Transfer Rumours transfer thread fact and fiction

So it appears that we sold somebody a couple of months ago and nobody noticed...

And, yes, he is real: there's an interview with him on Oxford's website
https://www.oufc.co.uk/news/2020/may/ben-watt-joins-oxford-united/

 

err Neco Williams is cover for TAA now if he was a LB you may have had a point .

 

I said it a few days ago that I would go for Deeney so would be pleased with him as a back up striker.
He works hard, is a decent finisher, links up play really well (which would help Dele, Moura and Son) and defends from the front.
Obviously not a long term solution but we could get 2 years out of him and Maureen is much more of a pragmatic manager than Pochettino so will play to his strengths (which we often failed to do with Llorente).

 

We have six weeks til the season starts...we should not be waiting 3 weeks to find out if we need to replace him imo.

That could leave a replacement no time to get to know the team etc. and leave us with another slow disjointed start to a season.

 

.....and Daniel can't figure that one out? What is wrong with the man?

 

Plus he hates Arsenal

 

Zeki Celik's name is cropping up a lot at the moment as Jose's preferred choice for the RB signing.

If that's the case, get it done. Worry about selling Aurier (or not) later. Same applies for Hojbjerg, I'm not overly keen on the guy myself but if he's who Jose wants just get it sorted and have as many targets in for pre-season as possible. Can't afford to mess about this window considering how little time there is until pre-season and then start of our season.

 

Spot on, we must do our business early we now have the Europa league matches as well to consider so no point hanging around trying to haggle until deadline day, if Jose has identified the players then get the deals done and have as many as possible at the training ground on day the first day we are back training.

 

Totally agree but I fear its gonna be very spursy again and a last minute panic to get our targets in place

 

You're right, we probably all come here every time the window items and say much the same, and yet we all know how the club operates and what to expect, so it's in hope and not expectation that I make my case and maybe just maybe we have learnt from previous windows? - Yeah ok ..........

 

Maybe jose will make the difference this time but I'm not banking on it

 

Getting the business done early costs more. The only people who can pay the extra costs are we fans. Either directly through ticket prices or via TV or merchandising. I am very happy to pay 20% extra on my ticket which would raise £15m if everyone did it. I doubt many could afford it though. People talk about ENIC investing but every penny they make back comes from the fans one way or another. There is the possibility of extra prize money of course but that is very hard to earn.

 

If we sign a RB in the next three weeks, be it Castagne or the once again linked Zeki Celik, that negates wondering if we need to replace him

 

I don't agree it costs more if you do business early there are plenty of bargains out there but it's up to jose and our scouts to identify them

 

The issue is the same issue a lot of clubs make with their scouting networks: they all descend upon the same league at the same time, meaning that there's usually two or three clubs identifying the exact same target and pushing the price up as a result

Case in point, we keep going back to Ligue 1 and have for several years (i.e. N'Jie, Batshuayi, Nkoudou, Aurier, Lucas, Ndombele, half of Lille's team) and realistically we haven't got value from this, as paying £11m for Nkoudou demonstrates

What we should be doing is seeing where other clubs are sending their scouts to and looking elsewhere, so if everyone else's scouts are looking at Ligue 1 we should be looking at the Eredivisie or Primeira Liga, or if we're looking at a squad option look at the Jupiler League, Prva HNL or Ekstraklasa

 

There is no plausible way for scouts to add value in the transfer market for players in any of the professional leagues. Everyone can see all the data. In any case signing any player quickly necessarily involves paying a higher fee and a higher salary because the option of not to sell or not to sign always has value.

 

I have a lot of respect for the way we are run and agree with many of your your view but I do not agree with your logic on this.

We have had poor starts to seasons in 2006/7, 2007/8, 2010/11, 2011/12 and 2012/13 and on each occassion we did our business late on and I would argue it cost us CL football in the last 3 of those. Therefore any savings were massively negated by the loss of CL money.

Even last season we signed Lo Celso and Sessegnon in the final minutes of the window...Sessegnon was injured so would not have started the season but Lo Celso was not up to speed.
In the first 4 games we lost 1 nil to Newcastle where we created sod all and threw away a 2 nil lead away to the goons.

This season is crucial to us. A poor season will see us struggle to keep Kane and Son the following season.
We are just over 5 weeks away from the season starting and we need to hit the ground running as a slow start could see us olaying catch up in the league and being knocked out of Europe and the League Cup.

 

I hear Jose is again keen on Lukaku, thoughts as a replacement for Kane?

 

Primeira Liga Rando Watch
Because we have an obvious lack of wingers in the squad, Record (the Portuguese one, not the Scottish one) are linking us with Porto's Colombian left winger Luis Diaz

Obviously there's a few good reasons why the first response to reading that would be a flat "What...?", namely he's neither a RB or DM and the small detail about being well-stocked for wingers, and it has to be said the £12m fee being bandied about surely isn't going to work out as he has four years on his contract and Porto supposedly promised several key players that they could leave this summer - but Diaz, as well as Fabio Silva, have not been promised they can leave

In other words, it looks like a bunch of agent talk to try and get a client who is guaranteed minutes a bumper contract. However...

There's three things about Diaz that stand out
i.) He has a hell of a lot of pace
ii.) He has good end product in spite of sometimes iffy judgment, with 6 goals and 5 assists in 29 league games, so could be coached into something good
iii.) He's a proper little pitbull on the pitch, not just going forward but also tracking back

While I doubt this will be a thing for the good, solid block of reasons listed earlier, one thing does strike me: if the plan is to move Sessegnon to LB this season, Diaz would be a pretty useful player to have in front of him as he'd take some of the pressure off of him, similar to how Aaron Lennon or Erik Lamela have shielded the likes of Kyler Walker, Kieran Trippier and Serge Aurier at various points in the past decade (which is something that Andros Townsend and, NLD aside, Lucas have been less capable of doing)

In short, if we are going to make a move, maybe wait until late in the window, eh?

 

You’ll not get a lot for 12 million.