Football - Never Say Die!

[Soylent Brown]

And whose best position is the same position Sterling plays...

[polishgenius]

2 hours ago, Soylent Brown said:

And whose best position is the same position Sterling plays...

 

Sterling and Madueke, who cost 30mil himself and who has been probably the most convincing of their January signings.

 

 

 

Anyway, looks like we've got Amrabat, and ETH has confirmed Reguilon. Happy with those. Amrabat could potentially make Mount redundant pretty much immediately but let's see how things go. 

 

ETH has also said Hojlund is fit, potentially to start.

Edited September 1, 2023 by polishgenius

[A Horse Named Stranger]

This Dutch International has started his career at Ajax before moving to Everton, Bremen and then moving back to Ajax.

5 hours ago, The Sunland Lord said:

Who is Klaassen? 

That is correct.

Please choose your category.

[Spockydog]

Liverpool rejected £150m for Salah. Talksport saying they are now going to be offered £200m.

This will test their resolve. 

Simon Jordan reckons the deal has already been done. But he's a total bellend, so there's that. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

We'll return to Jeopardy after a few transfer updates.

 

Bonucci to Union Berlin done deal

Stuttgart finally found a replacement for Mavropanos. They acquired Anthony Rouault at a knock off price (no fee loan with an obligation to buy for € 3m)

Wanner (Bayern) join Elversberg on loan. Interesting the 17 Wanner y.o. is (one of) Bayern's brightest talents. So that move is clearly designed to offer him playing time. Another youngster (Brückner) is getting loaned out to Hartberg (Austria).

Bayern still in the market for RB. After they loaned out Stanisic to Leverkusen they are short on options there. They are trying to get Caicedo back on loan again, at least that's the rumour.

Talking about Leverkusen the transfer comedy surrounding Amiri has reached its end with him staying in Leverkusen afterall (and not joining Leeds)

Frankfurt Borre leaves on a loan deal to Bremen. Niels Nkounkou joins from St. Etienne (€ 8m)

Werder in turn sent Salifou to Juve on a loan deal (supposed to get playing practice at Juve's reserve team in Serie C)

Betis signs Abde from Barca.

Sosa (Stuttgart) to Ajax for 10m. Bit of a bargain imo.

Kolo Muani. No new developments. Frankfurt are already in talks with successors. Their preferred target would be Hugo Ekitike (PSG). But talks are somewhat difficult. The player rumoredly earns around € 7m p.a. at PSG, max Frankfurt can rumoredly offer would be € 6.5 m p.a.  Then there's haggling about the respective fees between Frankfurt and PSG.

Update The Kolo Muani deal is off. He stays at Frankfurt. PSG upped their offer to € 90m, which would've been acceptable to Frankfurt, but the problem was the package (fee + salary) for Ekitike, which would have been too expensive for Frankfurt.

 

Oh and Welcome Simon Zoller!!!!!!! The veteran joins from Bochum to hopefully deal with our goal scoring problems.

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by A Horse Named Stranger

[Consigliere]

Kerry Hau reporting that the Palhinha deal has collapsed.

Eta. And Plettenberg reporting that deal for Bella-Kotchap is also off.

Edited September 1, 2023 by Consigliere

[Consigliere]

4 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Amrabat could potentially make Mount redundant pretty much immediately but let's see how things go.

Mount alongside Case was always stupid - Mount is not a ball winner and neither does he have the measured and controlled passing of Eriksen so it's very unlikely that he's going to be effective playing a deeper role. We've been playing with two 10s and not two 8s. Mount is quite similar to Bruno (but not as good) - neither of them are effective ball winners/interceptors (which is a big reason why the first line of our press was being so easily bypassed and Case left isolated) and neither really look after possession well, preferring to play quick risky passes instead. EtH made the club waste £55m to carry out a doomed experiment trying to shoehorn Mount into a position and role that he's never ever played in before. Mount's best position is at #10 so we paid a lot for Bruno's backup.

Edited September 1, 2023 by Consigliere

[polishgenius]

It hasn't worked so far and I'm not convinced it's going to, but to be fair, Mount has played that role before. In a completely different setup, with different players around him and more support in the ball-winning, but Lampard had him playing the Lampard role and iirc Tuchel did a bit too. I don't think it's where he's best which is why I didn't get it the transfer then and think Amrabat could well take his spot but it's not like Arsenal trying to turn Havertz into Modric. 

Edited September 1, 2023 by polishgenius

[Rorshach]

Seems we're loaning out Maupay (I'd sell, but who'd pay?) and selling Iwobi (which makes sense, if we're not going to play him as a 10). 

Not really convinced we'll have more people coming in, so those out means we know what we have until January. 

[The Sunland Lord]

4 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

This Dutch International has started his career at Ajax before moving to Everton, Bremen and then moving back to Ajax.

That is correct.

Please choose your category.

Now an Inter player. Is he good?

[Rorshach]

3 minutes ago, The Sunland Lord said:

Now an Inter player. Is he good?

Haven't followed him since he left us, but at Everton he fell through completely. Couldn't follow the pace of the PL, and ended up a peripheral figure.

[Consigliere]

31 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

It hasn't worked so far and I'm not convinced it's going to, but to be fair, Mount has played that role before. In a completely different setup, with different players around him and more support in the ball-winning, but Lampard had him playing the Lampard role and iirc Tuchel did a bit too. I don't think it's where he's best which is why I didn't get it the transfer then and think Amrabat could well take his spot but it's not like Arsenal trying to turn Havertz into Modric. 

The bolded pretty much says that he has not played the same role before. For the vast majority of his Chelsea career, he's had two of Jorginho, Kante and Kovacic alongside him so he had the freedom to push forward, take risks and with little defensive responsibility. Now he's being asked to be both a second creator through the middle and to do a Kante/Kovacic like job in ball winning, recycling of possession, interceptions and general defensive work. He's never had to do that before and has been pretty dismal at it all through preseason and the two league games.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

11 minutes ago, The Sunland Lord said:

Now an Inter player. Is he good?

He didn't work out at Everton, at Bremen he was pretty good. At Ajax he also worked out. Guess it depends on what you want him to do as a player.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

3 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Liverpool rejected £150m for Salah. Talksport saying they are now going to be offered £200m.

This will test their resolve. 

Simon Jordan reckons the deal has already been done. But he's a total bellend, so there's that. 

Don't think Liverpool would take it this late in the window. They'd have to have a contingency plan in place, which I don't think they have. If the offer came in the off season, or when the Fabinho offer came at the latest, maybe. But certainly not now.

[Soylent Brown]

The Saudis have to know this by now. this is just sillyarse posturing.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Quote

Fabrizio Romano reports that Randal Kolo Muani’s move to PSG from Frankfurt is on – giving it the “here we go” treatment. According to reports elsewhere, that move had stalled due to Hugo Ekitike preferring a move to Crystal Palace rather than Eintracht – but no longer.

Not sure what the guys at the Guardian are smoking. Transfer window in Germany is closed. So Frankfurt really couldn't sign Ekitike (or any other replacement) now, no matter how much they'd like to. And there's no way Frankfurt will sell Kolo Muani without a replacement coming in.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Meanwhile Dortmund are riding their luck against Heidenheim.

Heidenheim had one goal ruled off for a handball (extremely unlucky), and penalty call for Heidenheim was taken back due to offside.

Thus Dortmund is (still) up 2-1.

Edit: lol. After VAR review they have decided it was new situation, thus the penalty was reinstated and it's 2-2 now. Boy I bet Dortmund will be fuming after the game. WHole thing took 5 minutes. Haller (who committted the foul had been subbed off in the meantime) received a yellow, while he was already on the bench.

Edited September 1, 2023 by A Horse Named Stranger

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Heidenheim are pushing for the away win now.

[Consigliere]

40 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Not sure what the guys at the Guardian are smoking. Transfer window in Germany is closed. So Frankfurt really couldn't sign Ekitike (or any other replacement) now, no matter how much they'd like to. And there's no way Frankfurt will sell Kolo Muani without a replacement coming in.

There are French reporters saying that Kolo Muani is headed to PSG. Apparently Kolo Muani said that he will not play for Frankfurt again so the club was basically forced into accepting a transfer without getting in a replacement.

Edited September 1, 2023 by Consigliere

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Kicker also reporting it now.

 

€ 95m apparently. But Frankfurt not having signed a replacement will hurt them bad. From a economic perspective this was extremely profitable. He joined Frankfurt last year on a free. And a year later he is off for 90m +