Madrid will have to give him a new deal or he will be recycled.
Madrid will have to give him a new deal or he will be recycled.
Wait... when did Fulham sign Andre Schurrle?
How many players that started the play-off final are going start the first game? Ream, Cairney, Mitrovic, Sessegnon?
Betinelli binned off?
I'm a twit
They've bought some hotshot Spaniard but I dunno who is going to be first choice.
Those 4, plus Kevin McDonald probably. Cyrus Christie is still our first choice right-back, and he came off the bench in the play-off final.
Squad depth is still a little bit of an issue, also worried about left-back. Le Marchand could play there but he's more of a centre-back option. Ideally I'd want Matt Targett back from Southampton but they apparently turned down a £10m bid.
Bettinelli will be back-up to Fabri, goalkeeper we brought in from Besiktas for about £4m. I do rate Betts as a shot stopper, but I don't think he's a Prem starter.
The Catalan media freaking out over Dembele being photographed with Aubameyang and Lacazette
It'll never happen but it's nice for it to be the other way round for once.
Appreciate you might not have received the memo, but everyone's banned from mentioning the playoff final. Thanks.
Depends if we get anyone in and if Grealish stays. As it stands we're worse off than last season with Terry, Snodgrass, Grabban and Jonstone all gone.
Squad's decent on paper though and you can maybe offset those losses against the long term injuries to our better players last year (Grealish, Kodjia and Green).
Basically...I've no idea.
Have Manchester United signed anyone yet?
That Fred, right?
Thoughts on Erik Hamrén, Maz? He's supposed to be the next coach of Iceland and it seems like opinion over him is divided.
I've seen a lot of Swedish fans saying he's inept and doesn't know how to handle the press, but then again everyone said pretty much the same about Lagerbäck.
And that Portuguese full back and Lee Grant. Really exceeding expectations.
Joe Hart could be on his way to Burnley for £4m.
Why would Burnley want Hart, considering they already have Heaton and Pope?
I think both are injured for a long time.
Hard to tell in my opinion. He inherited a team where Zlatan had "resigned" but was basically in his peak at the time, so his whole reign became about bringing Zlatan back and building the whole team around him, and Zlatan is an amazing player but not the kind of player that carries a team on his own the way some midfielders can do.
He tried to make Sweden play a bit more "modern" - basically not a defensive 4-4-2 all the time. But it didn't work out amazingly. At the same time, I think it might have been quite hard for any coach to have to handle that team that was so blatantly inbalanced because Zlatan was in it. Without him, you can get the team working as a unit and "over-performing" like Sweden often did under Lagerbäck as well. He also basically was the coach during a major generation-shift in Sweden that has now to some extent happened. Ageing players like Svensson and Källström who just got worse with the years.
I kind of think he would be a decent coach for maybe a Spanish side. But I'm not convinced he'd do a good job for Iceland. But, maybe he learned a bit from being Sweden coach as well.
Joe Hart going to Burnley for that money would be a great step on his utter downfall. Five or six clangers over the season then off to Villa for next year almost certainly the next move.
Even so, there must be better options for a 3rd choice keeper even if it's just for the start of the season basically. Get some youngster in or something.
This is a dumbass question but is there some kind've rule that if a player is already registered for a UEFA competition they wouldn't need to campaign UEFA for an extra spot to register another keeper?
I only ask because google tells me Burnley have appealed for a special registration spot?
This is all probably way off base just thinking out loud.
Edit: Apparently Burnley only had to register for the Aberdeen match and will submit a new squad for further fixtures so that's not it. Sorry lads.
Last edited by bruhnaldo; 03-08-2018 at 03:50 PM.
Jesus. I thought he was still mid 20s. To be fair to him, he looks like he's been close to everpresent for Burnley since he joined, so probably just bad luck.
Yeah, I thought the same but when I went looking for what injury he had now I came across his age.
Had absolutely no idea he was older than me.
Week left and Spurs are no closer to their first signing. I wonder when the last time that a team signed nobody during the Summer window was?
They didn't sign anyone until August 23 last summer.
Imagine the tax on that.
Different rules then though. They've got a week left.
Lucas Torreira is so small I feel like Kante would look down on him. He looks to have the skills but I can't say I'm not terrified that it'll go tits up.
edit: They are in fact the same height, we've either got an absolute gem or it's going to be hilarious.
I reckon he'll be decent.
Who are Spurs even going to buy in the final week? Lewis Cook and Jack Grealish? They'd be better off keeping their money (which is I'm sure what Dear Daniel is thinking).
Glad it is.
Mina would be horrific.
What a partnership Alderweireld/Bailly could be. Let's all look forward to him in a three with Smalling and Jones.
Vidal to Barca(mate) seems to have come from nowhere.
Islington Tosser Kiko.
Barcelona is an absolute shell of a club these days. Where did it all start to unravel, the Qatar Foundation Sponsorship/Neymar deal where everyone in charge ended up in jail?
The club seems to have been run on a more short term basis than Chelsea which is quite something. You're struggling to replace Iniesta/Xavi so you go for Paulinho, ship him out after 6 months and get in Vidal? Guardiola already had to clear out the drunks once this generation and you're going to bring in a guy who crashed his car, pished, coming back from the nightclub at 4am in the middle of the Copa America hosted in his home country?
I can definitely see 'Pep' being enticed back there once Messi has retired. That place desperately needs some top down leadership.
They are lacking the sort of continuity that saw Arsenal make so many sensible decisions in the transfer market....
Somehow about Arsenal.
But if you'd like to get into it, I'd say Arsenal did have a very sensible long term transfer policy. In 2000 they decided to built a new stadium.
Before they built the stadium they heavily invested in a young team which got them to a Champions League Final without conceding a goal. Henry wanted to leave and was known to have back problems so was moved on to bring in Robin Van Persie who would go on to multiple 30+ goal scoring seasons. This team was an inch away from winning the league in 2008. The failure broke the team apart with half the team wanting to leave after the disappointment.
At which point they did panic but still brought in Mertesacker (captained 2 FA Cup wins, now is head of the academy), Arteta (Captain for Arsenals first trophy in 9 years) and Giroud (5th all time Arsenal top scorer). Middle tier purchases that were worth far more than the fee paid for them (between 8-16 million)
The summer after that was Santi Cazorla who's one of the best purely technical footballers I've ever seen, robbed of the last 2 years of his career by an infection that threatened him with amputation. Would make David Silva lose his hair a second time over if he had to compete with him.
Then once the stadium payments lessened brought in one undoubtable world class player per season (Ozil, Sanchez, Cech). After that it's a mess as it's a series of fights between Wenger and the stats nerds.
tl;dr
Arsenal are shit.
Alderweireld isn’t going anywhere this summer, which I’m sure will send him into a spiral of depression. Cûnt.
Far bettter to leave one of the best Centre Backs around on the bench all season again and sell him for half price next summer than accept £55m now. Great decision.