James Olley claims that our summer budget is somewhere between £50m-60m (yes, I made sure to emphasise the first figure is in millions...) With that in mind it's probably worth forgetting players with 3-4 years on their contracts (unless it's 3-4 years on their contracts at clubs in the Danish, Belgian or Polish leagues...) and start looking at players who currently have less than 12 months on their contracts ...and, yes, I have been keeping tabs on this, as it lines up pretty well with some of the players we've been linked with recently, namely Timothy Castagne (RB, Atalanta) Robin Koch (CB, Freiburg) Pierre Emil Hojbjerg (CM, Southampton) Marcus Bettinelli (GK, Fulham) Arkadiusz Milik (CF, Napoli) Demarai Gray (RW, Leicester) Of course, there's a few others for us to consider, such as... Josh King (CF, Bournemouth...and looks to be very Levyable right now) Michael Antonio (CF, West Scam) Dayot Upamecano (CB, Taurine FC Leipzig) Timothy Fosu Mensah (RB, Man Utd) Alex Telles (LB, Porto) Matthias Ginter (CB, A German Team) Kevin Volland (CF, A German Team) Ferran Torres (RW, the dumpster fire that is Valencia) Elseid Hysaj (RB, Napoli) Adolfo Gaich (CF, San Lorenzo...who we were supposedly scouting last year, before anyone asks) Karol Linetty (CM, Sampdoria) Karim Rekik (CB, Hertha Berlin) Jay Rodriguez (CF, Burnley, because we've been linked with him for six years already...) Obviously some players will be at the centre of a transfer scrum, Upamecano and Gianluigi Donnarumma most obviously, and there's a bunch of players I excluded because of likely wage demands (James Rodriguez, Julian Draxler, Paul Pogba the most obvious) but there's certainly ways to get the most bang for our buck there, with Castagne and Koch the most obvious examples but there's certainly a few others who could so a lot to pep up the squad while also allowing us to allocate a larger pot towards more critical areas which happen to sound like "befensive didfielder"
Hats off to your dedication to the transfer cause sir, I cant be bothered until I see them sitting on the bench being ignored by Jose
Anything to distract from Napoli somehow finding £53m (+ £18m in add-ons) down the back of the sofa to pay for Victor Osimhen, when most Serie A clubs' finances at the moment look the exact opposite of those figures In other words, looks like Napoli will need some help balancing the books this summer...
ESPN saying we might be interested in bringing Nando back. Don't care about his age, he knows the club, knows the league and is exactly the type Jose likes to call on when chasing a game. Should've done more to keep him at the time, it's a yes from me. EDIT: Plus, he's also at an age where he won't be harming Parrott or Etete's development too much. A one or two year contract would be ideal, especially in the current climate.
Callum Wilson’s name has popped up in the last hour or so on Twitter. Looks like from two different sources though and one of them is the sun... so yeah, you know the drill. Based on the fact Bournemouth go down, they say he could be available from as little as £10m.
By the looks of it, Napoli must surely be cashing in n Koulibaly this summer considering they've reportedly had a bid for Osimhen accepted and are also after Gabriel Meghales I do believe that might come in handy...
Kim Min-jae Watch Saga Mode: ACTIVATED The South China Morning News report that Kim's apologised to his teammates for saying he has to do all the defending for them, which is a bit of a problem as the ultimatum Beijing Guoan gave him was "apologise or leave" for daring to suggest they weren't very good defenders Seriously, can somebody hack his Twitter and post a bunch of pictures of Winnie the Pooh? ...and, yes, I am aware there's a rumour about a big announcement tomorrow
Di Marzio saying we’ll announce Tanganga’s contract tomorrow. Whilst he’s not as reliable as Romano, I read that Tanganga’s agents/ agency is Italian so an Italian journo making that sort of statement could/ should have some legs.
please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image Rayan Clarke, Jonathan Dinzeyi, Tariq Hinds, Phoenix Patterson, Maxwell Statham and Maximus Tainio have all be confirmed as released ...although two of those were a given, with Tainio joining FC Haka a month or so ago and Hinds not signing a contract extension to the end of the season when the Retain/Release list came out
