Summer Transfer Window 2021

[Saint Garrett]

Maddison being linked with £80m move to Arsenal this morning. 

[ErwinK1961]

1 hour ago, Saint Garrett said:

Maddison being linked with £80m move to Arsenal this morning. 

Classic Arsenal, being linked everyday with someone new. Reality is they won't sign any of them.

Must be season ticket renewal time. 

[tajjuk]

Not sure why Maddison would make that move, Arsenal are a long way from being competitive, they have holes to fill all over their team. I also doubt Arsenal would pay him much more than Leicester do. Whereas he's currently part of Leicester team now regularly challenging for Europe if he keeps improving with them he'll either get champions league football with them or impress enough to earn a move to someone that is regularly challenging for titles, which is not Arsenal any time soon IMO. 

[Smirking_Saint]

On 16/06/2021 at 08:56, The Curse of St Mary's said:

Villa spending £33+ on that Norwich player who is unproven at PL level will certainly inflate the market. 

Unproven ? He was one of the only shining lights of that Norwich season

I'm surprised they managed to keep hold of Aarons and Buendia for so long tbh

[Smirking_Saint]

1 hour ago, tajjuk said:

Not sure why Maddison would make that move, Arsenal are a long way from being competitive, they have holes to fill all over their team. I also doubt Arsenal would pay him much more than Leicester do. Whereas he's currently part of Leicester team now regularly challenging for Europe if he keeps improving with them he'll either get champions league football with them or impress enough to earn a move to someone that is regularly challenging for titles, which is not Arsenal any time soon IMO. 

Arsenal are a bit of a sleeping giant at the moment tbh, they are still 'arguably' the 2nd or 3rd biggest club in the prem from a history and commercial perspective.

If they convince Kroenke to put his hand in his deep pockets then they will be a much larger option than Leicester

That said, you are correct, if I was Maddison, short term I'm not sure I'd be moving anywhere like Arsenal

[Saint Matty 76]

That’s Gunn and Hoedt both sold for fees which was unexpected going into this Summer. 

If we can manage to shift Lemina, Obafemi, Valery, Long and maybe Elyounoussi permanently then they’ve done a good job on that side.

[SuperSAINT]

1 minute ago, Saint Matty 76 said:

That’s Gunn and Hoedt both sold for fees which was unexpected going into this Summer. 

If we can manage to shift Lemina, Obafemi, Valery, Long and maybe Elyounoussi permanently then they’ve done a good job on that side.

Doubt we’ve made much on Hoedt. Imagine we are still paying a chunk of his wages.

[niceandfriendly]

Can we sign Roman Yaremchuk from Gent please? Reminds me of a more mobile Pelle.

[Dusic]

1 hour ago, SuperSAINT said:

Doubt we’ve made much on Hoedt. Imagine we are still paying a chunk of his wages.

Once he had a year left nobody was ever going to pay a fee. Hopefully as its a permanent transfer we are not contributing to his wages but almost certainly it will be a free transfer.

More chance of getting a small fee for Lemina or Elyounoussi. Hopefully we will accept whatever offers we do get for those rather than more loans.

Re Perraud - seems he is on holiday at the moment so imagine things will become clearer either way on that soon.

[Chez]

5 hours ago, tajjuk said:

Not sure why Maddison would make that move, Arsenal are a long way from being competitive, they have holes to fill all over their team. I also doubt Arsenal would pay him much more than Leicester do. Whereas he's currently part of Leicester team now regularly challenging for Europe if he keeps improving with them he'll either get champions league football with them or impress enough to earn a move to someone that is regularly challenging for titles, which is not Arsenal any time soon IMO. 

didn't he fuck about with the COVID protocol and piss the manager off massively? I thought he was benched for the cup final and the manager perhaps wants to get rid?

[Chez]

2 hours ago, niceandfriendly said:

Can we sign Roman Yaremchuk from Gent please? Reminds me of a more mobile Pelle.

been impressed with Berardi for Italy in the first two games, but no doubt he's way out of our price range. Surprised an Italian giant has not snapped him up from Sassuolo before now. Great left peg.

[Chez]

On 16/06/2021 at 08:56, The Curse of St Mary's said:

Villa spending £33+ on that Norwich player who is unproven at PL level will certainly inflate the market. 

Unproven? Didn't he prove he could play to the required level/well, when Norwich were in the Prem last?

[tajjuk]

48 minutes ago, Chez said:

didn't he fuck about with the COVID protocol and piss the manager off massively? I thought he was benched for the cup final and the manager perhaps wants to get rid?

I think he broke some rules but not sure they would want rid off a player like that, more he's just had some injuries this year and had a stop start season. 

But maybe.

[tajjuk]

39 minutes ago, Chez said:

Unproven? Didn't he prove he could play to the required level/well, when Norwich were in the Prem last?

Yeh 1 goal, 7 assists and was amongst the very highest in the league for chances created IIRC, all for a relegated club is pretty decent. 

Plus he looks like he might have got better last season as well. yes it was only the Championship but 15 goals and 16 assists is pretty impressive, it's more than Maddison had in the Championship the year before he went to Leicester and when we were supposedly trying to buy him for £25 million. 

So 3 years later and like £8 million more for a player who'd also already played in the PL doesn't seem an over the top price to me. Think they have got a good signing there, but does look like an obvious Grealish replacement (especially with them also linked with Smith-Rowe) so big shoes to fill if that is the case. 

[Saint Fan CaM]

On 14/06/2021 at 22:23, Smirking_Saint said:

JWPs stats whilst operating at DM over the last two seasons completely disagree with your assessment that he is a luxury player tbh

Which is why I said that he’d proven himself to be better than being a luxury player.😏🙄

[Turkish]

5 hours ago, Saint Matty 76 said:

That’s Gunn and Hoedt both sold for fees which was unexpected going into this Summer. 

If we can manage to shift Lemina, Obafemi, Valery, Long and maybe Elyounoussi permanently then they’ve done a good job on that side.

Has Gunn gone yet?

[Matthew Le God]

6 hours ago, Saint Matty 76 said:

That’s Gunn and Hoedt both sold

 

24 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Has Gunn gone yet?

No

[Convict Colony]

AS newpaper linking us with Brais Mendez from Celta.

Left winger good age and scored goals this year

https://as.com/futbol/2021/06/16/primera/1623845912_191969.html

Edited 18 June, 2021 by Convict Colony

[stevy777_x]

51 minutes ago, tajjuk said:

That's probably £60k a week off the wages, overall a costly mistake though. 

Lemina and Long probably the next biggest earners we need to get rid of and whatever is happening with either or both keepers.  That is probably another £250k a week between those 4 I reckon.

 

What a grand mistake we made renewing Long last summer.

I can’t believe we renewed the guy for 2 years while he was 33 and a half.

That is criminal.

[tajjuk]

6 minutes ago, stevy777_x said:

What a grand mistake we made renewing Long last summer.

I can’t believe we renewed the guy for 2 years while he was 33 and a half.

That is criminal.

I know and I doubt he took a pay cut either, it was like the Forster contract renewal, just not really necessary. 

It's one thing signing up a promising player from Europe who you think will be good and then flops, that happens and we have just been unlucky with a few of those over the last few years.

But lumping the club with big long contracts on players who didn't really deserve it just really bad planning. 

[Ex Lion Tamer]

5 minutes ago, tajjuk said:

I know and I doubt he took a pay cut either, it was like the Forster contract renewal, just not really necessary. 

It's one thing signing up a promising player from Europe who you think will be good and then flops, that happens and we have just been unlucky with a few of those over the last few years.

But lumping the club with big long contracts on players who didn't really deserve it just really bad planning. 

I repeat this from another thread:

At that point he had started 12 of the last 15 games and had been credited with bringing the best out of Ings

We simply couldn't know when his form would fall of a cliff. You could maybe say that we should have given a 1 year contract rather than a 2 year one, but it seems like older players simply won't accept that these days, so we were left with the option of giving him a contract and keeping a first team player, or letting him go and having to pay a transfer fee for a replacement. 

[Cartman]

19 minutes ago, stevy777_x said:

What a grand mistake we made renewing Long last summer.

I can’t believe we renewed the guy for 2 years while he was 33 and a half.

That is criminal.

 

10 minutes ago, tajjuk said:

I know and I doubt he took a pay cut either, it was like the Forster contract renewal, just not really necessary. 

It's one thing signing up a promising player from Europe who you think will be good and then flops, that happens and we have just been unlucky with a few of those over the last few years.

But lumping the club with big long contracts on players who didn't really deserve it just really bad planning. 

Why the assumption that he is still on his previous wages? He was out of contract at the end of the season, he is likely on a much lower salary than before.

[tajjuk]

9 minutes ago, Ex Lion Tamer said:

 

 

We simply couldn't know when his form would fall of a cliff. 

The previous years of not scoring any goals would be a big pointer, the guy was nearly 34 and his entire game revolved around physicality, and we gave him a two year deal.

Even with the mini-blip in form it was a very poor decision IMO. 

[Lighthouse]

17 minutes ago, Ex Lion Tamer said:

I repeat this from another thread:

At that point he had started 12 of the last 15 games and had been credited with bringing the best out of Ings

We simply couldn't know when his form would fall of a cliff. You could maybe say that we should have given a 1 year contract rather than a 2 year one, but it seems like older players simply won't accept that these days, so we were left with the option of giving him a contract and keeping a first team player, or letting him go and having to pay a transfer fee for a replacement. 

If the club genuinely didn’t know that a 33 year old player would be in the decline, I worry about them. He wasn’t and has never been on a cliff either. His form fell off a sandcastle. We should have let him go. Even before Walcott signed we had Ings, Adams, Obi, N’Lundulu and at a push Redmond who call all play up front. Long added nothing to that.

Of course Ings is going to say nice things about his team mate, which the clubs media dept. Can put a positive spin on, that graphic means sod all. Ings scored goals because Ings is good. He has been every bit as good when partnered with Adams, his form two years ago had very little to do with Long.

[Ex Lion Tamer]

52 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

If the club genuinely didn’t know that a 33 year old player would be in the decline, I worry about them. He wasn’t and has never been on a cliff either. His form fell off a sandcastle. We should have let him go. Even before Walcott signed we had Ings, Adams, Obi, N’Lundulu and at a push Redmond who call all play up front. Long added nothing to that.

Of course Ings is going to say nice things about his team mate, which the clubs media dept. Can put a positive spin on, that graphic means sod all. Ings scored goals because Ings is good. He has been every bit as good when partnered with Adams, his form two years ago had very little to do with Long.

Again hindsight. There was no knowing that Adams would kick on this season and get over his goal drought. With the Adams we had then, your list of strikers is very weak.

I'd have rather given a one year contract at the time, but if two was the only option and the wage was reasonable, it was a decent way to hedge our bets.

Also, Ings was absolutely not under any obligation to be that effusive in his quote, and the fact that Long was a regular starter speaks for itself

 

[Lighthouse]

36 minutes ago, Ex Lion Tamer said:

Again hindsight. There was no knowing that Adams would kick on this season and get over his goal drought. With the Adams we had then, your list of strikers is very weak.

I'd have rather given a one year contract at the time, but if two was the only option and the wage was reasonable, it was a decent way to hedge our bets.

Also, Ings was absolutely not under any obligation to be that effusive in his quote, and the fact that Long was a regular starter speaks for itself

 

I can assure you that none of that was said with a modicum of hindsight on my part. No variation in Adams form would have made Long worth keeping. If he hadn’t kicked in later in the season then we’d simply have had two substandard players on the books. This argument is the football equivalent of trying to get out of detention by saying, "yes but the other boy was doing it too!"

 

It was a mistake, which we’ve repeated with Walcott this year and tried to double down on by offering Bertrand a new contract.

[Ex Lion Tamer]

6 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

I can assure you that none of that was said with a modicum of hindsight on my part. No variation in Adams form would have made Long worth keeping. If he hadn’t kicked in later in the season then we’d simply have had two substandard players on the books. This argument is the football equivalent of trying to get out of detention by saying, "yes but the other boy was doing it too!"

 

It was a mistake, which we’ve repeated with Walcott this year and tried to double down on by offering Bertrand a new contract.

You didn't rate Long so for you it would have been logical to let him go. But Ralph did rate him and started him in every game so it would have been weird if he didn't give him a new contract in the hope that he could hold back the years a while longer, at least as a useful squad player

[Lighthouse]

19 minutes ago, Ex Lion Tamer said:

You didn't rate Long so for you it would have been logical to let him go. But Ralph did rate him and started him in every game so it would have been weird if he didn't give him a new contract in the hope that he could hold back the years a while longer, at least as a useful squad player

He started so many games because we were short in genuine quality up front. If our analysts, coaches and Ralph actually rated him as being worthy of a place in a Premier League squad then I have serious worries about how low we’re aiming.

[East Kent Saint]

I thought Long was ok to stay but he just got worse and worse , offside and total lack of control. I can only assume once he resigned his head went !

[Ex Lion Tamer]

22 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

He started so many games because we were short in genuine quality up front. If our analysts, coaches and Ralph actually rated him as being worthy of a place in a Premier League squad then I have serious worries about how low we’re aiming.

Or they know more about football than you? 🤔🤔 🤔😃

[Lighthouse]

4 minutes ago, Ex Lion Tamer said:

Or they know more about football than you? 🤔🤔 🤔😃

Ironically, I’d agree with that on pretty much every issue other than this one. It’s quite hard to back that up when Long was terrible in basically every appearance last season, was loaned out to the Championship 6 months into a 2 year contract and to top it all even Bournemouth didn’t rate him playing at that level.

 

Anyway, it’s happened and we can’t change the past. I just wish we weren’t wasting money repeating the same mistakes.

[Give it to Ron]

Linked with Maitland-Niles in Mirror along with Watford.

Loan maybe certainly can’t see us buying him.

[Saint_clark]

26 minutes ago, Give it to Ron said:

Linked with Maitland-Niles in Mirror along with Watford.

Loan maybe certainly can’t see us buying him.

Would he come to us to be reserve fullback when he wants to leave arsenal to be a CM starter?

[SuperSAINT]

Just now, Saint_clark said:

Would he come to us to be reserve fullback when he wants to leave arsenal to be a CM starter?

Probably not. Good player, though.

[FarehamSaintJames]

With all the talk of Shane Long’s contract being a mistake I’m surprised Theo Walcott doesn’t get more of a mention, sure he’s taken a 50% pay cut but wasn’t he on £100K plus at Everton?

[Saint Garrett]

1 hour ago, Give it to Ron said:

Linked with Maitland-Niles in Mirror along with Watford.

Loan maybe certainly can’t see us buying him.

Would take him with an option to buy, but a difficult one. Think he'd have to be a guaranteed starter in our midfield for him to join. IMO Diallo isn't quite there yet, but couldn't see him starting in front of JWP or Romeu.

[Saint Shenton]

12 minutes ago, FarehamSaintJames said:

With all the talk of Shane Long’s contract being a mistake I’m surprised Theo Walcott doesn’t get more of a mention, sure he’s taken a 50% pay cut but wasn’t he on £100K plus at Everton?

A Everton supporting friend of mine says Theo was on £150,000.

Thats bonkers.

[davefizzy14]

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/watford-eye-ainsley-maitland-niles-24348696#google_vignette

Says we will make a move next week for Maitland-Niles.

Edited 18 June, 2021 by davefizzy14

[Butthole_Surfer]

On 17/06/2021 at 15:57, niceandfriendly said:

Can we sign Roman Yaremchuk from Gent please? Reminds me of a more mobile Pelle.

Would be totally up to it as he seems to be tall, quite fast and no bean pole that will be pushed around.
Transfer value seems reasonable as well.

[adrian lord]

Long:  It was predictable that his physical type of play and hence form was at risk of imminent, permanent collapse and hence why the long contract extension seemed like madness.  Males lose their fast twitch fibres significantly from the age of circa 32 which is why you hear their "legs have gone" and in general you don't see explosive athletes at the top level much beyond 34/35 (unless they use anabolic drugs). Endurance athletes can go on further into older years, and technical skills can be retained. Hence Ronaldo's subtle positional changing as he enters the autumn of his career. 

[Dark Munster]

1 hour ago, adrian lord said:

Long:  It was predictable that his physical type of play and hence form was at risk of imminent, permanent collapse and hence why the long contract extension seemed like madness.  Males lose their fast twitch fibres significantly from the age of circa 32 which is why you hear their "legs have gone" and in general you don't see explosive athletes at the top level much beyond 34/35 (unless they use anabolic drugs). Endurance athletes can go on further into older years, and technical skills can be retained. Hence Ronaldo's subtle positional changing as he enters the autumn of his career. 

Plus he keeps himself in incredible shape. Partly by drinking water instead of high fructose syrup crap.

[Chez]

2 hours ago, Saint_clark said:

Would he come to us to be reserve fullback when he wants to leave arsenal to be a CM starter?

chose  not to come to us in January on that basis, so unless we are the only option, he ain't going to now.  Maybe he would provide a good replacement for JWP should we sell him to Villa.

[Chez]

4 hours ago, East Kent Saint said:

I thought Long was ok to stay but he just got worse and worse , offside and total lack of control. I can only assume once he resigned his head went !

he ain't ever been much more than a hard worker. He helped turn our fortunes around under Koeman, when his work rate against a few of the big sides helped us grab some unexpected but much needed points, but he is and always was extremely limited.  Giving him a new year was us settling and sticking to what we new rather than do the necessary scouting work to get a replacement in.  We filled a shirt and no more. The Theo signing feels very similar.

[Cartman]

13 minutes ago, Chez said:

chose  not to come to us in January on that basis, so unless we are the only option, he ain't going to now.  Maybe he would provide a good replacement for JWP should we sell him to Villa.

 Not coming here then 😂

[stevy777_x]

I know loads of clubs are looking at him, but what about attempting a Brest trifecta with Diallo, Perraud and Romain Faivre:

Fantastic dribbler, has pace, strength could improve but a little time in the gym and that would be resolved.

Like a Boufal with pace and an end product, and is 22:

 

[Convict Colony]

Thought PSG were going for faivre

[davefizzy14]

http://insidefutbol.com/2021/06/19/barcelona-prefer-england-offers-for-west-ham-and-southampton-target-but-player-has-other-desire/513980/

Still hoping this is incorrect and we can get Firpo.

[Cartman]

Just now, davefizzy14 said:

http://insidefutbol.com/2021/06/19/barcelona-prefer-england-offers-for-west-ham-and-southampton-target-but-player-has-other-desire/513980/

Still hoping this is incorrect and we can get Firpo.

We probably have Perraud signing in July, so won't be happening anyway.

2 hours ago, stevy777_x said:

I know loads of clubs are looking at him, but what about attempting a Brest trifecta with Diallo, Perraud and Romain Faivre:

Fantastic dribbler, has pace, strength could improve but a little time in the gym and that would be resolved.

Like a Boufal with pace and an end product, and is 22:

 

A definite yes. It will also give us 3 Brests, should make others envious.

[davefizzy14]

Just now, Cartman said:

We probably have Perraud signing in July, so won't be happening anyway.

A definite yes. It will also give us 3 Brests, should make others envious.

Yes Perraud would be a very good signing.

[Dark Munster]

4 hours ago, Cartman said:

We probably have Perraud signing in July, so won't be happening anyway.

A definite yes. It will also give us 3 Brests, should make others envious.