Summer transfer, gossip, speculation thread

[hilts_coolerking]

You mean buy well-regarded players from abroad by the barrow-load, and destry a team, just like Fulham?

Or incrementally build a team that will firstly survive and then prosper with suitable additions?

Yes, because it's either or isn't it.

[Sexual Ealing]

We're being linked with good players and all but I'm concerned by the parochialism to be honest. All the proper links have been English for one thing - not just playing in England but actually English. I do not want a repeat of Monism.

We've signed 3 players so far - Guilbert, Jota and El Ghazi. None of them are English. Two of them hadn't played in England until we signed them (originally in El Ghazi's case).

Why not judge the management on what they do rather than who the papers choose to link us with?

Jota is a former player of Dean's, Guilbert is a total unknown and El Ghazi was already playing with us and is therefore not exactly a new signing really.

I will wait of course. It's just worth pointing out that expensive British signings and players who used to play for him elsewhere was precisely MON's MO.

We haven't made any expensive British signings. We've signed one player who used to play for him and one player who was already here, as well as an overseas fullback in a position we need to reinforce.

[Monty]

I was talking about the links. Truth be told we've signed two players who would (probably) have come in even if we'd stayed down. I know that @rumourzzbitchh or whatever will link us with anyone and everyone but the credible stuff - BBC, John Percy etc - has all been domestic UK.

[Sexual Ealing]

I might be being testy because my hero, Gavin Williamson isn't in the running for PM, but I can't see your logic here Monty. Who cares where they come from, they're all clearly footballers rather than the hod carriers that MON signed.

[SheffieldVillain]

We're being linked with good players and all but I'm concerned by the parochialism to be honest. All the proper links have been English for one thing - not just playing in England but actually English. I do not want a repeat of Monism.

We've signed 3 players so far - Guilbert, Jota and El Ghazi. None of them are English. Two of them hadn't played in England until we signed them (originally in El Ghazi's case).

Why not judge the management on what they do rather than who the papers choose to link us with?

Jota is a former player of Dean's, Guilbert is a total unknown and El Ghazi was already playing with us and is therefore not exactly a new signing really.

I will wait of course. It's just worth pointing out that expensive British signings and players who used to play for him elsewhere was precisely MON's MO.

MoN's MO was to sign 28-32 year old players with little resale value and not play them.

Buying good 20-25 year old players like Butland, Mings, Hause, Phillips is as far from O'Neill's MO as you can possibly get. It's more akin to what Tottenham did at the start of their resurgence.

Also I've seen links with Maxi Gomez, Pablo Fornals, Andres Martin, Yoann Barbet, Said Benrahma, Andre Ayew, Baptiste Santamaria to name just some, so I'm not sure why those aren't 'proper links'. They've been from the same sources as the links with English players so we clearly are also looking at foreign players and foreign players playing abroad.

[Monty]

OK fair, so my concern is they might be good players but they are still only proven to be good at Championship level really. Of course we're unlikely to buy many dead-certs for the Premier League standard, but it is odd that we only seem to be looking in one place for these players who might make it - to boot, the division which we just happen to know best and which happens to be the one for teams not good enough for the top flight. Throw in the premium on English players as well and you have an unnecessarily narrow strategy. But, if course, we'll wee who actually comes in.

SheffV - yes indeed, the youth and technical focus of those players linked is encouraging and what we expect from Dean, it's just that there was this sample size problem with MON's policy which was also a problem. As for those other links, they haven't come from the sources I personally trust - which form an admittedly small sample size themselves!

[Sexual Ealing]

OK fair, so my concern is they might be good players but they are still only proven to be good at Championship level really. Of course we're unlikely to buy many dead-certs for the Premier League standard, but it is odd that we only seem to be looking in one place for these players who might make it - to boot, the division which we just happen to know best and which happens to be the one for teams not good enough for the top flight. Throw in the premium on English players as well and you have an unnecessarily narrow strategy. But, if course, we'll wee who actually comes in.

SheffV - yes indeed, the youth and technical focus of those players linked is encouraging and what we expect from Dean, it's just that there was this sample size problem with MON's policy which was also a problem. As for those other links, they haven't come from the sources I personally trust - which form an admittedly small sample size themselves!

I think that signing the best players in the Championship is a good policy. As Sheffield said, it's what got Spurs going.

[hilts_coolerking]

OK fair, so my concern is they might be good players but they are still only proven to be good at Championship level really.

That's my main concern.  I'm less interested in their nationality (although I'd like to see us scouting far and wide) than their ability.  I think we need more Premier League experience.  If Mings comes in that's some, although only about half a season.  I hope we will get some in because not doing so would be a very risky strategy.

[GarTomas]

Is guess since Suso and co have only been in place less than a year our revamped scouting network isn’t as entrenched and identifying players just yet so we’re not signing unknown gems just yet.

Same as the academy overnight isn’t going to start churning out world beaters.  A lot of patience will be required in this window and coming ones.

[Clampy]

I don't really pay too much attention to links, mainly because there are so many of them, the majority of them turn out to be wrong and links is all they really are.

[Monty]

The Spurs point is fair, but you should still look wherever for the right players. Just as a reminder of how insane this league is now, the side that finished 10th last year is signing (unless the very unsubstantiated rumours about us going in are true) a 24 million pound midfielder who's played for Spain. We're going to need to run very fast to stay still in this league.

[Hookeysmith]

Young, Hungry and coachable was the mantra

All current links (Jota aside) are exactly that

For the first time in years I actually trust the judgement and professionalism of the coaches and board to get the right quantity and quality of players needed.
And I also think the time we know about a signing will be when it is done which is crap for someone as impatient as me but TBH the right way to do it

[passitsideways]

There was nothing wrong with MON's British inclination when it resulted in the purchase of players with genuine ability such as Milner, Young, Delph and Downing, the issue was with all the plodders and technically-limited types. I have to confess, I always thought Curtis Davies was capable of achieving more in the game than he ended up doing, but on the other hand paying money for guff like Reo-Coker and Luke Young was only going to end one way.

I would think the same applies now - I don't take care if they're British if we're talking about players like Kalvin Phillips or James Justin, let's just keep away from proven mediocrities such as Dwight Gayle or Charlie Austin

[hilts_coolerking]

Young, Hungry and coachable was the mantra

All current links (Jota aside) are exactly that

For the first time in years I actually trust the judgement and professionalism of the coaches and board to get the right quantity and quality of players needed.
And I also think the time we know about a signing will be when it is done which is crap for someone as impatient as me but TBH the right way to do it

How do we know all current links are 'hungry', whatever that means?

[kieron]

Looks like we may have just signed a striker and broken our transfer record...