If they're not going to pay up it's a bit annoying that they're hampering a potential sale to Fulham, not just in the sense of the time it's taking but the fact that Alteti to Fulham is quite the downgrade for Hojbjerg to accept within a day
I'm not his biggest fan at all but I'm surprised we weren't able to get a more favourable deal for him, surely he'd have been worth a punt on a permanent transfer for some clubs lower down the table?
If the only option was a dry loan I don't really care at all. He's 20, has massive wages and a terrible injury history - that's the kind of player you take a punt on if you're looking to commit to their development in the long term, not for a loan.
Not just this, but does it ever actually play out positively? If anything I feel like being linked intensely to a player and failing to get them actually generates more negative attitudes towards people in charge of the transfers.
Just to be hopelessly optimistic, if we did really want James wouldn't him going to Fulham indicate there's a chance we have something else up our sleeve?
To me, we'd be signing Zaniolo for the potential that he can be as good as Maddison in the future, maybe a little better. However Maddison is right there, PL proven, home grown, etc without all the risk of adapting to a new league, significantly increasing his output and overcoming 2 ACL...
For sure, I also question whether we'd target him if he was Spanish, French or German. I don't really like managers/DoFs that move to another country and are way too favourable to targeting their countrymen, just seems like a blatant bias I'd expect any good recruitment team to stamp out.
I don't think it should be understated how risky it is to sign a player not only with just 2 goals and 1 assist in the league last season, but an ACL injury in both knees. The difference in risk between him and Maddison is insane relative to their probable price tags.
The funny thing is I think Lo Celso is really good at this, if you watch his Betis highlights he almost made Firpo's career with the number of times he slipped him through.
No option does seem quite strange to me given how desperate Barca are to get rid, I'd have thought we would put one in there even if a bit overpriced just to cover ourselves?
I'd be surprised if this was the case just because it's quite a big deal, Fabrizio doesn't really do his 'here we go' thing unless the deal is 99% certain.
I'm actually surprised, I don't really know what they can do for him and even if he wanted something new I'm sure there would've been other CL clubs in for him.
I feel like signing Tielemens is overdoing the 'Premier league proven' thing. He's good but not insane and it feels like you could probably scout another young Tielemans for a third of the price.
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