldn’t dream of selling Trippier, but I feel we’re still weaker than I’d like us to be in that position with our current options. Neither quite have enough, IMO.

 

He was last seen getting startled by a spider on the Molineux pitch

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For me he's just a good calibre defender, not the greatest but far from the worst and at £3m it just seems a no-brainer. We'll need a bit of experience in the squad if Toby goes and for the price Evans is available for, it'd seem good business.

Personally think Dembele's only had two good months and that was in Jan and Feb. Start of the season he was woeful when he played and then after Feb the good performances turned into "meh" ones along with some poor ones. Terrible shame to see him seemingly decrease so badly but that's football. I wonder if he's got an injury like Ledley, which is why he can't play twice in a week?

Aurier seems to divide the fans. Some want to give him the benefit of the doubt and another season while others - which I probably now fall into - are fed up of his constant ****-ups. He's progressively gotten worse as the season's gone on. Defending is so rash, crosses are woeful and his throw-ins are an embarrassment. Tripps is miles better and I'd happily fob Aurier off to allow KWP's progression. KWP on his professional debut played a better 90 minutes than Aurier has all season.

Bale would definitely fit the marquee category. Modric has been spoken of too. Martial is being ruined at Utd, could do really well under Poch. Spurlock made a shout of Mahrez last night which would be tasty.

 

FC Koln have been relegated from the Bundesliga, so at the risk of sounding like a vulture let's look for the best pickings in their squad
Timo Horn (goalkeeper)
Jonas Hector (left back, 36 Germany caps)
Yuya Osako (stiker, 20 Japan caps)
Leonardo Bittencourt (left winger, who was randomly linked with us a few weeks back)

 

Horn and Hector have already said they will stay at Koln.

 

I think DH has it closer: Jan and Feb he was awesome, but his performances started to decline after the media started bigging him up. I flagged a few weeks ago, well before the Utd game, that I thought he might have started to believe his own hype, but it may be more down to an injury/fitness issue as DH suggests.

I love MD and on his day, he’s one of those very special players you’d pay extra to watch. However, there have been too many meh performances in recent weeks, in crucial ‘big’ games. All positions are vital, but right now, for us it’s absolutey crucial and the club needs greater consistency from the incumbent if we are going to move forward. I’m not at all convinced that MD can fulfill that role, although more than happy to be proved wrong if he bullies his way through the next 4 games and drives us to 3rd!

 

It just seems so similar to Ledley. He could very rarely play twice in a week and that's what it seems with Mousa, and when he does play twice, one of the performances is often dreadful which signals to me that he's likely in pain and can't move as well as he'd like, he's lost possession so many times this season - in previous years, he'd only be tackled like once or twice throughout the whole season!

I'd be more than happy if Mousa wanted to stay but I feel at his age and now physical condition, it has to be as a squad player. CM is such a huge position for us because it helps get our AMs into the game, if we've got someone feeding those guys regularly then there aren't many sides who can handle the main three plus Lucas and Lamela. That's why I keep harping on about Seri, the guy gets forward with the ball so quickly that it'd be a defender's nightmare. I don't think there's a better CM in Europe right now that's not already at an elite club.

 

The Mail's reporting that age-old standard of football journalists, the double signing, with us looking to bring in Lazio's Sergej Milinkovic-Savic and Ciro Immobile.

First of all, Immobile simply won't be happening: he's Lazio's first-choice striker and there's no way he'll trade that in for being Harry's understudy, especially considering he's hardly a regular in the Italy team in spite of playing far more regularly than he would if he signed for us. However, it does need to be said that Immobile is the sort of player we should be looking at as the backup option given he's pacy, chases down every loose ball, and has a poacher's instincts - in other words, very similar to Jermaine Defoe.

Milinkovic-Savic, on the other hand, is the sort of player we need to be looking at if we're going to overhaul centre midfield as his style of play is remarkably similar to Dembele's, but he's got the added advantage of being able to spray around through balls from deep that none of our current central midfielders have - although considering the Manc clubs are both strongly linked to him, something tells me this might not be happening...

 

Fans were also very critical of Rose and Walker. It was the same things people said, "can't cross, can't defend, they're liabilities" yet they went on to be the best 2 fullbacks in the league. Jan got a fair bit of stick too. In the end it turned out the manager and Younis "he's coming back from injury" Kaboul were the problems.

Trippier lets them defend with an extra man too much as he doesn't get forward enough to draw out the fullback. He also can't deal with pace, his only hope is to stay 3 yards away so they can't knock it past him. He's far from ideal and we've seen the best he has to offer. I'd much rather give Aurier another year to improve.

 

Just because Rose and Walker became good it doesn't mean Aurier will too. The former two were both relatively young when Poch came in, they may have had a few seasons beforehand but nonetheless were still young players. Aurier is 25 and has joined from a bigger club than ours, he also cost a fortune, expectations of him simply haven't been met. A first season where you can attribute one red card, a few yellows, numerous fouls, numerous times out of position, two conceded penalties, poor crossing and the inability to take throw ons is just a shambles for a player of his supposed pedigree. When it comes to first team players now we need some form of impact or at least signs of improvement, Aurier's given neither and has progressively gotten worse throughout the season.

Trippier struggling with pace is such a myth, he actually plays very smartly when up against more pacey or skilful players, Sane is the only player who's given him a genuine torrid time this season. He's come up against the likes of Ronaldo, Hazard, Coutinho and Sanchez and gotten the better of them for the most part.

Tripps plays in a more safer style but I'd rather that than an outright kamikaze donut who's basically the FB equivalent of Federico Fazio.

 

Centre Back Watch

Yup, more of 'em...

Kim Min-jae (Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, 21yo, South Korea, Transfermarkt has no idea about his contract)
...so, yeah, the best I can chip in for this one is he's 6'2" and have seven caps, after that the only thing I know is he does good Phil Jones face and shares a name with an actor/K-pop star who goes by the name Real.be

 

Hopefully there’s at least one person at the club who might be able to comment on ability and temperament, even if not any contractual complications.....

 

I like him already

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For some reason whoever dreams up our transfers always seems to fixate on one nationality, which is bizarre.

A few days ago it was the trio of Portuguesers
In the past week or so we've been linked with a couple of South Koreans
Throughout January we were linked with numerous Turkish players
There's been periods where a bunch of French or Croatian players are linked with us in a short space of time

It's one thing to be linked to various players from within one league, be it the Bundesliga, Ligue 1 or Serie A, but quite another to be linked with a bunch of the same nationality who play in leagues dotted around Europe (or, you know, on different continents)

 

ESPN are reporting that we're going to open contract talks with Reo Griffiths.

Not happy to hear the use of future tense in that sentence...