Summer 2024 Transfer Window - hopes, speculation, rumours etc.

[ozzjim]

That Cherki will be an interesting one to watch at Fulham. Silva putting a decent side together there.

[Bent Neilsens Screamer]

That Cherki will be an interesting one to watch at Fulham. Silva putting a decent side together there.

He’s gone there!! Got the potential to be very good, not lived up to the hype but could be interesting.

[PeterWithesShin]

Sterling was a very good player, the big question is whether he still is.

He wasn't overrated at all, he played consistently well for and barring injury was a first choice for the best side in the country over a period of years. And for all the "well it's easy to do at Man City" then why don't the likes of Grealish and Doku find it easy, as a couple of examples.

[coreyfeldman]

He'd be a horrific distraction for us and is about as far away from an 'Emery type' player as it is possible to get.

I'm not saying we'll sign him, but on the small chance this nubbin of a rumour is true and we do bring him in on loan for season, how would you then square "as far away from an 'Emery type' player as it is possible to get" with Emery signing him?

One of the silliest things I've read for a while, even for h&v

[Footy-Vill]

I have never been Sterling's biggest fan but calling him shit just seems ridiculous to me. Just look at how many appearances he has made at an elite level, club and country. He's not worth 300k now, mind, but he's not shit.

Sorry, you're talking about football on the internet where everything has to be the best or the worst that it's ever been, where everything is shit or brilliant, and where shades of grey don't exist.

Take your understanding of nuance elsewhere please.

A very illuminating experience for me was going to watch Venezia when Nani was still playing for them. My Man Utd fan friends had assured me that he was 'shit' when he was 27, and here he was, basically a decade later, in Serie A.

Well, he wasn't very fast anymore, and he didn't make the 90, but fuck me you could see what top-level talent looked like. Not only was every touch effortless, it was also purposeful, manipulating the ball and the space two steps ahead like a snooker player.

Now when I hear that such and such a player is 'shit' I feel like rolling my eyes. Whoever it is might not be good enough to challenge for the Premier League title, but 'shit' is ludicrous (thinking of how some people talk about Matty Cash, for instance):

It’s all relative though isn’t it?  Man Utd fans are naturally going to compare him to Giggs or Ronaldo or any other top class wide men they’ve had. It’s the same reason why Ashley Young never got any credit from them.

Diego Forlan, Juan Veron, Matic, Daly Blind, all good players and definitely not shit, but all suffered when compared to their predecessors.

Oh bring back Douglas Luiz.
Pining for him. When I read about effortless footballers.
Oh how I miss him.

[Holy Trinity]

When you look at first team barring onana and  maatsen its not much stronger at all than last year.

Illing jr being loaned out. Barkley and enzo are backup players. JPB is also a rotation player.

This does concern me tbh i know we have JJ and buendia who we didnt have last year but i still am abit concerned we havent actually strengthed from last year esp when you see how competitive it will be this year in the league and how tough the CL will be.

But last year we had no “ rotation” players….

Thats the thing though i thought illing jr and enzo would be those type of players.

We dont want another scenario where we have to name two keepers on bench again. That happened way too many times kast season.

Didn't Unai say he has 3 keepers in the squad because of the pre game drills he does require 3 keepers or was that a fever dream?

[Risso]

EDIT obviously this being H&V someone will go on wikipedia to check and come back and say actually, leopards are all vegan, or they don't live in the same environments as gazelles, or gazelles are faster, but you know what I mean.

Leopards typically hunt by stealth, attacking their prey from a few metres, or from a tree. Cheetahs are the ones who sprint after their victims. Happy as ever to be of service.

[OCD]

Who's this Stirling I keep seeing you go on about?

[Risso]

Didn't Unai say he has 3 keepers in the squad because of the pre game drills he does require 3 keepers or was that a fever dream?

I've never heard Unai say it. I think it was something people liked to say when we didn't have enough fit senior players to fill the bench properly.

It's bollocks because:

a) There's absolutely nothing stopping any of the youth or reserve keepers joining in pre-match drills anyway, they don't have to be on the squad to do it, and

b) we only ever did it when ruined by injuries. If it was something Unai liked to do, we'll see both Olsen and Gauci in all of his squads. I suspect he won't be picking one of them ahead of an outfield player though.

[pablo_picasso]

Who called Sterling "shit"?

[AV84]

European games we had to have two on the bench, I thought?

[cdbearsfan]

Less of an issue in Europe, where you can name eleven subs.

[Dave]

He'd be a horrific distraction for us and is about as far away from an 'Emery type' player as it is possible to get.

I'm not saying we'll sign him, but on the small chance this nubbin of a rumour is true and we do bring him in on loan for season, how would you then square "as far away from an 'Emery type' player as it is possible to get" with Emery signing him?

So you're saying, how would I square really not an Emery type signing with Emery signing him?

Well, I'd re-evaluate, but that's a bit like saying "You say that cat isn't a leopard, but how would you then square that with watching it stalk and rip the throat out of a gazelle after a 500 metre chase?"

I'll believe it when I see it.

It's really just my internal eye-roll at the notion of "an Emery type player".

I'd bet that twelve months ago everyone would have furiously agreed with each other that Ross Barkley definitely wasn't "an Emery type player".

It's more the lazy phraseology. An Emery type player is someone who Emery and his gang think will improve the squad and can follow instructions, and it's perfectly plausible that Sterling meets both of those requirements.

[brontebilly]

Sterling was a very good player, the big question is whether he still is.

He wasn't overrated at all, he played consistently well for and barring injury was a first choice for the best side in the country over a period of years. And for all the "well it's easy to do at Man City" then why don't the likes of Grealish and Doku find it easy, as a couple of examples.

Players who rely a lot on explosive pace often finish at an elite level early, they can't or won't adapt their game. Torres comes to mind. Maybe our own Flabby too. Guardiola was certainly keen to move him on at the end, Sterling is quite a selfish player so if the goals dry up at all then others will contribute more. Most players have flopped at Chelsea

He's surely a better bet for the likes of Spurs instead of Richarlison. Newcastle, instead of Almiron.

[Monty]

I'd have always taken 'an Emery type player' to mean 'a player who'd do well in an Emery team'.

So, Zlatan was never a 'Guardiola type player' even though he signed him.