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

[Rigadon]

There isn’t a balance or upside, other than the rules prevent Newcastle doing a Man City.  That’s it really.  And if they just stop nation states buying football clubs that’d sort that one out too.  The downside is that there is a massive glass ceiling that clubs like the Villa keep bumping up against. 

[Chris Smith]

Tap in merchant has also mentioned the Watkins deal from Man Utd just now too.

Honestly, I’m not sure if it’s just me or not, but I’m incredibly disillusioned with football this close season. It seems like Man Utd want to sign everybody they can do, especially from us. Chelsea seem to want to spend £1 billion on everybody. And yet teams like us, Newcastle and others are basically being fleeced over and having key players snapped up everywhere. Including Man Utd who had one bad season and are remedying it by being linked with every single one of our key players.

2 good seasons, 3 years in Europe including 1 in the CL and a narrow miss on this last year, and we’ve now just seemingly a feeder club.

I might be missing the nuances but this close season feels like the reason I fell out of love with football several years ago (before we were relegated of course!).

We will have a plan for this close season, I know this. But where on earth is balance in any of this?

I agree Chris. Not helped either by the fact football has been relentless this summer and I'd prefer if there was a complete break from it for a month or so.

I know what you mean but I paid no attention to the club World Cup thingy so feel that for me there has been more of a break. While I do read about transfer rumours I do it from the position of believing that 99.9% of them are bullshit.

[brontebilly]

Ha, its hilarious watching Manure and their media lickspittles desperately trying to appear relevant, the games moved on lads.

Only absolutey useless fuckwits loan their best players to Premier League rivals, why would we do that?

Might just more loan to buy jiggery pokery to get around FFP/PSR/TBC regulations.

[VILLA MOLE]

There isn’t a balance or upside, other than the rules prevent Newcastle doing a Man City.  That’s it really.  And if they just stop nation states buying football clubs that’d sort that one out too.  The downside is that there is a massive glass ceiling that clubs like the Villa keep bumping up against. 

I think there is a balance they can achieve that neither stifles them in investing but also does not restrict them like it does now,  But the Cartel  would never go for it     

[AV84]

Ha, its hilarious watching Manure and their media lickspittles desperately trying to appear relevant, the games moved on lads.

Only absolutey useless fuckwits loan their best players to Premier League rivals, why would we do that?

Might just more loan to buy jiggery pokery to get around FFP/PSR/TBC regulations.

I'd imagine its something like how Arsenal loaned Reya before signing him.

[LeeB]

Ha, its hilarious watching Manure and their media lickspittles desperately trying to appear relevant, the games moved on lads.

Only absolutey useless fuckwits loan their best players to Premier League rivals, why would we do that?

Might just more loan to buy jiggery pokery to get around FFP/PSR/TBC regulations.

I'd imagine its something like how Arsenal loaned Reya before signing him.

This may be true but my post was only really about calling Man Utd absolutely useless fuckwits in a backhanded way.

[kippaxvilla2]

Man United cannot dump Onana because he is injured and pretty crap.  Therefore, they tried to sign Emi on loan purely and simply because they cannot afford to buy him until that situation changes.  And of course thought we would just do our old thing of bowing down to them which we didn't.  So in summary, fcuk them.

[Percy McCarthy]

Tap in merchant has also mentioned the Watkins deal from Man Utd just now too.

Honestly, I’m not sure if it’s just me or not, but I’m incredibly disillusioned with football this close season. It seems like Man Utd want to sign everybody they can do, especially from us. Chelsea seem to want to spend £1 billion on everybody. And yet teams like us, Newcastle and others are basically being fleeced over and having key players snapped up everywhere. Including Man Utd who had one bad season and are remedying it by being linked with every single one of our key players.

2 good seasons, 3 years in Europe including 1 in the CL and a narrow miss on this last year, and we’ve now just seemingly a feeder club.

I might be missing the nuances but this close season feels like the reason I fell out of love with football several years ago (before we were relegated of course!).

We will have a plan for this close season, I know this. But where on earth is balance in any of this?

The balance is in the 25-player squad limit. We’re one of the richest clubs in the world, and can afford to buy and employ almost any player. If we’re clever enough in growing revenue, recruitment, development and coaching we can compete. It will take time but if we have the right people in those jobs we can get there. Man Utd’s decline has had nothing to do with them not being able to spend money.

[Percy McCarthy]

I'm not sure how many times I have to say we can't make additions unless we sell...

We’ve made additions, and according to the usually reliable Athletic/Ornstein we’ve made a pretty sizeable (rejected) bid for a player.

[tomd2103]

I'm not sure how many times I have to say we can't make additions unless we sell...

What info is that based on?  Direct line to Monchi?

[Somniloquism]

Hasn't stopped Chelsea.

[Dave]

I'm not sure how many times I have to say we can't make additions unless we sell...

What info is that based on?  Direct line to Monchi?

The UEFA ruling that suggests that we cannot add players to our submitted squad of (as it turned out to be, less than) 25 from last season unless we bring in more than we spend on "A" list players this summer.

[Holy Trinity]

I'm not sure how many times I have to say we can't make additions unless we sell...

What info is that based on?  Direct line to Monchi?

The UEFA ruling that suggests that we cannot add players to our submitted squad of (as it turned out to be, less than) 25 from last season unless we bring in more than we spend on "A" list players this summer.

That doesn't stop us buying them, only registering them for european games.
The market is dead unless your one of the regular bug spenders who have had a panic after seeing how close, Us, Newcastle & Forrest have been to upsetting the apple cart.
Out of the top 50 transfers this summer so far we would have only been interested in about 18 and out of those 18 only 4 or so would realistically have actually been interested in us. I don't get the panic just yet, its not like world class players are being stolen from under our nose for a pittance as we stand by and watch in horror. 

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/statistik/saisontransfers

[Dave]

I'm not sure how many times I have to say we can't make additions unless we sell...

What info is that based on?  Direct line to Monchi?

The UEFA ruling that suggests that we cannot add players to our submitted squad of (as it turned out to be, less than) 25 from last season unless we bring in more than we spend on "A" list players this summer.

That doesn't stop us buying them, only registering them for european games.

I know, like I said:

I'm not sure how many times I have to say we can't make additions unless we sell...

Is it not a case of "any additions that we choose to make can't be added to our Europa League squad unless we sell, assuming our interpretation of the UEFA ruling is correct"?

[LeeB]

Have a look at the top 20 transfers of all time, most of them have been absolute disasters, it's guarantee of anything.