With the amount of smoke I inhaled yesterday, I went from 1% chances of Mbappe coming to RM this summer, to 99% done and it was ez, too. They got me in the rabbit hole and sold me smoke from 7-8 directions and I believe like 6 of them. I don't even care anymore, they can lie me all they want.

City will pony up as close to deadline day as possible. If they pay top money, they will want to make it as hard as they can for Spurs to get their replacements (Vlahovic & Lautaro) in.

However, if those two are not available I'm not sure Levy will sell, even at £160m.

a record fee and high wages for kane and then having to pray his ankle holds up until he's 33 doesnt seem like that good a deal

city should have gone hard for messi instead. 2-3 years with limited downside because they can always send him to america if he gets too old. and everyone would have gotten to see him play every week instead of 2-4 cl knockout games now

Or just go hard for Haaland next summer

My feeling is that people itk know where Haaland is going next year. That's why you've seen Chelsea and City both to go all in for a generational talent.

Lewandowski wants to leave Bayern. Be intereseting to see how that changes things on the transfer merry go round.

Haaland is a certainty for Bayern. Book it now.

Especially if Man City sign Kane. Every team that can spend big will be set for strikers.

doubt thats true. why would lewa wait until the final weeks of the transfer window to say he wants to leave? might go next summer though, buyern are pretty much a lock to promote haaland from their b-team then.

Yeah, it's complete bollocks. If you read the headline: "Robert Lewandowski: Bayern Munich striker wants new challenge" you may go away with the feeling like he wants to leave.

But if you read the article, it basically says that he will probably move on when his contract expires in 2023:

I doubt it, seems to me like it's just a case of two top teams wanting an elite striker. If you're prepared to fork out £100m+ for Lukaku or Kane, why wouldn't you try to sign Haaland for a similar price?

That should say not go. City and Chelsea spending 100m+ and 400k a week means they won't be doing the same next year imo.

Biggest spenders in the league this season for Odegaard, White, Ramsdale and others is very reminiscent of Spurs with the Bale money.

That'll bring net spend up to what, £300m the past four years? That's mental

Oh I meant next season. Doubt he moves this season anywhere. Dortmund basically said they dont want to sell.

Don't read too much into that when 1/3 of that money was spent on Pepe alone in a multi-agent-layering scheme where approx 20mill ended up with intermediaries. Amazing stuff.

It is also reminiscent of United post Fergie. Their deadwood is just about to leave, how many years after being on books, 4? Lingard and Jones are still there mind you.. also amazing, but they have managed to put their **** together and identify good targets and spend big on them.

We are in the same boat only seemingly earlier days as I would immediately get rid half of our squad right now.
But it is literally impossible due to the dodgy/unreasonable lucrative and long contracts distributed by our 'transfer committee' and perhaps Lego Pep (but I doubt this given how he desperately tries to get rid of everyone that was brought in that period - including 27million defensive marvel Saliba).

So we have went for a bunch of nothingburger signings whom we are stuck with maybe due to incompetence maybe due to overvaluing them in the market (which is commensurate with the incompetence label, but still). It was a sign of better things to come that all 4 of our recent additions (Im counting Ramsdale and Odi here) are below 24 years of age and are quite promising prospects (i still dont think ben white should be here but hey the internet's people still say he is good so he is here).

The worrying side is Bellerin/Xhaka etc situations and not accepting offers to get them off the books. Chances are that there wont be many clubs standing in line to take Xhaka away in a year or two either and yet we 'protect his value' with a new 4 year contract. Just the exact mistake woody did with the deadwood.

Bellerin not being shipped for 15millie to Inter seems bad too as now we are seemingly stuck with a him and a bunch of other disgruntled players which will not help the rebuild whatsoever.

Theyre on as much wages combined as Lukaku or grealish though.

Sure, but Chelsea sold several players, which both brought in a lot of cash and lowered the wage spending. And City got rid of Aguero whose wage probably was fairly similar to Grealish's.

Arsenal haven't exactly improved their wage situation, only added more. Except for selling Willock, whose salary now goes to cover Xhaka's much deserved pay raise.

I wonder at what point in the future will I be able read the Xhaka renewal without my eyes starting to bleed instantly

Seeing news that if City don't get Kane, they'll just snatch up Vlahovic. Easy peazy. Must be nice.

It's probably going to be a never from me. Not even all his fault, just mostly annoyed at the club more than anything.

Personally, I don't think he should have ever played again for us after throwing down the armband (not to excuse horrible behavior by fans by any means), much less gotten to captain the side again.

Andreas Pereira on loan to Flamengo w/option to buy. Unfortunately the option is for close to the brazilian record fee so we'll be seeing him back at United next summer.

Also looks like Williams on loan to norwich should be finalized next week.

The thing that's so tilting is if you want to keep him just let his contract run down with 2 years left.

Hence the bleeding eye

Extending Xhaka follows the logic that I spent years trying to talk fellow Schalke fans out of who wanted to extend every player's contract "to get a fee for him". Guess that happens when you lose Matip, Goretzka etc. on bosmans AND play too much FIFA AND are fan of a club with a questionable transfer strategy... you're traumatised from losing players for free and assume somewhere out there must be an idiot who takes on all of the wages and pays a fee. Problem is that we are always that idiot.

In some ways Ødi, welcome home.

Too bad he's not eligible to play Sunday.

Crazy our best AM trio has an average age of 21. Three players of huge potential. Shame none are great goal scorers though.

unfortunately the current dynamic suggests that the ones who fulfil that potential will leave and the ones that dont will stay

Decent signing