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

[Nii Lamptey]

Malen couldn't get in the side ahead of Rogers, Rashford and Asensio.

Guessand has been here for 2 weeks of the season.

Agree, it’s early to judge them. Any of them could become our best player but Emery seems reluctant to throw them into the team.

Emery has form for this though and therefore ‘immediate success’ is a harsh stick to beat Monchi with if most players need X months to graduate from Emery school. There’s naturally a lag and football fans are rarely patient.

How do you explain Morgan Rogers then? Thrown straight in, and now been struggling for form for best part of this calendar year but never gets dropped

[rob_bridge]

I really rate Maatsen and I’m sure he’s going to be an excellent addition. I don’t think anyone expected Digne to still be here or hit the levels of consistency that he achieved.

Digne was a big let down for the first year and looked like a typical hyper waste of money no sell on value. He was really good in the last 2 seasons so whilst I have high hopes for Maatsen there are enough games to go around for those 2.

We need a RB/RCB as a priority.

[Dave]

Our current strongest 11 when everyone is fit are still a majority of players signed under Bruce, Smith and Gerrard. The time to blindly follow the currect set up is when their signings make up the majority of a successful starting 11.

I don’t accept the premise of a binary choice but if you do take that argument then similarly the criticism should be tempered until they’ve been allowed by both time and financial constraints to make those signings.

The time bit I agree with, particularly this window as I'm still completely sure we'll see 2-3 loan signings arrive tomorrow. So the squad for the season should be judged on Tuesday morning rather than now.

The "constraints" bit, not so much - it's their job to work with the financial limits they've been given. If that's "make the squad better while still turning a profit on transfers", then that's why they're allegedly the best people in the business and it seems fine to judge their results as we go. And some of those results are obvious massive successes - Rogers being the obvious, and even if the rumours are right on him being Emery's spot it's still fine to chalk it up as a big success for the whole scounting and recruitment operation. Tielemans as well.

But if they were brilliant transfer gurus, then I'd expect to see things like "no thanks Juventus, keep that £10m rated Iling-Junior, we'll have that Dean Huijsen guy that you also value at £10m instead thanks".

Or realising that Bailey was at the absolute peak of his value in summer '24, and selling him for £60m rather than letting his value drop off a cliff to the point we're desperate to get rid of him.

Or knowing that money was going to be tight so not tying up £50m in Donyell Malen to sit on the bench.

No club is going to get everything right but when Monchi arrived some people thought we were effectively employing transfer Jesus, so it seems perfectly fair to have high standards on which to hold him.

[PeterWithesShin]

6 windows and 400m spent on players should, imo, see more than only Tielemans and Rogers as definite starters, with it then being if Pau better than Mings and then Onana. Doesn't mean I don't trust them, just that i'm not going to say they should never be questioned.

[Monty]

And Tielemans was a free, and Rogers was hand-picked by Unai (as was Pau FWIW, who might not be in great form now but who had a very fine run of form in there at one point). It isn't the best record.

[pauliewalnuts]

Two things concern me. One is the prioritisation at work some of the time. If you leave to one side the ability of the actual players and focus on the positions where we’ve spent money, was it really right to tie up so much money in Maatsen and Onana when we did?

The other is the buying players and then immediately deciding to let them go. I appreciate we might turn a profit but how much, on the likes of Ned? Or that Turkish lad - for whom it seemed a dream to come here - only to literally days later punt him off to Anderlecht with a buy option?

How much time and effort goes in to buying these players where we don’t stand to make much, and would we be better off spending that time on players who actually might play for the first team?

And before anyone says it, yes, I know, I agree it’s important to buy and sell players this way, and Chelsea make a fortune doing it, but Chelsea also seem to consistently improve their first team at the same time and are way less encumbered by PSR.

[N'ZMAV]

6 windows and 400m spent on players should, imo, see more than only Tielemans and Rogers as definite starters, with it then being if Pau better than Mings and then Onana. Doesn't mean I don't trust them, just that i'm not going to say they should never be questioned.

that's a fair point.

[Chris Smith]

Our current strongest 11 when everyone is fit are still a majority of players signed under Bruce, Smith and Gerrard. The time to blindly follow the currect set up is when their signings make up the majority of a successful starting 11.

I don’t accept the premise of a binary choice but if you do take that argument then similarly the criticism should be tempered until they’ve been allowed by both time and financial constraints to make those signings.

The time bit I agree with, particularly this window as I'm still completely sure we'll see 2-3 loan signings arrive tomorrow. So the squad for the season should be judged on Tuesday morning rather than now.

The "constraints" bit, not so much - it's their job to work with the financial limits they've been given. If that's "make the squad better while still turning a profit on transfers", then that's why they're allegedly the best people in the business and it seems fine to judge their results as we go. And some of those results are obvious massive successes - Rogers being the obvious, and even if the rumours are right on him being Emery's spot it's still fine to chalk it up as a big success for the whole scounting and recruitment operation. Tielemans as well.

But if they were brilliant transfer gurus, then I'd expect to see things like "no thanks Juventus, keep that £10m rated Iling-Junior, we'll have that Dean Huijsen guy that you also value at £10m instead thanks".

Or realising that Bailey was at the absolute peak of his value in summer '24, and selling him for £60m rather than letting his value drop off a cliff to the point we're desperate to get rid of him.

Or knowing that money was going to be tight so not tying up £50m in Donyell Malen to sit on the bench.

No club is going to get everything right but when Monchi arrived some people thought we were effectively employing transfer Jesus, so it seems perfectly fair to have high standards on which to hold him.

Which is why I prefaced by saying I don’t accept the premise, how often do management teams get the time to completely overhaul a squad. its always going to be a combination of theirs and their predecessors players. There are also going to be those that step up to the challenge of new signings and raise their game to retain their place, Digne is probably the best example.

As for Bailey, he came into last season as our form player and with a CL campaign to negotiate I don’t think Unai would have entertained thought of selling him.

[JUAN PABLO]

We will end up with Sancho  I bet .

[ChicagoLion]

Our current strongest 11 when everyone is fit are still a majority of players signed under Bruce, Smith and Gerrard. The time to blindly follow the currect set up is when their signings make up the majority of a successful starting 11.

I don’t accept the premise of a binary choice but if you do take that argument then similarly the criticism should be tempered until they’ve been allowed by both time and financial constraints to make those signings.

And then you look at the signings they have made already.

[aev]

Wasn’t the problem with Huijsen that they didn’t want to let him go at that stage, and we needed a deal done asap?

[Chip Butty 111]

Lucas Paqueta for £47M is this mornings story, according to Romano

[JUAN PABLO]

Lucas Paqueta for £47M is this mornings story, according to Romano

hadnt seen this

[VinnieChase84]

Paqueta won’t happen, it be stunned.
Fully expect him to play for West Ham this afternoon.

[eamonn]

Come on Chip Butty, you're meant to be reading this thread of a Saturday night to keep-up with the latest, not gallivanting with the broads of Broad Street.