goodrobotusses

What little I've seen of him is quite Cunha-like. Deceptively skilful, as he's quite gangly, but only started scoring at a decent rate this season. Three years younger than Cunha though.

My worry about Cunha is that he's only been a 1 in 2 goalscorer for one season. At some point, maybe even this summer, Salah's goals will need replacing. If Cunha becomes our No9 and isn't a killer in front of goal, we're going to eventually be in the tricky position of looking for a winger who is. Yeah, I think there are probably a lot of crossed fingers that that will be the case.

Kostas' car just screams "reserve left-back".

Defo. I am curious about this thing around Newcastle still owing 30m to Real Sociedad though. Not sure if there will be some PSR wheeze in all this where they have to sell someone again. I suspect we've been in contact with the player and he wants to come, leaving it down to whether Newcastle are in a stable enough position to price him out of a move. Especially for someone who picks up as many small injuries as he seems to.

Oh god, can only imagine Iraola try to implement his pressing game with that dressing room. "Lads, sorry, but you're gonna have to run a bit."

I'm kind of ambivalent on the move now. It's been in the offing so long that I've had time to resign myself to it. He has talents few players have, let alone academy products who grew up as reds. He can't be replaced one-for-one because he's unique, but he can be replaced with a combination of new players. As Épieur says, he has the right to leave, earn his money and win trophies elsewhere, even on a free and even if all that Ballon d'Or chat made him look like a b*****d. Him leaving for free at his peak stings, but as I've said elsewhere, I don't think anyone would have paid the sort of fee we'd have demanded, so this was his only realistic way out. And even if we had extracted maximum value, sold him for nigh-on 100m two years ago and reinvested the money in the squad, we'd have probably been livid at the club for cashing in on one of our best players and a potential future captain, so it's all for the birds really. Yeah, this is maybe where I feel a bit disappointed in him, but that's just because I have a personal distaste for footballers turning themselves into clothes horses and brands. He's free to do as he pleases, it's his life, just a bit lame.

Dibling is going to be a nice addition to the pile of confused and lost looking teenagers at Spurs.

Would be a massive help If he and Nyoni turn out as good as we hope.

Don't think anyone would have paid what we would have wanted for TAA, it was a free or nothing. Madrid offered a token fee in January but that wouldn't have been on the cards had he not run his deal down. The club has a no-release clause policy on contracts IIRC, that's the reason Emre Can wouldn't sign an extension.

With Trent going I think we're gonna need someone more creative than Szobo at No10. Dom still has a big role to play but his strengths are his running power, speed and ability to kick the ball really hard. We are now gonna need more than that in that zone, an Elliott+ if you will.

Pfft, daddy Huijsen just needs reacquainting with Ricky H’s multilingual skills. He’s gonna be like that lad in Love, Actually but with cards in every modern European language.

Apparently someone in The Athletic has said that, although LFC like Isak, spending £100m+ on one player would have a knock-on effect on our ability to rebuild other parts of the team. Truly might be this season's Bellingham, then.

Think Vinicius and Mbappe are gonna get a lot of chances to run at unset defences from his switches and Bellingham’s box crashing is gonna benefit from his deep passes and crosses.

Absolutely zero logic in the idea we'd sign soon-to-be-32-year-old Harry Kane, who earns more than Salah, for €50m-60m, when we're haggling to within an inch of our lives over a new contract for soon-to-be-33-year-old Salah, who'd cost us nothing beyond wages. Bayern just want his salary off the books and have realised no one will give them the transfer fee they want.

Have a feeling we'll sign a multifunctional AM who can also play in the front three. Links to Xavi Simons make sense in that regard. Cherki has been mentioned on and off because he'll be available for relative peanuts, but worry he'd (allegedly) fall foul of our old "no d****eads" rule. He also doesn't seem to be very quick. I think, more than anything though, we need someone to compete/rotate with Gravenberch and Mac Allister, so hope that's on the cards. I also wonder if we'll go for Frimpong in the event TAA leaves. Very different players, and as mentioned elsewhere, there's not much of a track record of him playing RB in a back four, but he would also be an option further forward, as he is at Leverkusen, has a release clause of €35m IIRC and could potentially cover RB along with Bradley, given Bradley's fairly ropey injury record thus far. So not much needed: just a LB, CB, RB, DM, AM/winger and a No9. No worries. At all.