2024 January transfer window - hopes, needs, expectations and rumours.

[brontebilly]

Picking through the garbage of the united squad are there any we can offer European football to?

I think they are proper f*cked this time. Watching last night there's only really Fernandez that would have his pick of clubs. Lots of guys on huge contracts past their best and liabilities like Sancho and Antony. So unless the Saudi vulture funds pick them up, like they did with the Liverpool deadwood last summer, they won't be able to shift them.

Liverpool should hammer them at the weekend.

[brontebilly]

Finding quality players that are willing to play second fiddle is the main problem here. If we can establish ourselves as regular performers in the top 4 that will become easier.  As it stands we will look for either first team starters, young and talented or end of contract that are willing to move for a pay rise.

Why do they have to play second fiddle? Sign players better than what we have, and play them. Make the competition even more fierce because buying second fiddle players does not raise the bar.

I feel that trying to buy in players of that quality in January risks breaking the cohesion of the team that exists at the moement, the thing that is making us successful.  Big signings should  be a summer thing so they have time to bed in and don't upset the dressing room.  Also those type of players aren't generally available in January unless 1:they are being forced out of a team 2: are trying to engineer a move or, 3: they have only 6 months on their contract.  Except in the 3rd situation they are probably a player that isn't going to have the attitude we need at VP.  Just my opinion.

I agree with this. January is the market of the desperate and we’ve been there plenty of times in recent years. Emery and his team are much too well organised to make signings to just add numbers. Nothing has changed since the last window closed and in fact he has two more players fit that he didn’t have on 1 Sept.

I think we will only see incomings if any of the peripheral squad push for a move, or we get significant injuries in the next few weeks - and they may only be short term loans.

What if he wants to make signings to add quality rather than just numbers?

We signed Moreno in January, didn't we? And that was despite having Lucas Digne in that position.

Arguably MONs two best signings were in January too, Young and Carew swapped with Baros. Mings was another January signing.

[paul_e]

Picking through the garbage of the united squad are there any we can offer European football to?

Just on that point - would players who have featured in the Champions League or Europa League this season be Cup tied for the Conference League if we signed them in January?

They're not cup tied but you can only register 3 new players in your A squad, and it still has to stay at 24 or 25, whatever the maximum number is. I don't think we're at the maximum number with our squad, but if we were we'd have to take players off to register the new ones.

We're not atthe maximum but we are limited by the home-grown/club-grown rules. The latter is the big problem because JJ is the only player in the squad that fills that so we're effectively capped at a 22man squad.

What about the 3rd keeper?

If we need to we can take Chambers, Traore and even Donk out. I'd be surprised if Donk isn't gone anyway. So that would allow for 3 new signings, if we were to make that many.

Young enough to not need to be named in the 25.

Chambers is an interesting one because he at least counts to the home-grown. Traore and Donk dropping out to be replaced are the 2 obvious ones.

[AV84]

Picking through the garbage of the united squad are there any we can offer European football to?

Just on that point - would players who have featured in the Champions League or Europa League this season be Cup tied for the Conference League if we signed them in January?

They're not cup tied but you can only register 3 new players in your A squad, and it still has to stay at 24 or 25, whatever the maximum number is. I don't think we're at the maximum number with our squad, but if we were we'd have to take players off to register the new ones.

We're not atthe maximum but we are limited by the home-grown/club-grown rules. The latter is the big problem because JJ is the only player in the squad that fills that so we're effectively capped at a 22man squad.

What about the 3rd keeper?

If we need to we can take Chambers, Traore and even Donk out. I'd be surprised if Donk isn't gone anyway. So that would allow for 3 new signings, if we were to make that many.

Young enough to not need to be named in the 25.

Chambers is an interesting one because he at least counts to the home-grown. Traore and Donk dropping out to be replaced are the 2 obvious ones.

There's homegrown as in trained in England/Wales, and then there's homegrown in your own academy, which I think has to be 4?

[paul_e]

Picking through the garbage of the united squad are there any we can offer European football to?

Just on that point - would players who have featured in the Champions League or Europa League this season be Cup tied for the Conference League if we signed them in January?

They're not cup tied but you can only register 3 new players in your A squad, and it still has to stay at 24 or 25, whatever the maximum number is. I don't think we're at the maximum number with our squad, but if we were we'd have to take players off to register the new ones.

We're not atthe maximum but we are limited by the home-grown/club-grown rules. The latter is the big problem because JJ is the only player in the squad that fills that so we're effectively capped at a 22man squad.

What about the 3rd keeper?

If we need to we can take Chambers, Traore and even Donk out. I'd be surprised if Donk isn't gone anyway. So that would allow for 3 new signings, if we were to make that many.

Young enough to not need to be named in the 25.

Chambers is an interesting one because he at least counts to the home-grown. Traore and Donk dropping out to be replaced are the 2 obvious ones.

There's homegrown as in trained in England/Wales, and then there's homegrown in your own academy, which I think has to be 4?

Correct, 4 of each for Europe and it's the ones who've spent 3 years in our academy that we're struggling for. Philogene would've beena  good option for that and going forward I can see the likes of Iroegbunam and Kellyman playing an important part in the squad because of it. It's also the best reason I can think of for us to let Grealish come back.

[pauliewalnuts]

Not sure Iroegbunam would qualify - we took him from Albion's academy.

[pablo_picasso]

Seems PL clubs have voted (according to Matt Law at the Telegraph) to restrict amortisation of contracts to 5 years like the rest of Europe

And oddly, it seems like Chelsea were one of them.

Guessing that will be to make it isn’t backdated?

Chelsea yet again utilising a loophole & then helping close it so that others cannot use it.

Should have been backdated to keep the playing field as level as possible...

[paul_e]

Not sure Iroegbunam would qualify - we took him from Albion's academy.

He was young enough that he would, anything U18 is pretty much irrelevant, other than, as we found this year, they have to have been with the academy for a year before you can name them in your 'b' squad (the list of underage players that you can use on top of the named squad), this is why Kellyman hasn't featured because apparently we didn't realise he would have to be in the main squad.

[AV84]

Y

Not sure Iroegbunam would qualify - we took him from Albion's academy.

They have to have spent 3 years in the academy between ages of 15-21. He'll be 21 this summer and only here 2 years, so I think that rules him out. Kellyman will count if he's still here this time next year. Or does it count if they've signed pro contracts?

 I guess this is where we'd be hoping the likes of Barry or Kesler-Hayden come through in the next yea

[paul_e]

Y

Not sure Iroegbunam would qualify - we took him from Albion's academy.

They have to have spent 3 years in the academy between ages of 15-21. He'll be 21 this summer and only here 2 years, so I think that rules him out. Kellyman will count if he's still here this time next year. Or does it count if they've signed pro contracts?

 I guess this is where we'd be hoping the likes of Barry or Kesler-Hayden come through in the next yea

I think he's ok because U21 isn't defined by his birthday but by his age at a cut off date.

so, for example, the U21 euros on 2025 started qualifying this year so anyone born after 31/12/01 is eligible. I'm fairly sure they use calendar year in the same way for the UEFA led club competitions which would mean any born after 31/12/02 will be considered as U21 next season. On that basis, by the time we need to bname him in a squad he'll have been eligible to represent us in 3 seasons and, therefore, I think, counts as club-grown. I might be wrong because the whole thing is very messy.

[nick harper]

Picking through the garbage of the united squad are there any we can offer European football to?

Sancho could do with a change of scenery. A loan to get him some game time?

Wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole.

You just know that if Unai had him for a couple of months, he’d transform him into the player he was at Dortmund, with extra work rate thrown in.

He would be much less of a gamble because of our manager.

[LeeB]

Picking through the garbage of the united squad are there any we can offer European football to?

Sancho could do with a change of scenery. A loan to get him some game time?

Wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole.

You just know that if Unai had him for a couple of months, he’d transform him into the player he was at Dortmund, with extra work rate thrown in.

He would be much less of a gamble because of our manager.

He'd do that for a lot of players that wouldn't cost as much and could be arsed to get to training on time as well thiugh

[Risso]

The rules say this:

"A "Home Grown Player" means a player who, irrespective of nationality or age, has been registered with any club affiliated to The Football Association or the Football Association of Wales for a period, continuous or not, of three entire seasons, or 36 months, before his 21st birthday (or the end of the season during which he turns 21)."

So he doesn't qualify, as his birthday is June, which is after the end of the season. He'll qualify as home grown next season.

[Lsvilla]

Picking through the garbage of the united squad are there any we can offer European football to?

Sancho could do with a change of scenery. A loan to get him some game time?

Wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole.

You just know that if Unai had him for a couple of months, he’d transform him into the player he was at Dortmund, with extra work rate thrown in.

He would be much less of a gamble because of our manager.

He'd do that for a lot of players that wouldn't cost as much and could be arsed to get to training on time as well thiugh

And doing that for a loanee would only benefit his parent club (and the player himself obviously). Why would we do that for those tossers ?

[Risso]

He'd do that for a lot of players that wouldn't cost as much and could be arsed to get to training on time as well thiugh

He's got to get Diaby back to his best, and Zaniolo into any form at all, so I wouldn't be bringing in anybody else with question marks over their form or temperament to be honest.