Better hope we've quietly extended his contract then as it appears it's up this summer... Edit: chances are we have as there's a report that an unnamed La Liga club have made a 20m euro bid for him https://bolavip.com/europa/Luis-Sua...za-segunda-division-Espana-20200127-0153.html
The club have made a point of showing that Penaranda is back with us on their social platforms. I’d say we are signing no attackers and just re-adding him back to the fold.
It'll be just like signing a brand new high profile proven forward. In fact 2, with Welbeck back and guaranteed to be fit for the rest of the season..
Nothing in our results Aug-Jan to suggest we are in any danger of relegation whatsoever and so no need to strengthen the first X1. If we get relegated it will Pearson who has failed given the extensive resources available and he will be rightly sacked.
Gino and Giraldi are masters of their craft. If they had thought any area needed improvement they would have addressed it immediately when the window opened. Since they haven’t we have absolutely nothing to worry about.
In the lead up to the window I wrote posts (as did plenty of others) stressing the fact that this was the most important window we've had since we've been up. To find ourselves here, with just one relatively unknown quantity of a winger we shipped in from our sister club and two days left in the window with no leads, is desperately depressing. I can't understand it. Yes, it's difficult to pick up 'value' in January, but hey, you know what's worse 'value' than January signings? Getting relegated. Why don't we just park the stringency of those ******* 'value' assessments, or at least recalibrate them to reflect the reality of the situation; just for a little while? We should have had targets lined up for a couple of months, with a very good idea of what it would take to get them here. The fact that we clearly don't, and the club mouthpiece has mostly just talked about the possible resurrection of a very poor deal that fell apart, wasting precious time, in the summer, is a concerning one that very much suggests that the transfer geniuses were once again derelict in their duty. Even the Gibson rumours smack of healf-hearted action for action's sake, rather than any calculated decision-making designed to actually fix any of our problems.
I agree with nearly all that. What I would temper the Rose and Gibson points with are that they have clearly been targets before. We can’t really criticise the club for not identifying targets if they are making moves on a couple. What can be criticised is the quality of targets and lateness of it all. I’m not really angry about this window - as I think it’s just an obvious follow on from the summer one. We really messed up in the summer with our passiveness towards the defence - that’s played out in the first months of the season and caused this type of window to be almost a certainty in how it would play out. In all honesty, this window has gone exactly how I expected. I just hope we survive and something drastic happens in the summer with our defence. But the truth is that I think if we survive, the club will treat it as a kind of success and claim we had the players all along and use it as an excuse for another summer of transfer apathy (defensively).
Hopefully it will finally put an end to the gushing posts along the lines of “there are problems with the defence but of course Gino knows this and he will address it in January.”
We will always be outspent by most of the clubs around us in the league but you would hope that with the connections the family have around Europe that we might be able to pick up an experienced player here and there on loan or at the end of their contract, a little like we did with Prodl and Britos in their prime (rather than just extend their contracts once they are past their prime). This was a chance to improve the quality on the pitch to improve our chances of staying up and it seems we are just going to rely on NP's motivational and tactical magic.
I totally agree that this seemed a likely outcome, but we couldn't really afford it to be, and that then feeds into the second highlighting; we are now just as much in a position, thanks to developments in this window, where we are forced to hope for survival. We could, and should, have been in a position where we made the moves required to allow us to expect survival, or at least have the best possible chance. We are just as much in limbo as we were before, now replete with injured star player, probably to be seen again some time in September 2021 (which will also be the date of the first update we are given about his condition). I just can't get my head around the recruitment team and the hierarchy looking at the situation and thinking anything other than 'we need to make progress here'. It honestly seems like a combination of breathtaking arrogance and burying-your-head-in-the-sand on their part. It's not even like we haven't been provided with a gradual 'A Christmas Carol'-esque series of in-the-flesh lessons playing out over the course of the window, with the points dropped at Spurs and the performance at Villa, combined with the loss of Sarr. They cannot possibly claim that we are any more prepared for the rest of the survival battle than we were before the window, and that is an astonishing example of looking a gift horse in the mouth.
Which you would think means they have failed to get Rodrigo - which means Alcacer might not head to Valencia. The Richarlison one is interesting. He made some pretty bold claims about his love for Everton when he signed his new contract last month. But it’s not every day Barcelona come calling. Will he kick up a fuss to leave? Do Everton need the money? Was something in the press recently saying they may be investigated over Usmanov basically lending them £30m. Not that FFP really applies to PL clubs but they must be sailing close to the wind financially given why they spend. Losses posted of £117m. Apparently rejected out of hand which suggests they want much more money. Let’s hope we have a sell-on fee at the numbers being mentioned....
SSN are reporting that Everton have turned down an offer of £85 million from Barcelona for Richarlison. Does this undermine the belief that the Pozzos only sell players when they have reached their peak value?
No, not at all; that's peak value that we can extract for them, not that they ever will have. Barca are very unlikely to pay us £85m for a player ever.
I'm not sure which is more nuts - that Barca are willing to pay £85mil for Richarlison, or that Everton have rejected it. He's good, but not close to being the standard of say a future Ballon D'or nominee.
I don't believe that, but we would have sold for £60m without doubt. Everton are able to hold out for a higher price, but don't be fooled, they will sell but probably in the summer. They are delusional if they think they can compete with Barcelona. Rich will certainly want to move if they come back the summer with another bid.
The Sulky little p r I c k would fit in well though. I'd imagine through balls from Messi are better than the toffee or hornet muppets could muster.
True. I didn't take that into account. No doubt they'll pay some crazy amount for Neymar hoping he can fulfill the role.
TARIQ LAMPTEY is available by all accounts. Not going to get in ahead of Cesar Azpilicueta or James. Looked very handy on his cameo against Arsenal. Palace and Brighton are sniffing around with him being out of contract in the Summer.
If we were top ten with Richarlison on 12 goals for us, they might. As a bottom 2 side, however, none of our players are worth even 1/4 of that.
Even Palace signing quality young English fullbacks for a relatively decent fee. Whilst we are chasing around after Danny Rose and Ben Gibson, neither of which want to join us. Got to love our scouting team.
We need a LB. We need a RB. Kinda surprised we haven’t gone in for Nathaniel Clyne who played in both positions for Liverpool and is surplus there. When I say ‘kinda surprised’, that’s in a normal world. In a world where we have Filippo Giraldi, I’m not at all surprised we haven’t.
What’s good value? We’re now in a position where relegation is a very real possibility. We have to be careful not to end up with players on massive contracts in case we go down. It makes it very difficult to find a happy medium. The part where you talk about identifying targets months in advance. I’m sure we do that but what do you think everybody else is doing? Only signed one player in January. The problem with January is that most clubs still have something to play for so don’t want to lose players without having a replacement. This is why not much happens at the start of the window unless you want to pay silly money or the player is so far down the pecking order he won’t be missed. it is not as easy as some make it out to be.
