creativity and solidity.

willock - xhaka - ceballos -> coutinho - partey - ceballos

The lack of creativity in midfield.

Or our midfielders are shite, these guys are slightly less so. Whichever way you'd like to put it.

Quite possibly the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals, maybe ever.

How much would United save even if there’s no fee? 30m?

We have no prayer of getting Ozil off the books and couldn’t do any better than giving Mhki away on a free. And now you want to give Willian a three year deal? Have we learned nothing?

Just saw today that he’s a Bolsonaro supporter too which makes me want him even less.

I mean, Willian at least looks far from finished. Whenever Ozil was on the pitch after Arteta joined, he looked like Cleverley 2.0 without the defensive contributions.

Also cant really care what footballers think about politics and social issues. Think you would get disillusioned quite fast.

@PoseidonCubed, willian is apparently on relatively small wages. ~120k from my memory. he wont be earning mkhi money and he is still actually good.

Mkhit was on 170. Willian getting that would not be unlikely

I kinda don’t want to fathom what United could’ve spent the Alexis money on. I’m strongly confident that I was all for it at the time (but knew that the back end of the deal could be ugly). I never expected the whole deal to be ugly.

At least United are going after young and hungry guys now even if they do cost a pretty penny. Alexis was already kinda done in England when United did that deal, but he also seemed to have zero drive when he got the bumper pay day. Thank god that nightmare is over.

they have both been decent in Italy.

Why are the top premier league clubs not throwing money at Alaba? Given his age and with 1 year left on his deal how much could Bayern realistically turn down?

Can we not just throw a chunk of the Alexis wages at him and sell Luke Shaw back to Southampton or w/e. AWB is elite defensively but meh going forward and a quality LB is essential for us especially one that can contribute in the attacking areas.

United aside both Chelsea and City have been linked with LB's. Chelsea getting quoted huge numbers for Chilwell and we know how much Pep loves a shiny new FB. One that can play LCB or DCM too.

I guess it doesn’t sound that bad if you put it that way and he’s on a free. I just scared of him falling off a cliff, losing all motivation, etc. and our record signing players from rivals isn’t great to put it mildly.

I’d rather we just get Buendia.

Praying that Gabriel rumor has some truth behind it. He seems like he has absolutely everything to be massively successful.

Heh, depends on the perspective. I’d love to see him at United.


Bandit,

I kinda wonder if Alaba already knows his destination and that agents know it as well. It’s pretty surprising that he seems to be available and yet there’s barely any talk about him going somewhere.

what is this nonsense? arsenal arent signing partey. probably not coutinho either.

I'm not being funny but why on earth would he want to leave Bayern to go to the PL? Madrid, Barca or Juve a different story.

League titles and a good shout of winning the CL every season. A breeze every week, no need to get out of second gear either and it's not exactly a **** league either.

True, but let the guy dream

Not sure. They are trying to actively get rid of Coutinho to free up wages. The sum that is mentioned is laughable and his agent is Joorabchian.

Think that one has every ingredient there to happen.

Partey would most likely only happen if they would consider taking Gouendouzi and/or less money than his buyout. Doubt they would, thus it is unlikely.

Any CB would be great. The Lille free agent is good as any if we don't want to spend money on that front. Same thing why I think Willian might happen, relatively low risk/cost

Imo Alexis being already done in England is hindsight even though he did suck for Utd from day one. But they had to outbid City who have been pretty good on the transfer market, at least when it comes to attackers. I remember some mad eltbus posts.

As for Alaba, I know lol shirts and all, but he's been at Bayern since he's been 14 or whatever and might just like it there so it's possible PL clubs would have to give him significantly more money than Bayern, who aren't exactly poor themselves. Of course he could also want to go somewhere else after all those years at the same club. He'll be able to command a top wage anywhere so this might actually be a situation where it might come down to where he wants to play rather than a 5-10% difference in weekly wage.

I doubt that Alaba wants to leave, he just wants a wage that is on the level of Neuer and Müller. I assume in the end he'll get that because he deserves it.

Ornstein reported on both Partey and Coutinho negotiations taking place. I imagine we are odds on favourites to get one of them, but who knows.

My guess would be Coutinho because he kinda has no other choice

Yeah, Partey wants to come to Arsenal, but Atletico don't want to sell him, especially below his release clause.
Barcelona want to offload Coutinho and anywhere that will pay his wages will do.

I've never heard of Trincao, but Leicester bidding 50m for a Barca player seems wild. (1 yr loan w/obligation to buy)

Hojberg to spurs done for 15m.

if he actually wanted to come arsenal would have paid his release clause a month ago

There were some spurious United links to him recently. From my expert 10 minute youtube scouting he looked like he does most of his defending on his arse. Had some sublime 60 yard pings though.

We're not exactly scooge mcduck over here.

i dont really get why arsenal (supposedly?) have no money

but the clause is already cheap. there's 0.00% chance to get him for less. i doubt atleti would even sell him for 70m if there was no clause