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Football: Calling Dr. Rashford. European Cup, transfer shenanigans


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22 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

Also, that deadline is pretty laughable. Plenty of times in the past selling clubs have tried to flex by insisting on a deadline to complete a transfer but it never ever happens. If a deal takes longer to hammer out then it takes longer.

I mean, if Sancho isn't going to kick up a fuss, which seems to be the case, then Dortmund are quite entitled to set a deadline and stick to it. Why should they be screwed over because United are dithering?

United know the price and they know when the deal needs to be done by. There's absolutely no reason at all why things need to take any longer than that.

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12 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

I mean, if Sancho isn't going to kick up a fuss, which seems to be the case, then Dortmund are quite entitled to set a deadline and stick to it. Why should they be screwed over because United are dithering?

United know the price and they know when the deal needs to be done by. There's absolutely no reason at all why things need to take any longer than that.

The point is that these arbitrary deadlines are just flexing. They've never been adhered to in the past so there's zero reason to believe that this one would be. If it takes longer then it takes longer. Dortmund will not walk away from a potential €120m just because it might take Woodward a few weeks longer to stump up the money. 

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It isn't arbitrary really - Dortmund want it done before their preseason starts, which is completely reasonable.

And if United do deliberately wait until past the deadline, that would be incredibly obnoxious - Dortmund might even stick to their guns on principle at that point. And they wouldn't really be losing out in that situation, they'd get to keep Sancho for another year. They don't desperately need money, they just can't hold onto players forever.

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1 hour ago, Soylent Brown said:

And if United do deliberately wait until past the deadline, that would be incredibly obnoxious -


We wouldn't deliberately wait, we're just really fucking stupid.

Tbh past form says we'll wait till the last week of the window, fail to sign him, then get him in January or next year. Hopefully we have learned things from Herrera and Bruno but I'm not super confident on that.

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2 hours ago, Soylent Brown said:

It isn't arbitrary really - Dortmund want it done before their preseason starts, which is completely reasonable.

And if United do deliberately wait until past the deadline, that would be incredibly obnoxious - Dortmund might even stick to their guns on principle at that point. And they wouldn't really be losing out in that situation, they'd get to keep Sancho for another year. They don't desperately need money, they just can't hold onto players forever.

We are obviously not going to deliberately wait until deadline day. All reliable reporting has indicated that both clubs are keen to find an agreement as soon as possible but that doesn't mean that there isn't going to be some room for negotiating and big transfers like this usually take some time. Reportedly Dortmund were looking for the €120m fee to be paid in one lump sum. It's very unlikely that we agree to that. The structure of the payment rather than the transfer fee is most likely going to be the major point of contention. That so called deadline could just be nonsense as well. At least with the Dembele saga, Watzke publicly set a deadline - no Dortmund official has mentioned anything about a deadline thus far. Next year Sancho will have one year remaining on his contract and Dortmund will have less leverage to demand a huge fee. 

 

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Reports that Bournemouth have accepted a £41m bid from City for Ake. 

Sam Lee is also reporting that City are in the market for two CBs and that Koulibaly is still a target.

 

It's fucking annoying but you got to admire City's higher ups for the efficiency with which they identify and fix weaknesses in the squad. Already got a Sane replacement in Torres and looks like they will have a good quality backup for Laporte as well and all before the end of July. 

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I have no idea why all clubs don't know who they want and get them in time to do a full pre season. 

I'm not convinced Ake moves the needle enough to make that much difference to catch up to Liverpool though.

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I think Ake is going to be Laporte's backup. Sam Lee reported previously that Koulibaly is the #1 target to be Laporte's partner in the starting XI - now he would make a difference as there is a good argument to make that a starting pair of Laporte and Koulibaly could be the best in the league. If Koulibaly is signed then I'd say that either Stones or Garcia (most likely Stones) will be offloaded. Of course a transfer for Koulibaly is going to be quite a bit more complicated to pull off since Di Laurentiis is notoriously difficult to negotiate with but City have left themselves plenty of time to complete the deal. 

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Yeah, I don't think Ake's a transformative signing for City like Van Dijk was for Liverpool but he's a better defender than all their centrebacks apart from Laporte. It's a decent improvement of their squad.

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22 hours ago, Consigliere said:

Kicker are the only ones reporting that. Other reliable journos like Romano and Di Marzio say otherwise i.e. Sancho wants to leave Dortmund and is keen on joining United.

Not mutually exclusive. Sancho can be happy to leave Dortmund (without a tantrum, if it doesn't work out this window) for bigger things (including United), but still preferring in an ideal world to move to a club that is further ahead.

WRT the deadline. Zorc confirmed that there's this agreement with the player. If a club shows up within the next 11 days and puts 120m on the table, he is free to leave. I am still more annoyed how they poached Moukoko from our academy a few years ago, as he will become eligible to play at the senior level this year.

14 hours ago, Consigliere said:

Romano reporting that City have reached an agreement with Valencia for Ferran Torres - €27m + addons. That figure seems rather low. I feel sorry for Valencia fans. Peter Lim is really asset stripping that club. 

AS thinks it's 37m. Probably the addons

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

I'm not convinced Ake moves the needle enough to make that much difference to catch up to Liverpool though.

The gap was/is deceiving imo. There were enough games in which City were dominating and creating enough chances to put games to rest, if their finishing hadn't let them down, and them then just conceding on the other end. Southampton was a classic, where they squandered chance after chance after chance, allowed two chances and conceded from one. Spurs escaping with a draw at the start of the season was another example. And this is still the team that won the previous two seasons with 100 and 98 points respectively. If they had been as ruthless in front of the goal as Liverpool the title race could've been much, much, closer. Probably not enough to change the overall outcome, as 99 points are a ludicrous high number of points.

Funny how during the last three years clubs posted seasons with 100, 99, 98 and 97 points.

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To be fair, how are you ever going to convince a regulatory body that a Saudi money fund has no ties to the Saudi state. Looks like some American guy is interested.

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12 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

and just like that, 320 billion slipped through our fingers.

TBH, I don't get this complaint. You are basically whining that your football club has not become a propaganda tool of Saudi Arabia, right? I'd rather be up in arms, if my club were to sell out to MBS. Ashley is a piece of work, but I don't think even he literally kills his zero hour workers.

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1 hour ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

TBH, I don't get this complaint. You are basically whining that your football club has not become a propaganda tool of Saudi Arabia, right? I'd rather be up in arms, if my club were to sell out to MBS. Ashley is a piece of work, but I don't think even he literally kills his zero hour workers.

Chill out. It was a throwaway line.  

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I feel sorry for the Newcastle fans that they continue to be stuck with Mike Ashley. I can't say I'm sorry that we've avoided getting another propaganda tool for a despotic Middle Eastern regime in English football though.

On 7/30/2020 at 2:07 PM, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Funny how during the last three years clubs posted seasons with 100, 99, 98 and 97 points.

The year before Chelsea got 93 points too. That was a bit of a strange one though as despite Chelsea winning the title comfortably it didn't feel like they'd moved clearly ahead of the other Champions League contending sides the way City and Liverpool have. It was more that Conte came up with a tactical set up teams in the league really struggled to adapt to but once they did Chelsea came back to the pack.

As an aside I had a look at the league table for the 16/17 season because I remembered Chelsea got 90 odd points but I couldn't remember exactly what it was. United came 6th with 69 points that year. Outside of Liverpool and, to a degree, Leicester it really has been a poor year for the league this season.

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Reports that Rangnick has left Red Bull Group. Apparently he requested for his contract to be terminated. Unknown what his next move is since him taking over at Milan seems to have fallen through after Pioli was given a contract extension and tbf, he has done an excellent job.

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3 hours ago, ljkeane said:

As an aside I had a look at the league table for the 16/17 season because I remembered Chelsea got 90 odd points but I couldn't remember exactly what it was. United came 6th with 69 points that year. Outside of Liverpool and, to a degree, Leicester it really has been a poor year for the league this season.

Which was kinda the point.

City and Liverpool have skewed perceptions/expectations quite a bit during the last few seasons.

90 odd points a season were not normal. If you managed that, you had an exceptional season and won the league (one notable exception). But now, the league winners are posting closer to posting 100 point seasons. I mean even City's meh season still finished with more than 80 points. Which is still a good season (basically more than 2 points per game). In most years not quite enough to actually win the league, but good enough to be within striking range (4-5 points off). Like I said, expectations and perceptions are a bit skewed there.

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