It's Quiet the £250m return

[Matt.D]

Balls to that, Lewis got an assist against Wolves and Nunes got 3 & a goal from there in his sporadic appearances in the second half of last season.

Defensively, they both have issues - Lewis physicality & speed, Nunes his propensity to make a brainfart.

Ok I’ll rephrase, they’re shite going forward for the level we need. It’s not difficult to see. You give it them out there it’s end of the attack. At least Walker was a threat in terms of someone playing a through ball for him to run onto. He always had a world / high class winger in front of him in most of his seasons here tbf and we don’t have any of those at the club now. Nunes and Lewis offer nothing against any half decent opposition.

 

[skillman]

Wonder if the Cherki injury makes Viana go out and find a deal. Or Foden’s mystery injury - last time he had one of those it was months.

Maybe not actively but agents ship their players around all the time on deadline day, maybe an opportunity will present itself.

 

[NQCitizen]

I was baffled by the Rico sub. Not sure what he was hoping for, as he wasn't going to win the midfield battle and yet again, left us with no pace

Whenever Pep's worried he goes for control and I think he's trying to mold Rico into a metronomic Bernardo type but I just think its a bit beyond us right now.

I think we're dropping points in these moments as we're trying to show Akanji and Gundogan they're not needed, but I'd rather Ilkay came on to see games out. Think O'Reilly lost us a lot of control too.

Teams just aren't scared of 1000 passes any more because they know theyll nick the 800th one and chip it over the top to players way faster than ours.

 

[TheBlueCat]

Bar a penalty that felt very unfortunate I thought Nunes did as well against Mitoma as any of the makeshift right backs would.

Lewis coming on with an inverted role was a bigger issue for me, the 3-2 base is getting played through over and over now, the distance between the 3 at the back is far too wide and stones and dias don't have the recovery speed to fix it.

I wish we'd just stay with a 4-2 base and progress the ball into the 3 behind Haaland a bit quicker.

Nunes habitually gave the ball away. Was never positionally comfortable and even managed to fall over with nobody near him at one point. It was the very definition of incompetence. I’m shocked anyone can defend him.
The ridiculous penalty he gave away was the cherry on top of the icing on the cake.
You are entitled to your opinion, I just hope the football minds at our club don’t share it..

 

[Gabriel]

Pep literally just said that these last results change nothing we are going to do before the end of the transfer window

So its Donarumma (who imho will actually make things worse) and no one else

Did he? I thought he responded to a question about whether today’s events had changed ‘how you might behave’. Not literally what we are going to do. We may already have things arranged. Just have to wait and see.

 

[Master-Lotus]

Far too much nonsense in this thread over past few weeks patting Viana and the club on the back because it looks like we are going to get rid of Akanji and Gundogan. How about the obvious starting us in the face that this squad has too many average or project young players (overrated by many) to compete for the league / champions league. And I don’t mean win them, just compete. For too long we haven’t replaced world class players who have left or are over the hill with anywhere near the same levels.

I blame happy clappers.

 

[Mad 4 It]

I don't entirely disagree but I just don't think anyone has bought a right back this summer I'd feel comfortable relying on.

If Gusto, Porro or Livramento move I'll be annoyed we're not in on them but I think we're right to wait for a real upgrade.

Fair comment but no excuse for not moving on the old guard and giving the now loanees a chance. We could and should have come to some sort of arrangement as keeping them just delays and perpetuates the all the problems we saw last season and in doing so gives the opposition even more time to pull further ahead. We have stood still for best part of three summer transfer windows and now we are seeing the effects of that.

 

[NQCitizen]

Nunes habitually gave the ball away. Was never positionally comfortable and even managed to fall over with nobody near him at one point. It was the very definition of incompetence. I’m shocked anyone can defend him.
The ridiculous penalty he gave away was the cherry on top of the icing on the cake.
You are entitled to your opinion, I just hope the football minds at our club don’t share it..

They seem to agree there's no point just throwing in any right back and we'd be better off waiting for a top 10, world class one.

Let me be clear I don't think Rico (currently) and Nunes are the best RBs in the world. Far from it. But there aren't better ones on the market.

 

[NQCitizen]

Fair comment but no excuse for not moving on the old guard and giving the now loanees a chance. We could and should have come to some sort of arrangement as keeping them just delays and perpetuates the all the problems we saw last season and in doing so gives the opposition even more time to pull further ahead. We have stood still for best part of three summer transfer windows and now we are seeing the effects of that.

We do seem to have got a bit stuck between Pep's glorious goodbye with all his favourite players and Viana's cut throat youth revolution for sure.

 

[Gabriel]

So as it stands if we do get Donnarumma(who we don't need) then we had three players on the bench today (Eddie/gundo/akanji) that will be off tomorrow, pep sure does like a send off party, fucking pointless them being there

We had 4 on the bench, I include Ake, that I’m sure we would accept offers for or would gladly see leave, and we also had Nunes and Lewis over whom there have been rumours.

 

[Ajm1985]

Whenever Pep's worried he goes for control and I think he's trying to mold Rico into a metronomic Bernardo type but I just think its a bit beyond us right now.

I think we're dropping points in these moments as we're trying to show Akanji and Gundogan they're not needed, but I'd rather Ilkay came on to see games out. Think O'Reilly lost us a lot of control too.

Teams just aren't scared of 1000 passes any more because they know theyll nick the 800th one and chip it over the top to players way faster than ours.

Yeah I agree, but I'm surprised he didn't look at Nico G for that option. Take Bernardo off, win some of the physical battles/second balls - give the ball to Rodri & let Reijnders move up. Not bringing on Gundo in those game states, but having him on the bench (rather than any promising attacking youngster), was a bit weird as well. Same with having 3 CBs on the bench. Limited his own options.

 

[MillisleBlue]

Said 2 weeks ago we needed a huge end to this window to have any chance of competing for the big prizes….now we have 24 hours…

And, as of 15:55 this afternoon, the price of anyone we're interested in has doubled.

 

[TB369]

We used to target world class players and were in the mix for them if they were for sale. We shop more in the bargain bin now or look for resale value. Apart from Rodri and Haaland, the squad quite frankly looks very mid table. There isn't anyone that would have top teams fighting to get. As great as the treble and quad were they seemed to have sealed the coffin on future ambition.

 

[Ajm1985]

Ok I’ll rephrase, they’re shite going forward for the level we need. It’s not difficult to see. You give it them out there it’s end of the attack. At least Walker was a threat in terms of someone playing a through ball for him to run onto. He always had a world / high class winger in front of him in most of his seasons here tbf and we don’t have any of those at the club now. Nunes and Lewis offer nothing against any half decent opposition.

Walker did make those runs, but I lost count of the amount of times he would fuck up an attack due to his inability to cross. I think Nunes can definitely offer that, as he's fast as fuck.

 

[Cobwebcat]

Is it ok to keep any of our players or do they all have to go?

 

[NQCitizen]

Yeah I agree, but I'm surprised he didn't look at Nico G for that option. Take Bernardo off, win some of the physical battles/second balls - give the ball to Rodri & let Reijnders move up. Not bringing on Gundo in those game states, but having him on the bench (rather than any promising attacking youngster), was a bit weird as well. Same with having 3 CBs on the bench. Limited his own options.

Yeah I'd really like to see Nico G next to Rodri, that'd actually be incredibly solid.

 

[Mad 4 It]

They seem to agree there's no point just throwing in any right back and we'd be better off waiting for a top 10, world class one.

Let me be clear I don't think Rico (currently) and Nunes are the best RBs in the world. Far from it. But there aren't better ones on the market.

But there are. As a previous poster said we are trying to be to clever and penny pinching. Big clubs at the top of the game go get the players they want and need and don’t go bargain basement shopping or taking punts on projects that might or might not come off in the numbers we do. This window has been the worst in the last 10 years because major surgery was needed and that just hasn’t happened

 

[NQCitizen]

But there are. As a previous poster said we are trying to be to clever and penny pinching. Big clubs at the top of the game go get the players they want and need and don’t go bargain basement shopping or taking punts on projects that might or might not come off in the numbers we do. This window has been the worst in the last 10 years because major surgery was needed and that just hasn’t happened

I just think it seems like the "players we want" are Gusto or Livramento and we're not panic buying to fill the space which may turn out to be a very wise approach.

Could you name a RB you'd actually want thats at the right age profile for the squad, available and actually really good? It's a small pool.

 

[robbieh]

We're not winning anything this year so I'd let Trafford keep the gloves. See how he progresses. He looks a big upgrade on Eddie as a shot stopper.

And all this nonsense of penny pinching just stop it. We may or may not have bought well but in 2025 we have spent over 300 million.

 

[Cobwebcat]

Ok so 0 days left now, we are into hours and minutes……

23 hours 59 minutes!