The Winter Window: Transfer Deadline Day

BubblesNeverDies

Unfortunately the probable best of that young talent, Diangana (since he's appeared the most often) hasn't actually set the place on fire, has he.
It's unlikely that MP will play too many of the young players at the same, so there is still a need for good experienced players.

grey_til_I_dye

Bubbles

I don't know from fires...

To me, Diangana's shown already that he is good enough for PL level. He will only develop (or we will only know there is nothing more to come) if he is given a proper run in the squad/team.

It may go all Freddy Sears on us, but that is the risk you take when promoting youth.

Yeoldhammer

Zabaleta might not want to stay even if we offer him an extension.

My problem is we have so many positions that are going to be filled by default of players (wanting out and seems with an indication the club will let them go Arnie / Hernandez / Perez / Obiang / Ogbonna for instance and the out of contract players.) That we simply will not have enough money to filter in the main positions we need. If we blow the budget on signing two quality centre forwards. How on earth do we fill the 7 or 8 other holes ? we need a quality CM / pair of full backs that are going to need to cost decent money to fill also.
Husillos and Pellegrini would need to find several gems.

thornburyiron

According to Sky we made 2 signings but apart from the Benfica kid I can’t think of another one.

Yeoldhammer

Nasri on a free

BubblesNeverDies

Grey, my point was that I don't think MP will want to play too many of the young players at the same time.
If too many senior players leave, they'll need to be replaced (although not necessarily all of them) with experienced players. I can't see MP wanting to put out a team with more than 2 young players in it.

SuzanneClaret

January Transfer Window Face...

Pearces_Left_Foot

We all know several positions need an upgrade I would rather we get quality rather than quantity and I think MP will strengthen the team gradually with maybe 3/4 additions in the summer . I can't see us signing 8/9 players of enough quality as we simply can't afford it . If we get Gomez that's £40mio done straight away leaving £50 mio if we match last summer for 2/3 players . Unfortunately the prices for average players seem £20 mio unless you get another Balbuena for £4 mio

alderz

I'd like to replace a lot of the filler in the squad, but realistically that won't happen in one go, unless we replace them with more filler. IMO the most important positions are left back, centre midfield and striker. If Zab leaves then we'll need a right back too.

If we can get those positions covered there are plenty of others in the squad that could be upgraded on, and then it's a one in one out policy, for me.

My dream signing would be Loftus-Cheek still. I think he fits the bill perfectly for what Pellegrini wants to do, and what we need. Him next to Rice with Lanzini in front of them is so exciting to me.

I am struggling to think of a left back that I'd want that is realistic, but we need to upgrade and get shot of Masuaku.

Pearces_Left_Foot

A lot will depend if the Chinese come back in for Arnie in the summer

BubblesNeverDies

PLF, I honestly can't see it happening.
If we hold out for £45/50 million the cost to the Chinese club is £90/100 million because of the 100% tax.
There are surely better and younger strikers elsewhere in the world for a fraction of that.

OldCastleSwift

£45m is the release clause, but there's nothing stopping us accepting a lower bid if we wanted him gone.

Maybe by the summer, if his form dips, I can see us accepting £30-£35m, which for a 30 year old who may have already passed his peak, is not such a bad deal.

BubblesNeverDies

OCS, but that will still cost the Chinese £60-£70m, which for a 30 year old who may have already passed his peak, is not such a bad deal.
Plus, I don't think that there are any PL/European clubs willing to fork out £30-£35m for him.

MrsGrey

That 100% tax thing is only on fees over a certain amount (can't remember the exact figure).

Plus, I think I read that it was being abolished... ;hmm

BubblesNeverDies

MrsGrey

A little over £5million, and it's not being abolished.

https://www.scmp.com/sport/china/article/2174334/chinese-football-association-introduce-salary-cap-amid-raft-financial

OldCastleSwift

BubblesNeverDies said:

OCS, but that will still cost the Chinese £60-£70m, which for a 30 year old who may have already passed his peak, is not such a bad deal.

Not for us it's not.

But I do take your point.

alderz

Presumably, Arnie signed a deal with a £45m release clause because he thinks that's a fair valuation. If a club isn't willing to give us that, then we don't sell him. I think he'll end up staying anyway.

Huttonhammer

Ironherb
I didn’t post in December because the transfer window wasn’t open and regarding the football , as always I wanted to see if it wasn’t just the flash in the pan we have most seasons that just seems to keep us up but then we sink back to the usual poor football, players showing lack of desire and loads of injuries.
Nothing has improved and our last three games have been some of the worst performances for a long time.

alderz

Huttonhammer said:

Ironherb
as always I wanted to see if it wasn’t just the flash in the pan we have most seasons

Why aren't you waiting to see whether the poor form is a blip then?

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

If we don't sell Arnie, we keep our best player and match winner who's in the prime years of his career...So win-win

I'm encouraged following the summer that we are buying really quality, not just quantity (like the 16/17 summer window where we added 13 players)

Anderson, Fab, Diop & balbeuna have improved the first XI, and I'm sure Yarmolenko would've done the same

If we can do that again and add 4/5 real bits of quality his summer hile offloading deadwood it would be a great window again

jay_in_cpt

This coming summer is going to be massive IMO to see where our owners want our club to go, there are many as already stated who will be leaving, it will are be interesting to see how we do in the transfer market.

Ravel49

MrsGrey

Interesting comment from the boss in today's press conf.

"I agree with Pablo, but not only about Marko Arnautovic. A lot of clubs offer players a lot of money but they don't want to pay for those players, so the players want to go and their performances aren't the same."

Wonder who he means? ;hmm ;wink


But interesting tactic from clubs - offer big wages to the player and a low transfer fee to the selling club. Player wants to go, causes problems or loses focus - so more chance the buying club will get their target for a relatively low price. I hadn't thought abut it like that before.

A strong argument for getting those release clauses written into the contract!

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

That's how payet got the move

He refused to play, so we either got £25mil, so at minimum £10/15mil less than what hes worth....or you keep a player who refuses to play and whose price will continue to drop

ASLEFshrugged

The Chinese are unlikely to come back in the summer because that is the middle of their season.

They are allowed four foreign players who as far as I'm aware are the biggest earners at every club, in order to make space for Arnie they'd have to ditch one of the players they've already got and pay them off half a season's contract.

Adam

I think release clauses are mandatory in Spain.

Not sure I’d want it here though because the market can change significantly (buying a player for £35m a couple of years ago seemed a lot; not so anymore).

Tomw85

alderz said:

I'd like to replace a lot of the filler in the squad, but realistically that won't happen in one go, unless we replace them with more filler. IMO the most important positions are left back, centre midfield and striker. If Zab leaves then we'll need a right back too.

If we can get those positions covered there are plenty of others in the squad that could be upgraded on, and then it's a one in one out policy, for me.

My dream signing would be Loftus-Cheek still. I think he fits the bill perfectly for what Pellegrini wants to do, and what we need. Him next to Rice with Lanzini in front of them is so exciting to me.

I am struggling to think of a left back that I'd want that is realistic, but we need to upgrade and get shot of Masuaku.

Really agree with this, think Loftus-Cheek would be ideal for us. Also Norwich have a couple of promising fullbacks coming through so might be worth having a look at them and then add Gomez up top and we would be looking much stronger.

jay_in_cpt

Mrs Grey, my guess would include Chicarito, he has looked very disinterested...

thornburyiron

Pelle also said the only player we were interested in signing was Medel because he was a free but turned out not to be a free. Does this mean the Gomez stuff was all media talk.

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

Also I know this happens to us every year, but we currently have 11 first team squad members out, worst in the league.......Arsenal are next with 7

That is insane........even for us