Summer Transfer Thread and Gustavo Cisneros Type Rumours.

[Monty]

Apparently we're interested in Cheick Doucouré at Lens? Does anyone who watches more Ligue 1 than I do know anything about him?

[danno]

Apparently we're interested in Cheick Doucouré at Lens? Does anyone who watches more Ligue 1 than I do know anything about him?

Go back two pages, and there's a really in depth article posted by Drum.

[edgysatsuma89]

Apparently we're interested in Cheick Doucouré at Lens? Does anyone who watches more Ligue 1 than I do know anything about him?

Drummond has a long ass post about him a few hours ago. A copied and pasted article that is pretty detailed.

[Monty]

Wow yeah just read it. Well, sounds exactly like what we need.

[markeeeebeeee2005]

Apparently we're interested in Cheick Doucouré at Lens? Does anyone who watches more Ligue 1 than I do know anything about him?

Where did you see that?

[DrGonzo]

Birmingham Mail, on a lifted click bait style cut and paste job from MadeUpTransfer.com. 

[Monty]

On the big news aggregator, there's a journo in France who claims we, Atalanta and the Arse are interested.

[paul_e]

There's a fair few places reporting it, including some in French. Not sure if it's all coming from 1 place though. I can see the sense it. At that age he'd be more acceptable of being a rotation option you'd think. He looks like the sort of player we need but I think Pape Sarr looks a better prospect.

[Monty]

I still think we're down on creativity. If we really have 'replaced' Grealish then that gets us 11th - solid but not inspiring. We have the dosh and the FFP leeway this year, there's no reason not to push on now.

[Risso]

I still think we're down on creativity. If we really have 'replaced' Grealish then that gets us 11th - solid but not inspiring. We have the dosh and the FFP leeway this year, there's no reason not to push on now.

But we've added Buendia and Bailey? Neither of whom might be as individually creative as Ratboy, but Bailey is much quicker, and Buendia is a better passer of the ball. With everybody fit and in form, you'd think that neither Traore or El Ghazi will be starting many games this season, which automatically means we've improved I reckon.

[cdbearsfan]

One of them would be in for Grealish and one in for Barkley. So if you want Traore to be demoted to the bench we would still need another. Hence the links with Cantwell, presumably. Still I won't be devastated to see Traore starting, he's brilliant.

[Monty]

If their overall contributions match Grealish's by himself then that's pretty good in terms of replacement (although I'd expect them to have more goals - never Grealish's strong point). In terms of being actually stronger, though, I think we'd need to replace that tempo, the ball retention, the creativity in and around the centre. The thought of putting Ings in at effectively no. 10 is, to my mind, a bit shit.

[Toronto Villa]

I still think we're down on creativity. If we really have 'replaced' Grealish then that gets us 11th - solid but not inspiring. We have the dosh and the FFP leeway this year, there's no reason not to push on now.

I think we have significantly upgraded our creativity through not being so one dimensional. We have been a one man team for most of the last three years. We should in time be able to attack and score from even more options. We took a step forward last year and while losing Jack is never easy to overcome we will be better positioned that I hope our performances don't drop to the levels they did after Christmas.

[Risso]

I still think we're down on creativity. If we really have 'replaced' Grealish then that gets us 11th - solid but not inspiring. We have the dosh and the FFP leeway this year, there's no reason not to push on now.

I think we have significantly upgraded our creativity through not being so one dimensional. We have been a one man team for most of the last three years. We should in time be able to attack and score from even more options. We took a step forward last year and while losing Jack is never easy to overcome we will be better positioned that I hope our performances don't drop to the levels they did after Christmas.

Completely agree. You could see in games like West Ham that when teams doubled up on him, it effectively rendered us toothless. Now if we've got more attacking intent down both wings or through the middle, overall we'll do much better. Games like the 7-2 against Liverpool with Greasy at his best were amazing, but more routine wins against the likes of Southampton, West Ham, Brighton and Leeds etc will see us further up the table.

[ChicagoLion]

We have improved the without Grealish team, but I am not sure we will be as good as the with Grealish team.