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

[adrenachrome]

They ain’t getting £40m for him and it’ll cost them £30m+ if they don’t sell.

It’s a conundrum

It's a dilemma.

“It is nearly an insoluble pancake, a conundrum of inscrutable potentialities, a snorter.”

[KingstandingVilla]

Did any of our other players around that era take up a career in horticulture? There was Jota as well, but is there maybe an Alan Hutton Weedkiller or a Scott Hogan watering can?

. Now available at the Chimneydome club shop.. The Karen Brady Hoe

[Percy McCarthy]

It’s not the market we will be shopping in, we’re looking for numbers and upgrades. Rashford is an expensive toy that would look great but not fill the needs of the club. Realistically we need at least 5 signings more than outgoings (including malen, guessand and the departed loans)

That sounds a lot. 5 more than let’s say 4 (Malen, Guessand, Elliott, Sancho - assuming you’re not counting Barrenechea)? So 9 new players?

[Dave]

It’s not the market we will be shopping in, we’re looking for numbers and upgrades. Rashford is an expensive toy that would look great but not fill the needs of the club. Realistically we need at least 5 signings more than outgoings (including malen, guessand and the departed loans)

That sounds a lot. 5 more than let’s say 4 (Malen, Guessand, Elliott, Sancho - assuming you’re not counting Barrenechea)? So 9 new players?

Yeah, the actual size of the squad is alright. It just needs the positions from last season who weren't really contributing what they should have (Garcia, Bailey / Guessand, Sancho) to be replaced by players that will. And probably another central midfielder.

Beyond that, it's a case of thinking about succession planning (Mings / Watkins / Digne / McGinn / the two Emis) - bringing in and bringing through their eventual replacements, something which had hopefully already started with the likes of Cissé and Madjo.

[paul_e]

That's far too many. We've already replaced Malen, Guessand and Elliott (Tammy and Bailey have already taken the spots of the first 2 and Alysson is already here to take the 3rd).

Don't forget that for UEFA competitions we're effectively only able to select a 22 man squad (on the basis that Bogarde is the only club-trained player we can include for those 4 slots).

As things stand our actual fist team squad right now is 30 players (I think I've counted right) so the first job is to make decisions on a bunch of fringe players:

Gauci - £1m
Zych
Garcia - £4-5m
Nedeljkovic - £4-5m
Ozcan - £4-5m
Guessand - £25m
Bailey - £5-10m
Iling-Junior - £5m
Dobbin - £5-10m

If they all leave then to get to 2 players in every position we'd need to add a Right Back, a Winger and a 10 but we'd have 'Spares' in centre mid and centre back. However I'd keep Zych as 3rd keeper given, like Bogarde, he fills a squad place that goes empty otherwise. So 8 out, 3 in and then replace anyone else who leaves. The pay for that we will hopefully have £40m from Malen and Barrenechea and around £55-60m from that lot, which should be plenty. If we do go for Mingueza for the RB slot then the link to Mbaye makes sense as that's about the market we can be looking at.

[nigel]

Rashford a complete none starter / he wants £250k plus another £60k a week in bonuses
As quality as he is, his age and profile is not something we should be slapping £40m fee and a 4 year contract down on

I think he could very well end up at Bayern Munich