tajjuk

Average is fine for a squad player IMO, we can't replace the whole team, there are 5 subs next season as well so more chances to refresh a tired team.

Can't see anything recently, he's been most recently linked to Roma, Leipzig, Spurs and West Ham. Few older links to Man Utd and Bayern.

Yeh would be a potentially great signing, really interesting player, classy goalscoring/playmaking mid that can play a number of positions and is also 6' 3". But fees are being quoted at £30 million plus which seems outside our sort of budget going by all the other signings.

We aren't in Europe and Nigeria aren't at the World Cup so I think he'll get plenty of rest. He played 54 games in all comps last year, he won't get near that for us next season. Anyone not going to World Cup this year essentially gets a long winter break, which will be most of our team I reckon.

We certainly didn't play that many through balls, that is an example but probably the two people in the team that are best at doing it are JWP and Romeu, but they are often in the 2 system too far back. All our 'no 10s' are ball carriers, their ability to pick out a pass aside maybe Stu Armstrong is pretty limited IMO. Maybe Aribo might fix this, he seems much more in the playmaker mould rather than the tricky winger mould that Djenepo, Redmond etc. are. I still think there is something there in Armstrong, you don't bang in that many goals in the Championship without having something about him and the few goals he did score were really nice, we just I don't think played much to his strengths and then he lost confidence, drifted out of the team and when he started coming back in the whole team was playing awfully. At the end of the day the guy had only had 17 PL starts in his first real PL season. Moi IIRC only got 16 and was pretty much written off by most but it's clear there was more of a player there than most thought, so who knows, play more to his strengths, find some confidence we might get more out of him. Not expecting him to suddenly score 15+ goals, but 7-8 from 20 or so starts would be ok.

Especially one that is not that good IMO and when we have two right backs that are good anyway. We only need some cover until Jan ish when Tino should be back fit. Also I'd be extremely loathe to be another club that over pays on a Liverpool cast off, you'd think after Bournemouth paid like near £40 million for Ibe and Solanke other clubs would steer clear of Liverpool's massive over valuation of their reserve players.

Said in the other thread and the Rangers guy probably confirms that is his best position but he spent most of last season playing centre-mid or DM according whoscored. And actually played a lot of different positions. I'm presuming we are signing him for our no.10 positions, but he also gives a lot more flexibility if we want to change systems, even during game as he seems to be able to play almost anywhere so if we switched to a back 5 with 3 in the middle he could drop into the 3 in the middle or give us something different up top or play as a more traditional no.10 rather than our 'wide' no.10s.

According to whoscored he played mainly centre-mid and DM. I mean he kind of played a little bit everywhere so is clearly versatile, but 23 appearance in DM or CM, with 9 or so as an attacking mid, a smattering of appearances as striker or in a wide position. You can see from his passes list, most of the other there are wide attackers or strikers and have way less passes than him. Whoscored seem to have him playing everywhere, in one of the games against Leipzig he was a striker, the game against Braga where he scored two he was a no.10, and in the other Leipzig game he was a centre-mid in a 3. So I think there is an element of we are potentially adapting him to our system and see something in him to work with, so whilst yes his goal/assists output for the SPL looks nothing special we might use him in completely different way and get more from him, who knows. Also £6 million, if he fails it's not going to be a big loss, but if we unearth a hidden gem it'll be a bargain signing.

Chelsea don't really need to sell and they have just lost their main striker, so I can't see them selling at our sort of fee level.

Thing is in the attacking sense we dont exactly need people to be pulling up trees to get an improvement on what we have. Last year we had from our Strikers/No.10s - Adams 23 starts, 10 goal involvements Redmond 20 starts, 6 goal involvements Armstrong 17 starts, 4 goal involvements Elyounoussi 23 starts, 6 goal involvements Broja 21 starts, 6 goals If you leave Stu Armstrong to the side who had a very stop start season with injuries (just 15 starts, 2 goals). To make improvements we don't need a huge amount, if we could get a number 10 that got say 5 goals and 5 assists, that is already as many Adams, add in a Striker that got 10 goal involvements as well, replace some of the others and we are probably 10 goals better off or more right there. Which is easily could be the difference between 15th and 10th. So even if Aribo is a bit niche in his style, if he can unlock some goals for us where we didn't have them previously then its probably worth it at that sort of fee. I mean I suppose that is the moneyball sort of approach its about finding under utilised talent that will add to your team positively and get you more goals/help you concede less goals.

Richarlison just cost £60 million AND Everton were under pressure to sell, and personally I don't think he's that good, certainly not that at that price, he's a 1 in 3 man. Jesus cost £45 million and he only had a year left on his contract. That is how much 'proven' is costing, we generally can't afford 'proven'.

Neither had Tino to be fair, the Premier league 2 seems to be pretty strong (for a reserve league) considering the amount of talent the big clubs hoover up, and they have such big squads that often quite a lot of senior players are in there as well.

I'm presuming JWP moved to 8 when it became available after being 16 because he wanted 8. I'd reckon if he really wanted 7 he'd have probably got 7. Maybe give it to Dibling, might convince him to stay. But realistically I can see it going to whatever striker or no.10 we sign.

I'd expect a few more losses of decent players as well, and considering their financial mess not a huge amount of incomings. Plus I don;t particularly rate Lampard as a manager, average at best, so they could easily be back in the relegation mire again. It's almost like they have gone back to mid to late 90s Everton.

I feel you can't really buy that sort of influence in the dressing room, it seems a bit artificial, its more a gradual development of that sort of dynamic from players who are already here and have been for a long time who develop with the club and their teammates into those leadership/mentoring sort of roles. We are not going to be able to buy established world class stars who have won everything, that is never going to be on our radar. Basically who is better for our team, a young developing player who wants to improve himself and establish himself as a player, probably grateful for the opportunity the club has given him, who can grow with the team OR a 32 year old journeyman type player looking for his last payday? Because a lot of the names I have seen people mention IMO seem to fit more in that later category. But also if you bring those sort of players in how does that impact players like JWP, Romeu, Armstrong etc. who are already seen as the experienced leaders in the dressing room, you are potentially causing conflict there. Whilst on a completely different level to us, isn't that essentially the issue PSG has, buying a team full of aging stars on huge wagepackets, none of whom really have a connection to the club, conflicting egos, whilst ignoring their youth products who are born close to the area, maybe grew up supporting the club and could grow and develop into players whilst at the club giving their all. It's quite absurd how many good players out there played for PSGs youth team's they have let go, whilst they are struggling to build a team dynamic and identity. Also as others have said it's not like we are buying players who are all 18 and have only played youth football, a few like Tino and potentially Lavia are like that, but Bella-Kotchap was playing regular first team football in the Bundesliga last year, Salisu was doing the same in La Liga facing off against Messi, Perraud had played multiple seasons in Ligue 1, even Bazanu has played several full seasons of lower league football and even has international experience against top teams like Serbia and Portugal. Quite often these guys if they have not played full internationals have still played youth tournaments etc. for their country, been under that pressure to perform, played in front of big crowds etc. despite their age.

Only technically two new coaches than in Selles and Clapham.

I have heard (not sure if it's true) that Everton have rushed through this sale because they had an FFP deadline looming.

Could be a bit earlier, he is already doing his rehab exercises. Depends on complications etc. but so far looks like the surgery was successful and he was already doing some reverse lunges. ACLs can be recovered in 6 months these days if the surgery is good. Hopefully he'll be back just before xmas and can build up his full fitness whilst the world cup is on.

That report already seems doubtful when they are suggesting a 16 year old is 'out of contract next year' when they can't even sign contracts yet.........

I wouldn't, even ignoring being a Saints fan. Parallels IMO with the Saudi Golf league, there other attempt at Sports Washing going on, quite a few high profile golfers like Mcllroy have rejected it

We might be able to up his already offered contract a bit but I doubt we'll match what Newcastle are offering, plus they'll probably just throw more money at him. It's a sad indication of where football is really that basically Saudi Arabia is throwing millions at a child. You'd hope maybe he sees the longer picture if he's well advised especially as he has already been training with the first team, I mean pretty obvious he'll make his first team debut if he stays with us this year and you have all these young players at bigger clubs moving away to find better routes to football.

Shame to seemingly have a genuine prospect out of the academy for the first time in a while and he immediately gets poached by the sports washing club who can't be bothered to invest in their own academy.

No one in world football covers the ground like Kante does. Personally I think Phillips is a bit over rated, good player but Leeds fans seemed to treat him like Xavi or something like he has this amazing range of passing, but to me in the PL league his passing has looked nothing special. He works hard, tackles ok and is very physical, but his technical game doesn't look that good to me. JWP is a clearly much more technically accomplished player IMO, he just doesn't have the same physicality. We'll see, Pep doesn't often make that many transfer mistakes to be fair and he improves players so he might get better, Rodri didn't initially look great IMO but just seems to get better and better. You do wonder though whether part of the reason they have gone for him is registration reasons rather than him being the stand out candidate.

lol no they wouldn't, Pope would and that is about it IMO and we've just signed a keeper anyway who could end up being much much better than Pope.

IMO none of those sides are better than us at developing players and giving them a pathway to first team football. He only has to look to Tino for that. Which seems to be his main concern, I mean if he wants to play for a better side then he stays at Chelsea. Most likely is he'll stay at Chelsea as they currently only have 3 first team centre-backs, one of whom is 37 and often play 3 at the back. Losing Christensen and Rudiger gives him a pretty decent pathway into the first team.