Summer 26 Transfer Window - hopes, speculation, rumours etc.

[Beard82]

I'd forgotten Senderos played for us. Fucking hell.

Wait, what the Arsenal guy?  This feels like new information. 

Did he know?

[Dave]

I think, as seems to be the way, it will be defined by which players we sell.

From that regard:

Will stay because they dont fancy Saudi (too big wages and/or too good for most options):
 - Mings
 - Digne
 - Emi
 - Bailey
 - Watkins

Worth more to us than to others
 - McGinn
 - Cash
 - Matasaan
 - Tammy

Prime Meat
 - Rogers
 - Konsa
 - Youri
 - Kamara
 - Onana
 - Malen

Offcuts
 - Guessard
 - all the rightbacks that arent Cash
 - Emi2

I think well sell the offcusts, Malen and at least 1 other Prime player, most likely Rogers (though Ezri to Liverpool wouldnt surprise me). 

Some of the players may go out on loan (bailey etc)

I think well see probably Dougie come back, 2 new forward options and a couple squad players.

That all feels mostly right. Bits I'd quibble:

I think that we'd be very comfortable letting someone else pay Emi £200,000 per week and paying a new young goalkeeper £100,000 per week. I don't think we'd be forcing him out the door, but I reckon it we were asking for £20m rather than £50m, a deal could very easily be done now, unlike in previous summers.

I think Rogers is on the verge of being in the group above. Obviously he's more valuable (in a monetary sense) than the others, but I think we're getting to that point in global football finance where most clubs don't want to spend £100m+ on a player, and those who do...probably have two Rogerses (pl?) of their own already. I think his future depends massively on June and July. But I don't see us selling him for less than £100m, and I think he needs to have a pretty impressive World Cup for the three or four clubs who would pay that to WANT to pay that.

Feels harsh on Emi2. It's one of those where loyalty feels like it shouldn't be a one-way street. If we expect Kamara or Tielemans or Rogers or any future player to feel an affinity to the club, maybe we shouldn't just want to bin out anyone who becomes a mild inconvenience because they've had six weeks of poor games during a bad run. At time of writing, the season looks like it will be a very good one, and could potentially be the best in nearly half a century. And Emi is one of half a dozen players that over the course of it, picked it up by the scruff of the neck and dragged us into a position where that was a possibility. He probably shouldn't be a starter in our best side, but if he is an option from the bench and starting ten games a season for us for the rest of his contract, I'll be very happy with that. And doesn't really deserve to be on a list of misfits.