Winter 2025 Transfer Window - hopes, speculation, rumours etc.

[AV84]

Perfect for Spurs then

[LeonW]

Was about to say that was an awful article with an agenda…tho it is from that rag so to be expected

Not awful at all and almost near the knuckle. You can’t have a long term strategy and then throw it away when some clubs want to offload their burden. I doubt if we were planning to sign Rashford and Asensio this time last month.

Agreed, it's tough to read as it's mostly accurate. We have gone from unearthing hidden gems like Rogers to vanity signings like Asensio and Rashford. It's like we learned nothing from Coutinho. Our business with Juve, Everton and Chelsea this summer doesn't seem to have worked in our favour

Yes, unfortunately. We didn’t have to let the 3 players go that we have and we’ve budgeted for them for the season. You could even argue that we could have got more for Duran. Buendia, we invested the time to finally start to get him close to match fitness and then we send him out, not even with an obligation to buy. We’ve even got more headroom with the champions league money for the remaining 6 months of the season to then reassess in the summer. But instead we’ve left ourselves short in the last few games and expecting Emery to work miracles. A well run club does not do what we’ve been doing this January.

I don’t know how you get to that conclusion as if Emery has had something forced on him. He’s been trying to sell Diego for the last two windows and he recently said Buendia would benefit from more game time he wouldn’t get with us. With Duran we tried to settle him down with a new contract but as we all know it didn’t have the desired effect and we received an exceptional offer. Let’s see where we end up come close of play tomorrow, we are obviously like a lot of clubs trying to do more business and freshen things up.

All 3 players were under contract. In Duran’s case, he’d just signed a 10 year contract. We would probably have got more him in the summer with a few more goals. The answer should be no for departures until we have replacements agreed. It also weakens our negotiating hand when clubs know we have cash in the bank from sales.

Players may play up but once the transfer window is closed, they will settle down until the next one because they have to if they want to get decent moves. It’s ridiculous that we’ve had Digne and Kamara playing centre back for our last 3 games. An improved right back still not signed, despite it being an ongoing issue.

Mings (bless him) got injured, which, considering his history, age and the fact he’s been out for such a long time, is hardly a shock. Ramsey has had injury issues for the last two years. Buendia is useful off the bench as option and has proven to be successful under Emery before. We get him close to match fitness and then loan him (with no obligation to buy, thus reducing his value if he doesn’t play and no guarantee he will play for the current German champions) to bring in one player who hasn’t played for what, 12 games, has a history of unprofessional behaviour and another who has played 28 mins in the last 15 games; both of whom are reclamation jobs and need bringing up to speed (probably at least a month), yet we’re paying astronomical wages to not only sort out problems for other clubs, but also potentially fixing them for sale in the summer if we don’t buy them (which on those wages both are on, is highly unlikely in our current financial state of 96% of turnover being spent on salaries).

It’s not as if we’re out of major competitions and don’t have a chance to qualify for the champions league next season and yet we’re making the job harder for one of the best managers in Europe to be effective. That’s how I got that my conclusion.

[astonvilla82]

Emery recently stated it was Diego that wanted to leave. Unai has always and rightly said he doesn't players who don't want to be here.

Have heard that it got a bit personal between the two of them

[AV84]

Surely keeping players that have asked to leave is how you end up with players taking a wage and contributing nothing?

[VillaTim]

Leaving it this late in the window is poor planning and Chelsea have played a blinder on us . This should have been brought to a head weeks ago . Now we are either going to have do a panic CB signing or go without.
Kamara showed very clearly yesterday he can't play CB despite people saying he could. He was atrocious.

[andyh]

It would be disappointing if we don’t get one in. Clearly Bade was first choice and having agreed terms with second choice Diasi, that’s seemingly not going to work out either due to Chelsea. Is it usual to have three good choices that meet all the criteria Emery would have identified?

Yet some would have you believe the club haven’t identified and tried to sign defenders and that they are beyond reckless.
Some would have you believe the management haven’t even given a moments thought to improving the defence.

Unfortunately, despite best laid plans, some things don’t work out.

[andyh]

Leaving it this late in the window is poor planning and Chelsea have played a blinder on us . This should have been brought to a head weeks ago . Now we are either going to have do a panic CB signing or go without.
Kamara showed very clearly yesterday he can't play CB despite people saying he could. He was atrocious.

You keep saying the same shit, doesn’t make it so.
You are so apoplectic, you need to make sure you don’t have a coronary.

[garyellis]

Was about to say that was an awful article with an agenda…tho it is from that rag so to be expected

Not awful at all and almost near the knuckle. You can’t have a long term strategy and then throw it away when some clubs want to offload their burden. I doubt if we were planning to sign Rashford and Asensio this time last month.

Agreed, it's tough to read as it's mostly accurate. We have gone from unearthing hidden gems like Rogers to vanity signings like Asensio and Rashford. It's like we learned nothing from Coutinho. Our business with Juve, Everton and Chelsea this summer doesn't seem to have worked in our favour

Yes, unfortunately. We didn’t have to let the 3 players go that we have and we’ve budgeted for them for the season. You could even argue that we could have got more for Duran. Buendia, we invested the time to finally start to get him close to match fitness and then we send him out, not even with an obligation to buy. We’ve even got more headroom with the champions league money for the remaining 6 months of the season to then reassess in the summer. But instead we’ve left ourselves short in the last few games and expecting Emery to work miracles. A well run club does not do what we’ve been doing this January.

I don’t know how you get to that conclusion as if Emery has had something forced on him. He’s been trying to sell Diego for the last two windows and he recently said Buendia would benefit from more game time he wouldn’t get with us. With Duran we tried to settle him down with a new contract but as we all know it didn’t have the desired effect and we received an exceptional offer. Let’s see where we end up come close of play tomorrow, we are obviously like a lot of clubs trying to do more business and freshen things up.

All 3 players were under contract. In Duran’s case, he’d just signed a 10 year contract. We would probably have got more him in the summer with a few more goals. The answer should be no for departures until we have replacements agreed. It also weakens our negotiating hand when clubs know we have cash in the bank from sales.

Players may play up but once the transfer window is closed, they will settle down until the next one because they have to if they want to get decent moves. It’s ridiculous that we’ve had Digne and Kamara playing centre back for our last 3 games. An improved right back still not signed, despite it being an ongoing issue.

Mings (bless him) got injured, which, considering his history, age and the fact he’s been out for such a long time, is hardly a shock. Ramsey has had injury issues for the last two years. Buendia is useful off the bench as option and has proven to be successful under Emery before. We get him close to match fitness and then loan him (with no obligation to buy, thus reducing his value if he doesn’t play and no guarantee he will play for the current German champions) to bring in one player who hasn’t played for what, 12 games, has a history of unprofessional behaviour and another who has played 28 mins in the last 15 games; both of whom are reclamation jobs and need bringing up to speed (probably at least a month), yet we’re paying astronomical wages to not only sort out problems for other clubs, but also potentially fixing them for sale in the summer if we don’t buy them (which on those wages both are on, is highly unlikely in our current financial state of 96% of turnover being spent on salaries).

It’s not as if we’re out of major competitions and don’t have a chance to qualify for the champions league next season and yet we’re making the job harder for one of the best managers in Europe to be effective. That’s how I got that my conclusion.

Although there are many other points you raise which are too simplistic the main one I was making is all these deals have been sanctioned by our manager. For whatever reasons Emery does not see how the three departures do not benefit us in the long run. I agree the defence needs reinforcements but we have tried to move Diego on for the last two windows. He had no future here for whatever reason with this manager. Like I said let’s see what happens by close of play tomorrow.

[Tuscans]

 

In Duran’s case, he’d just signed a 10 year contract.

He signed until 2030, not 2035.

[VillaTim]

Leaving it this late in the window is poor planning and Chelsea have played a blinder on us . This should have been brought to a head weeks ago . Now we are either going to have do a panic CB signing or go without.
Kamara showed very clearly yesterday he can't play CB despite people saying he could. He was atrocious.

You keep saying the same shit, doesn’t make it so.
You are so apoplectic, you need to make sure you don’t have a coronary.

You're in denial. Have a look at the calendar.

[PaulWinch again]

It would be disappointing if we don’t get one in. Clearly Bade was first choice and having agreed terms with second choice Diasi, that’s seemingly not going to work out either due to Chelsea. Is it usual to have three good choices that meet all the criteria Emery would have identified?

It wouldn’t just be disappointing it’d be a disaster.

[Olneythelonely]

Leaving it this late in the window is poor planning and Chelsea have played a blinder on us . This should have been brought to a head weeks ago . Now we are either going to have do a panic CB signing or go without.
Kamara showed very clearly yesterday he can't play CB despite people saying he could. He was atrocious.

You keep saying the same shit, doesn’t make it so.
You are so apoplectic, you need to make sure you don’t have a coronary.

I wonder if that absolutely dimwit Cooper’s Injury has decent heart health?

God, he was stupid.

[pauliewalnuts]

Leaving it this late in the window is poor planning and Chelsea have played a blinder on us . This should have been brought to a head weeks ago . Now we are either going to have do a panic CB signing or go without.
Kamara showed very clearly yesterday he can't play CB despite people saying he could. He was atrocious.

You keep saying the same shit, doesn’t make it so.
You are so apoplectic, you need to make sure you don’t have a coronary.

No offence, Andy, but apoplectic is a bit rich coming from you, the king of match thread anger.

[PaulWinch again]

If we don’t sign a centre-half I reckon we’ll finish 10th or below.

[john2710]

I said a few days ago that Chelsea would end up messing us around. They are not going to do us any favours unless it's in their interests.