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Still need a midfielder that will chip in goals, coutinho/gerrard
Summer Transfer Window 22/23
- Thread starter robfosters
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We have Carvalho, Jones and Elliott? And it's not like the rest are 34 or 35? Madrid won with Kroos (32, 33 by the end of next season) and Modric (36, 37 in September) in midfield?
I hate this idea of signing bench players. Rather than sign a 2nd rate Fab that will sit on the bench, sign an upgrade on Henderson and allow Henderson to naturally move into that role as cover for Fab or in one of the other 2 midfield positions. I think that was the thinking behind the Tchouameni interest because Henderson is your ideal spare Fab.
Long term we're going to need to sign that Henderson replacement but short term we're not desperate. If you look back to the first part of last season we played that slightly tweaked midfield I mentioned earlier with Elliott as the right of the 3. Out of possession it was still a 4-3-3 but in possession Elliott ended up playing as a right sided midfielder. Elliott's injury and a slightly leaky defense resulted in us moving away from that and back to the old 4-3-3 but maybe it's something we'll look at again next season. It eases the burden on Fab, Hendo & Thiago and might be how you get the best out of Salah and Nunez in the side together.
There’s apparently been some interest from Spurs and Chelsea as well
Soldato
Yeah, fairly sure if we'd have spent properly on perisic he would've been great for united. Didn't we haggle over peanuts? Yeah, bad planning, bad transfer strategy.
Also, a lot of hte new staff are exisiting ones...fletcher - apparently smart/astute - but when has gained experience as a technical director? Who has the experience there to show him? Murtough has been there for years.
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What I read, and it may be nonsense, was that there’s a 10 million gap between Utd and what Barcelona want. Probably the equivalent of the usual Utd tax.
If he is crucial to ETH’s way of wanting to play, I really wish they wouldn’t dilly dally over it. Be tight over other roles, not the role we’ve been crying out for for the last few years.
Caporegime
If another club was going to swoop in then i'm sure it will happen either way. I think there is probably a 60-70% chance of the deal happening. Barca really are financially ******. They have a load of deferred wages to pay along with sorting out their current wage bill. FdJ is the most saleable asset they have who is on massive wages and isn't a staple of their side or a young starlet that they a desperate to keep hold of. Makes sense.
I imagine that they will sort out a deal that both sides are happy with in the next week or two or another club will do the same.
I imagine that they will sort out a deal that both sides are happy with in the next week or two or another club will do the same.
I'd argue that we signed Jota as a bench / development player, and he simply massively exceeded expectations. Berge (for example) has a huge amount of talent, is young, and has the capacity to do what Jota did, but equally would not kick up a fuss at having to deputise for Fabinho.
He'd be less of a bench player than Tsimikas, for example, and Tsimikas has been a successful signing.
I'm not convinced regarding the Jota point. Very early on Pep Linjders gave an interview and was straight away talking about having 4 world class forwards now but even so, that's a slightly different scenario. In Firmino, Salah and Mane we had a world class front line and it was always going to be incredibly difficult and incredibly expensive to sign an immediate upgrade on one of those. Signing a young player that can come in and compete with them but also with one eye on them being a long term replacement for one of them made sense.
Like the forward line, upgrading on Fabinho is very hard and would be very expensive but why spend £20-30m on Berge when you have a player of comparable quality (at the very least!) in Henderson who can be your Fabinho deputy? Instead of putting that £20-30m on a squad player, put it towards a long term replacement and upgrade on Henderson. You're not only boxing off your cover for Fabinho but you're improving the side too and bringing in that long term replacement for Henderson which you're going to have to do at some point in the next year or two anyway. It just seems a better use of our money.
Given how long he was on bail/under investigation I doubt anything is going to come of it to be honest.
If it does turn out that way, it’s a bargain to be honest. From our side it’s a shame that his stock as dropped because of the case as we’d have made some decent money.
Pity really, I'd like to see us sign Tielemans, he can be had comparatively cheaply this summer as his contact expires next summer and he'd give us goals from midfieldPaul Joyce has said Liverpool aren't looking to sign a midfielder this summer
Wijnaldum was a goalscoring midfielder for Newcastle and Holland, he rarely scored for us. The way we play doesn't (or at least didn't) allow for our midfielders to be breaking into the box and if we're now signing an out and out centre forward to play in this side I think it's even less likely that we'll play with a goalscoring midfielder.
The only midfield links we've had were with Tchouameni, a defensively minded midfielder and that plus the Nunez signing is making me suspect that moving forwards we may play more games with only play with 2 proper central midfielders + an Elliott or Carvalho or Keita in some sort of halfway position between midfield and attack.
The only midfield links we've had were with Tchouameni, a defensively minded midfielder and that plus the Nunez signing is making me suspect that moving forwards we may play more games with only play with 2 proper central midfielders + an Elliott or Carvalho or Keita in some sort of halfway position between midfield and attack.
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At one point Keita looked likely to chip in a few, but his shooting seems to have regressed......in a massive way.
He's always been a bit hit or miss to be fair. He's as likely to score a 25 yard volley as he is miss a 5 yard tap-in - both more often than you'd expect. With Nunez and Salah, plus at least one of Diaz, Jota or Firmino in the side then I'm not going to be hugely concerned about goals from midfield. I'd be more concerned with having more depth in terms of players that can play in the two most defensive roles in midfield, giving our attackers more freedom.
Nevertheless, I'd still like to see us sign Tielemans
A couple of years ago I might have agreed but not anymore, not unless he was extremely cheap (which he won't be). Anything that could be spent on him should be put towards the Jude Bellingham fund.Nevertheless, I'd still like to see us sign Tielemans
Last I heard, 25m was touted for him (last month), I'd be happy with 25m for Tielemans
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A few more goals from midfield would've turned draws into wins and the title, easy. 