Well sky sports have just said that we are in talks with Valencia over Mustafi so I think that is a likely addition. Sky sports don't really do the whole rumour thing, they announced before the Euros that we were talking to Granit xhaka's parent club before it happened.
Lazcette?? He isn't and wouldn't be my first choice striker. Like Giroud, the French league has a habit of making ok players look great. Not that it's difficult as the French league is probably one of the weakest leagues in Europe.
If he does come then I can only hope he does well especially for the amount of money Lyon want for him.
Lazcette?? He isn't and wouldn't be my first choice striker. Like Giroud, the French league has a habit of making ok players look great. Not that it's difficult as the French league is probably one of the weakest leagues in Europe.
If he does come then I can only hope he does well especially for the amount of money Lyon want for him.
I feel the complete opposite. Paying £110m or whatever the final price is for a still incomplete player is just plain crazy. If we are the only team in the running (Assuming Madrid are no longer interested) why is the price going up all the timeWhether we can afford it or not we are overpaying by a massive amount. Chelsea got a far far better deal in buying Kante for £32m.
The price is actually a bit lower than initially quoted. It's not massively clear exactly what the cost is, due to the agent fee etc. Say it's £93m.
Kante would get us a solid midfielder, but he isn't much of a creator, we're crying out for some midfield creativity and drive. We have Schneiderlin and others to do the more defensive work.
Real Madrid are interested, but keeping the price high has meant they're priced out of the deal. Whether Pogba prefers RM isn't particularly clear, Italian sources have all said he's happy to return here. Di Maria was a different situation entirely.
I personally want the best attainable players, and if that means pricing everyone else out of the market then so be it.
In all seriousness if Pogba lives up to his potential, £93m will seem like a bargain. You have to think that United are one of the richest clubs in the world. Due to their commercial arrangements they can afford to do this deal - in which case why the hell not do it?
Its a gamble, of course, but with the Adidas deal, match day revenue and the TV deal its a risk they can afford to take.
Its a gamble, of course, but with the Adidas deal, match day revenue and the TV deal its a risk they can afford to take.
I feel the complete opposite. Paying £110m or whatever the final price is for a still incomplete player is just plain crazy. If we are the only team in the running (Assuming Madrid are no longer interested) why is the price going up all the time
1st Price isn't really going up , they wanted a world record and Utd are paying £92m for the transfer - so while technically £87m would have been a record, its not worth argueing about. The legal fees are a separate issue particular to this deal (well this amount of legal fees anyway)
Just one of those things
Kante and Pogba aren't the same type of player, I think most people expect Pogba to end up playing majority of his career at No10 (or AM) and scoring lots of goals (directly contributed to 20 for Juve last season while he is still improving).
Clubs always have to pay more for prolific goal threats, its the way its always been (and probably always will be) - you cant compare that to a high class DM / CM in Kante who scored 1 last season (but regularly made vital interceptions and tackles)
In a more competitive league if he scores a lot of winners in close matches, why not? Its not guaranteed at this point, but would it be surprising - not so much either
He is certainly creative enough already to do the un-expected which might be just whats needed
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Caporegime
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Thats exactly what we don't need. For years our weaknesses have been covered by players that can single handedly win games. Lose them to injury, age, sale or simply loss of form and suddenly we realised how bad a lot of our squad was. What we need is quality players that can play football, not another temporary band aid like Van Persie.
Injuries will ruin that plan, need depth
We have about 30 players in the 1st team squad (Not inclusive of Pogba). We could easily afford to lose half a dozen of those.
Mahrez, Xhaka and Mustafi for the price of Pogba...hmmmm
Considering Xhaka is definitely one for the future, maybe even highly promising but still for the future, and the other two are well worth the gamble but nothing is ever gaurenteed, who knows what will happen
Supposedly Klopp has said that its unlikely there will be any more signings for us this summer. So there goes my hopes of us strengthening our defence and increases the likelihood of another season with Moreno at LB. I fear our defence will cost us quite a few dropped points.
Of course, but on paper, i know which selection of players i'd prefer. I'm not a UTD fan though, if the fans are happy, that's all that matters i suppose.
If you watch his interview it was far from conclusive. He talks about any more signings depending on how the current players accept his decisions. There's 2 ways of reading that - either he's asked certain players to be squad players and if they don't want to then he'll buy replacements or he's told players they have no future at the club and he can't get replacements until they've left.
I've said before that I get the impression that unless we're particularly short in certain positions then Klopp won't just sign anybody - he'll target specific players and if we can't get them then he'll make do. Given that we were looking at a young LB that's barely played a senior top flight game I think it's clear that Klopp already decided that Moreno was his first choice LB next season - whether that's because he can't get the right player or because he believes he can give Moreno a brain transplant, I don't know. In Gomez we've got somebody capable of covering both full back positions and then we've got Klavan also covering LB and Randall RB. There's also reports tonight that Klopp's already talked to Milner about providing cover at full back too - he played there a few times last season.
Obviously that's not ideal and given that Gomez, Klavan and Milner's first role's within the squad are covering/competing for other positions, I think there's a case for us signing another full back to make up the numbers and tbh I'm pretty sure we will sign one too.
Seeing as he's our only senior RB, I doubt it.
I was going to mention Milner playing there as a reverse Lahm
It'd seems weird Liverpool didn't give Leicester a bit more and get Chilwell... obviously that probably won't happen now he's signed a contract extension, but it didn't sound like they were far apart in terms of the valuation.
I've only watched highlights but supposedly he played at both RB and LB at various points. Klopp did use him at both RB and LB last season, mainly mid game when we were chasing the game.
The problem with using Milner (and similarly with Gomez/Klavan) at full back is that he might be needed in his actual position. If Lucas leaves we're going to be touch and go in midfield as it is, we can't then afford to have one of our midfield options having to play full back for a prolonged period.
As for Chilwell. It was initially reported that we'd bid £7m and Leicester wanted £10m for him but I read somewhere the other day that our £7m bid was actually only £3.5m up front potentially rising to £7m and Leicester wanted £10m straight. If that's the case then that is a big difference in valuation.