tajjuk

I don't get this persistent nonsense that keeps cropping up from people about KWP being unhappy because he played left back, there are several quotes of him saying he's enjoyed it and he played there for Spurs, PLUS he literally got into the England team because of it and that versatility gives him a greater shout of making the World Cup squad. IF he leaves and it's a big IF IMO, then it will be because a bigger club offers him more money and more chances for trophies etc. but likely only if they meet our high valuation and highly doubt he is going to agitate a move to Chelsea to be a back up full back. I am not saying he wouldn't go if we accepted a bid, but at the same time I don't see him making a fuss about if we reject bids.

If Brighton aren't accepting less than £50 million for Cucurella them KWP is clearly worth more than that. He's more experienced in this league, English, can play comfortably both sides as well and out performed him last year.

Havertz played up front most of last season.

Hopefully we are poised to strike on some deals of players who have been angling for bigger moves that don't materialise.

Getting some Tadic vibes about him, left footed, very good close control, not rapid but fast enough, composed. Hopefully he will be that extra bit of creativity in the final third we have been missing.

I'd be surprised if we were paying him that much straight out the Man City U23s.

Pointed this out the other day, Vestergaard had nearly 200 Bundesliga games under his belt for a good side, he'd played champions league football and international football. But he turned out thoroughly average at best. 'Experience' at our price bracket often means proven mediocrity, usually coupled with high wages that then become hard to get off the wage bill. Considering all transfers are a gamble anyway, I'd prefer young inexperienced players who might turn out to be way way better than their initial transfer fees (like Tino) rather than 'experienced' players that are likely to be average or no different from what we have. The experienced players route IMO is just basically a slow walk to relegation. All those clubs like West Brom, Stoke, Burnley etc. did that route, and eventually all of them went down pretty much. The young players might lead to relegation too, but I think there is also a much better chance of us doing something unexpected and over performing.

Yeh it's alright we'll get him back in a few years when he realises he won't get near that first team as they buy another £50 million attacking midfielder to go with their other 8 they already have.

It's currently ranked 7th by UEFA, mainly because of Ajax doing well recently in the Champs league, back in 16/17 it was ranked 13th, in 15/16 it was ranked 10th. It just not a very good league and is not very strong. It's why there has been talk of a combined Dutch/Belgian league. The top league in Europe are the PL, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1, then pretty much consistently the The Primeira Liga, and the strength of the latter two are already dubious. Players from outside those leagues, you are talking about people playing against lowly paid professional footballers, certainly overall less strong than say our own Championship. Someone like Lavia training with world class players and playing against the reserves teams of Liverpool, Utd, Chelsea, etc. is probably facing harder opponents than facing VV Venlo or the like.

Er Austria, the Eredivisie and Scotland are not 'top leagues in Europe' and arguably all were worse then than they are now. You are talking about like 8-10th level leagues in Europe, teams in a Eredivisie, some of them have lower budgets than league 1 clubs. The average salary is about £5k a week and that average is pushed up Ajax who in 2020 had 10 of the 12 highest paid players in the league. People free scoring in that league are often free scoring against League 1/League 2 level defenders in some cases. Also Toby was not playing for Atletico, hence why we got him on loan, he had only played 12 games in La Liga, before that it was only Eredivisie. He wanted game time. Really he was a squad player for a big European club, so basically no different from Lemina or Hoedt and look how they turned out. Elynoussi was playing for Basel and had put some very good performances in the Champs league, so that is pretty similar to Mane (Austrian and Swiss league are a similar level) but he wasn't successful either. Pelle had struggled in SERIE B before going to Feyenoord and there is whole host of high scoring Eredivisie players who have flopped like van Wolfswinkel or Afonso Alves None of these players were proven in top European leagues at all and all of them were clearly gambles, like most signings are. I'd also point to someone like Vestergaard who had 180 ish games in the Bundesliga when we signed him, a good 15+ national caps, and had played in the Champions League as well. WAY WAY more 'big league' experience than anyone you mentioned, but turned out a lot worse.

Really? I think Koeman has proved after he left us that he was a thoroughly average manager, good recruitment built that team and he got lucky with it IMO.

I feel like having the world's best set piece taker might also be playing a role.

IIRC quite a surprising proportion of ex-pats living in places like Spain voted to leave for some baffling reason.

No that makes no sense, on that logic its pointless to have it on TV, just have it streamed on a Tory party website for members then. It's in the public interest, one of these two people sadly is going to be PM and will be running the country for ALL people, so the audience should have been representative of that.

Someone at the BBC has cottoned on - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/62294901 The article is even called 'Reality Check', Brexit front and centre.

I'd point to the likes of Walcott or Oxlaide-Chamberlain not really reaching their predicted heights, compared to the say the rapid development of Sancho at Dortmund after leaving City. More young players seem to be cottoning on that sitting on the bench, playing U23s or league cup football for a big club is not great for their development compared to getting regular playing time (and probably less money) at a lesser club. Yes training and coaches is important, but it's hardly like coming here for example you are training on a muddy field with a bunch of semi-pros, we have elite facilities, top level coaches and international level players. So it's going to depend on where the loan is, the amount of game time, quality of the league, facilities all that, but I still think the general consensus is first team loans generally help a player improve better than just training and reserve football.

Might be wrong but I am sure I read that he signed a 3 year contract last year, so in theory only has two years left on his deal.

£35 million to be fair, this Delap deal is reportedly starting around £20 million with add ons, West Ham's deal is starting at £30 million with £5 million add ons. Also whilst he did score 16 league goals last season, he's not done a huge amount before that. 8 goals the season before and a lot of loans. So he could turn out to be a one season wonder, there are risks with every deal. Again essentially we have had Shields knowing everything there is to know about Delap, you can't really get much better or thorough scouting than that. Also there is the adaptability thing, Delap is used to the weather, culture, speaks the language, and even though he hasn't played PL football he's training with top PL players so will know the pace and power of the league. Scamacca doesn't speak the language, comes from a different culture, different climate and a completely different style of league.

I think generally the options are triggered by the club, not the player.

Also forgot to add this is completely undemocratic, this is a government minister bypassing parliamentary scrutiny and just introducing a new law without the people's representatives seeing, debating it and approving it.

An option to buy doesn't mean the player accepts. As noted above with Toby. if he has a good season, say scores 15 goals, then he could turn us down for a bigger club.

We do have though Man City's head of youth recruitment as our now head of recruitment, so he must know everything about Delap and has been watching him develop for years. I can only presume he is pushing for this and obviously thinks it will be more than worth it.

From what I have seen of them Delap at around that price looks better than Broja at the price Chelsea seem to be wanting, despite Delaps lack of top flight games. Remains to be seen if that bid gets accepted though. Neither Chelsea or City seem to want to sell these young strikers. In Broja's case it seems he wants to play and you wonder whether the same might true of Delap. Also interesting who Man City's targets are this year, as they have currently reaped in quite a lot of sale proceeds with the sales of Jesus, Sterling and Zinchenko, as well as the sales of Lavia and Bazunu to us, I think their sales must be approaching £160 - 170 million, with around £120 million purchases and they don't strike me as club who will sit on unused funds. If they were to sell Delap to us they would be approaching £200 million in sales this summer and would have lost 4 regular players and 3 promising youngsters, with only 3 players in, maybe that is why they are reluctant.

We are talking north of £35 million, even West Ham realised he's not worth that.

West Ham bid way more for Broja than that and Chelsea didn't accept.