Summer Transfer Window (2024/25)

[Rich192]

I wonder if the Lo Celso link is to play poker with Affle’ico, and let them know we’re willing to move on from Joao if need be. 

[the_eristic]

7 hours ago, Jas10 said:

So… we aren’t interested in Baena or Hermoso?

I wonder if we see a surprise or two before the window SLAMS SHUT.

Baena would be an excellent signing, would have to imagine he's one of our alternatives to Felix but would still cost a fortune as he's pretty much Villarreal's prized possession now and his contract has years left on it.

Edited August 11 by the_eristic

[Leeroy]

29 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

Unproven like...Ramsey? Rogers? Ollie Watkins?

We're ok until Jan going forward IMO. We looks sloppy at the back.

Ollie yes, the others no. Rogers hasn't even had a whole season at this level yet. Ramsey had a great second half of 22-23 but is yet to get back to that level. 

 

We scored 76 goals last season and have lost 20 goals from Duran, Diaby and Luiz. We need at least one player here.

[Pez1974]

12 hours ago, Captain_Townsend said:

We have a squad. What we are lacking is quality in the first eleven having lost two quality players. One, Luiz, who was comfortable receiving the ball at the back and starting things off for us (not to mention his goals and set pieces) and Diaby who was productive, pacey and unpredictable.

We have some assets to sell to enable us to bring in quality and we should do it. 

Diaby wasn't a starter for the second half of the season. We played Bailey on 1 leg, rather than start Diaby. He came on in every game, but wasn't in the first 11. 
We now have an up-to-speed and rapidly improving Rogers, the return of Ramsey, and Buendia, plus Philogene to step and replace him - and we have the Bailey we thought we had signed the year before.
And perhaps more to come.

Luiz will be a loss, but we've replaced him with Tielemans - we saw this coming last summer and Youri is now fully up to speed (not my opinion, that of Ornstein, who generally gets things right). Providing he stays fit (!) he will replace the goals and set-pieces.
We've also got Onana, who will give us the solidity and physically we lacked with Luiz - we conceded far to many from crosses.
The bonus is that these 2 have basically played the equivalent of a season together for Belgium. 

I very much agree that we now have a squad, and that there is more deals to come, and hopefully will further add quality improve the forward line, and defence.

[Jas10]

9 minutes ago, the_eristic said:

Baena would be an excellent signing, would have to imagine he's one of our alternatives to Felix but would still cost a fortune as he's pretty much Villareal's prized possession now and his contract has years left on it.

Would love us to sign a set piece specialist like him… and such a creative player. Most assists in Europe last season?

[villabromsgrove]

Unai loves versatile players, and there's none more versatile than Yilmaz. Manageable price and salary as well.

[Tomaszk]

10 minutes ago, Leeroy said:

Ollie yes, the others no. Rogers hasn't even had a whole season at this level yet. Ramsey had a great second half of 22-23 but is yet to get back to that level. 

 

We scored 76 goals last season and have lost 20 goals from Duran, Diaby and Luiz. We need at least one player here.

I think we will get some sort of forward. I just don't think we need to.

Already going to have good attacking players like Philogene and Ramsey and Buendia and Bailey and Rogers and Duran maybe not getting a minute off the bench in games.

[duke313]

Our signings so far have been fine, we’re future proofing our squad rather than buying short term fixes like we’ve done numerous times in the past. We’ll be better off in the long run.

[Delphinho123]

I’d sacrifice Felix for a competent centre half that can defend. 

[Leeroy]

10 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

I think we will get some sort of forward. I just don't think we need to.

Already going to have good attacking players like Philogene and Ramsey and Buendia and Bailey and Rogers and Duran maybe not getting a minute off the bench in games.

Yes but come on. You just said Lo Celso was better than Buendia in a previous post and he is surplus to requirements at Spurs. Spurs are a rival for 4th place.

 

We have plenty options but other teams have plenty of options too and their options are superior to ours at this moment in time.

 

I do agree with you that we need a defender but we do need another attacker, not a young talent who may need 2 seasons to come good, someone who can hit the ground running right away. 

[Tayls]

6 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

I’d sacrifice Felix for a competent centre half that can defend. 

What do you dislike about the current CB pairing? 

[Delphinho123]

1 minute ago, Tayls said:

What do you dislike about the current CB pairing? 

They’ve each got their attributes but as a pair, they don’t quite have ‘it’. We need someone stronger, quicker and better in the air back there.

Torres is slow, weak and poor in the air. Konsa is a silky player but isn’t the best in the air. 

We concede a lot of goals and the excuse is always, ‘oh, it’s the midfields fault’, or ‘kamara isn’t playing’. We need to be better back there. That includes at right back and left back. 

We’re poor defensively. If we get that right this season, we’ll fly, but not convinced we have. 

[Delphinho123]

6 minutes ago, Leeroy said:

Yes but come on. You just said Lo Celso was better than Buendia in a previous post and he is surplus to requirements at Spurs. Spurs are a rival for 4th place.

 

We have plenty options but other teams have plenty of options too and their options are superior to ours at this moment in time.

 

I do agree with you that we need a defender but we do need another attacker, not a young talent who may need 2 seasons to come good, someone who can hit the ground running right away. 

What’s your point? 

[Leeroy]

16 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

I’d sacrifice Felix for a competent centre half that can defend. 

We need both and I don’t see why we can’t have both. 

[Tayls]

7 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

They’ve each got their attributes but as a pair, they don’t quite have ‘it’. We need someone stronger, quicker and better in the air back there.

Torres is slow, weak and poor in the air. Konsa is a silky player but isn’t the best in the air. 

We concede a lot of goals and the excuse is always, ‘oh, it’s the midfields fault’, or ‘kamara isn’t playing’. We need to be better back there. That includes at right back and left back. 

We’re poor defensively. If we get that right this season, we’ll fly, but not convinced we have. 

Fair. I agree somewhat. I think we have to play Konsa and I am leaning towards us playing Kosta on the right. LB, whilst I really like Digne, I do think he can be easily exploited when off the ball. Haven’t really seen much of Maatsen, which is odd… as I assumed he would be brought in to start. Pau is excellent on the ball, but watching him yesterday I thought he looked dreadful in pretty much all aspects.  So, I think it’s the left side that we need to look at, whether it be LB again or CB. 

God knows what’s going on. wasn’t expecting to be questioning all of this at this point of pre-season. 

[Pez1974]

7 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

They’ve each got their attributes but as a pair, they don’t quite have ‘it’. We need someone stronger, quicker and better in the air back there.

Torres is slow, weak and poor in the air. Konsa is a silky player but isn’t the best in the air. 

We concede a lot of goals and the excuse is always, ‘oh, it’s the midfields fault’, or ‘kamara isn’t playing’. We need to be better back there. That includes at right back and left back. 

We’re poor defensively. If we get that right this season, we’ll fly, but not convinced we have. 

100% agree

The lack of height and physicality in the team last season hurt us badly - the opposition knew they could target a lot of our players.
Diego Carlos lost more aerial duels than he won, which for a supposed 'strong defender' is woeful.
The addition of Onana and Kosta (assuming he plays), plus the return of Mings will help massively with height, pace and power. 

People are worried about losing Dougie's impact going forward (which is fair), but I am delighted that we seem to now have players who can add the physically we lacked. 

We scored 76 and conceded 61 last season.
That last figure needs to reduce to below 50 if we are to stay in the top 4 in my view (for info - Everton conceded 51). If we lose 5 goals along the way, so be it - we'll collect more points.

[OutByEaster?]

54 minutes ago, Tayls said:

What do you dislike about the current CB pairing?

If I may, I'd say our current CB pairing would be Torres and Carlos if Carlos wasn't misbehaving. I think Emery would like to play Konsa at RB. Given that that's not going to happen and with Konsa being excellent at CB, then I think what I dislike about our CB pairing at the moment is that they are just a pairing - we've only got two. If we assume Carlos is misbehaving, we have Torres, Konsa, an inexperienced defensive midfielder who has filled in well in pre-season and a young Dutchman, back from a year out who has never played a senior game.

If Carlos is out, and Mings is unfit for a couple of months, we've got two CB's and a couple of emergency prospects - there ought to be a couple of others in that picture - a player who offers competition to Konsa and Torres and a player who is an experienced and capable back up. As things stand, we've lost two and gained none. It's not lost on me that we've played Digne and Dendoncker at CB at times in our pre-season games and I'd argue Bogarde has been playing out of position there.

I think we should be looking at three different things in the remainder of the window - the 'outs' both in terms of finance and the parts of our squad that are a little thick, 'opportunities', where Unai thinks he has a player that can make us better, no matter where they play, and our 'needs', areas of the squad where we simply don't have the bodies we're going to need - for me, those 'needs' are the priority and those needs are two CB's and a CF.

Of course, if we can rehabilitate Duran and Carlos, then we just need a single CB - but right now it looks like we've still got a lot of business to do.

The number one thing we need at the weekend is no injuries and no suspensions to Torres, Konsa or Watkins - if that were to happen, prices go up for anyone we're interested in in those positions and our season could be derailed before its begun - for me that's a situation that's a little more fragile than it ought to be right now - and that's the thing - that's what I don't like about our current CB pairing, it's thin and that makes us fragile and that fragility is a risk to our success.

 

[Jas10]

 

Was linked not long ago.

[KAZZAM]

Even if Geertruida comes i still think we need a another RCB. 

 

[danceoftheshamen]

It's a worry that we are continuing to concede far too many stupid goals whilst being over reliant on Watkins in attack. 
Clearly the transfer window is not over yet for us and by the looks of it that's a good thing.

The two penalty area's are what matter really in a game of football as we know, currently we are littered with schoolboy errors defensively & look short in attack without Watkins.

For me a top centreback (even if on loan whilst Mings recovers) and another option up front plus some technical guile in midfield are needed.