It's Quiet 18 - Wanna ring the bell?

[Keeper!]

rag ;-)

fuck that, I want a transfer, going to speak to my agent, what a ****

 

[GaudinoMotors]

Did Berrarda take the Possible Targets File with him?

 

[GX Blue]

Isak is the answer. We should pay what the Geordies want.

Can someone find a tweet saying we are in for him?
Even if it’s from some made up loser. I just want to have my hopes slightly raised.

 

[blueparrot]

Isak is the answer. We should pay what the Geordies want.

Can someone find a tweet saying we are in for him?
Even if it’s from some made up loser. I just want to have my hopes slightly raised.

Answer how? is he going to sit on our bench or has Pep gone all 442.

 

[leo_city]

Neto makes no sense now that we’ve signed Savio. Seems like a lazy made up link

 

[Gumzy97]

Didn’t Tolmie say before the window opened that if all went to plan. Neto would be our first signing this summer?

 

[FMwkdsoul]

Didn’t Tolmie say before the window opened that if all went to plan. Neto would be our first signing this summer?

Tolmie says alot of things.

 

[yarny101]

Neto makes no sense now that we’ve signed Savio. Seems like a lazy made up link

Ducker is just conveniently referencing an article he did from months ago prior to Savio signing.

 

[Rammy Blue]

Come on mate. New, shiny things don't guarantee success - they're just exciting.

We haven't lost anybody who was a stalwart in the side and a guaranteed starter like last Summer with Gundogan and Mahrez. We've just won the league (again) and will have a season next year of players who have another year of Pep's influence under their belts, not to mention younger players maturing a bit more (Erling being captain in USA for example) and hopefully less injuries so we don't go months without KDB/Haaland/Grealish.

We're in a luxury position of being able to improve the side with 1 or 2 incomings as opposed to having to reinvent the wheel and chase something we don't have. This team is a juggernaut, why change it drastically? Introduce a few new faces each year to increase internal competition in certain key areas.

We have 2 brilliant goalkeepers in Eddie and Ortega.

4 capable right backs in Walker, Lewis, Stones and Akanji.

5 capable centre halves in Stones, Akanji, Dias, Ake and Gvardiol.

2 capable left backs in Ake and Gvardiol.

We're stacked in wing positions with Doku, Grealish, Foden, Savio, Bobb, McAtee, Nunes all being able to play there if needed.

Midfield we are fine with Kovacic, Rodri, McAtee, Kev, Nunes, O'Reilly with the likes of Foden, Stones, Gvardiol(?), Stones, Lewis and Grealish(?) being able to play there if needed.

Strikers we are light now with just Haaland. But if he doesn't play then we revert back to the false 9 that won us the league and got us to a CL final in 2020/21 with Foden, Bobb, McAtee, Grealish and Kev all being options to play there.

I saw somebody on another thread yesterday put up that we have a case for two XIs in the squad.

It's fun to have new signings but only really if they hit the ground running with time in the side which I don't think you get with Pep anyway but especially not when we have a core squad of brilliant players all at the top of their games in their positions. A back-up for Rodri is great but he's not going to dislodge him. Same with Haaland. Not only that, we're not going to overpay just because. We wanted Bruno G but he's not worth £100m so we rightly didn't pay it.

Plus, how do we expect players like Bobb, McAtee and O'Reilly to prove their worth and capabilities if they are constantly put further back in rotation behind newer signings? At some point we need to put them to the test and let them loose in the side to show what they can do. They're not star players in the sense that the spotlight will be on them, they can come into a well-oiled machine of a side and slide in without issue or pressure which can only benefit them.

As I keep saying, as long as we have Pep then we're playing with 12 men anyway and he'll be able to figure stuff out if anything majorly goes wrong in the squad with injuries.

I presume we'll leave things as they are unless - Akanji-esque - an opportunity comes up that's too good to turn down. Kimmich maybe? Seems to have quietened down.

If we don't sign anybody and go into the season with what we have plus the integration and willingness to use a few youngsters, I wouldn't be mad at all.

Good post, but I do think we will invest in a decent level player, be interesting to see if we move for Guimaraes.

I’ll also add I reckon Doku will tear it up this season.

 

[Rammy Blue]

No chance now we’ve signed Savio.