jimmylibel

A hard working forward… sounds like a perfect fit for Atletico. Could also seeing an Italian side being interested.

Agree with a lot of that Gethin. You can sometimes track what is going on by reading between the lines. We know we’re trying to renew Salah, Milner and Mane (but ‘won’t break the bank’ for the latter). Not seeing much talk of renewing Firmino, Ox or Keita at present. I reckon those three plus Minamino as well as Gomez and possibly some more youngsters are going to be available this summer. I suspect Ox will definitely look to move on, Bobby will see if he can get a good long term deal somewhere, Keita may be offered around and if nothing bites we may look to renew. But anyone reading the Swiss Ramble can see selling players is part of our revenue generation model.

Been quite a bit of speculation around that in recent weeks, think Bild may have even suggested the deal was all but done. Although we were linked strongly to him last summer I get the sense he’s no longer a priority for us. We haven’t been strongly linked to him for quite some time now. Either we got the sense he was going for Bayern or we are focused on other targets. The midfielders that keep coming up are Tchouameni and Bellingham.

Totally. I honestly don’t get how that isn’t being even mentioned by the various commentators etc.

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I remember a fair few feature articles about our fall from grace mid/ late 90s… but as you pointed out there wasn’t Sky Sports News 24 hours, other sports channels, talk radio to the same degree, websites, social media, podcasts etc looking for topics they can chew over in those days. I’d say even Leicester’s difficulties this season have been subjected to being put under the microscope to a much higher degree than ours were. Except in the case of Hodgson it usually took a few years for our cycles to play out… while the Mancs have crammed a couple of false dawns into a little over half a season.

I know a lot of people are saying that and obviously it’s helped raise their level in their last few home games, but I’m curious as to whether anyone thinks that may start to go the other way? Like if the crowd could really start turning desperate and getting on their backs - flipping an advantage into a millstone? Next two back to back home games are massive for them.

We seemed to point out issues with David Coote last season after he was on VAR for the match at Goodison and he had apparently wound up some of our players in the match against Burnley the season before. He ended up not being involved in another match with us for the rest of the season.

FWIW there have been a fair few links knocking about re us looking at CBs. Issue with selling Joe is that he’s our fastest player, an extremely high standard for a 4th choice centre back and he’s English. Before January there were some suggestions he could be looking for a loan move cos it’s a ‘World Cup Year’. Other issue is that he has 2 years remaining on his contract after this season (I think). Really think we should only be even considering this if he is really, really pushing and we suspect he may be broken (but he didn’t look in anyway broken against Norwich).

Pretty sure Conte was making comments of this ilk every 2-3 weeks while manager of an Inter team that was top of Serie A last season. Then, just as now, I suspect his real agenda is about getting necessary transfer funds for the summer. However I’m not sure he’s ever had to deal with people in the boardroom like Levy before, who perhaps are not as personally concerned about fan sentiment as he seems to be betting on.

Sorry, I was sure I’d read that he only had a year left - pretty much the only reason I thought it MIGHT be even possible. If he’s got two years left then there’s not a chance we get him unless we sold Mo… and no one wants that to happen.

I thought that too but then I saw Saka has one year left on his contract this summer. His wages are also supposedly something like 30k a week at the moment. If a scenario arose where we shipped out Mane, Firmino, Origi and Minamino, then we are going to need another high quality attacker. He’s one of those players who you could probably play either side. We’ve also been tracking Saka a long time, there was a lot of speculation we really wanted him when he was last almost out of contract a few years ago. Seen one suggestion he’ll move if Arsenal don’t get Champions League football next season.

Absolutely he can agree a deal with a non English club at any point now and no one can stop him. That’s quite clear. But for us there’s different elements involved. There’s an agreement with the selling club and an agreement with the player. If we wait until summer for example and ‘settle’ the tribunal that’s effectively an agreement. If we don’t want a tribunal then we still need an agreement with the current club as they retain some compensatory rights in these circumstances. A Pre-contract is a Pre-contract. Players can sign pre-contracts at any time (see Keita) but for non free transfers that only works if you have the selling club’s permission as they have rights in any prospective deal too.

They can…they still hold the player’s registration until the end of June. But in practice the player usually just sees their hand has been strengthened so they cut out the current club. I doubt anything will happen until summer, just there’s a lot of discussion about what can/ can’t be done and I thought it was worth pointing out it is ‘theoretically’ possible for something to be worked out in the very short term if all parties were in agreement. If it was in our interests (and it might be), Fulham’s interests (most definitely) and the player was happy to give up their excellent negotiating hand cos they had found a deal they wanted then this could be done before then. But the last part of that equation would be the challenge I’d say. Because of the FA. They set the one month rule for Bosman agreements between two English clubs, as they regulate domestic transfers. Don’t know if that distinction also applies in other countries. Believe the idea was to avoid ‘conflicts of interest’ arising - such as if player A was to play an important game against their next club and it was known they would be moving.

But we can… we just can’t sign a pre-contract in this situation without Fulham’s agreement. Foreign clubs don’t need that permission but in theory, if Fulham are open to a deal and the player agrees we can get this done well before summer. One is a pre-arranged transfer, while the foreign clubs can do a pre-arranged free transfer. (We can also sign a pre-contract with him without Fulham’s permission 1 month before his current contract expires - so effectively from June)

Pretty sure you can sign a player any time you like, you just can’t register them unless the window is open. But if you have agreement with the selling club you can go ahead and agree the deal, get the player to sign a pre contract etc. That’s what we did when we signed Keita almost a year before he actually arrived. What Bosman/ free transfer rules do is they take the current club out of the equation, but it’s more complex for players aged under 23. Of course it may be in Carvalho’s interests to now hold off on signing something and see what else is in the table. But in theory we could technically complete the transfer apart from receiving his official registration today or any day between now and the window reopening on 1st July.

Think he could since 1st Jan

Starting to feel like there may be a degree of ‘stage management’ going on. Unusual for us to have briefed so forcefully (in recent times *cough* VVD *cough*) unless things are practically done.

FWIW

Looks like Arsenal have cancelled his contract. Got away with on there if true. Given that Barcelona don’t look like they’ll be offloading Dembele they must be getting Aubameyang must be signing for practically nothing/ commitment to get paid down the line. That’s what they did with Traore

Sky reporting this is happening now and loan deal agreed

The most recent speculation suggests the delay may be with Carvalho thinking he could have more to choose from (ie first team football with Dortmund or Porto and higher wages) if he waits until summer. Also seen it said that we won’t go for him in the summer if he doesn’t sign now, based on us having to go through English tribunal and foreign clubs being able to get him for considerably less. Again though none of the stronger sources piping up so far.

Aubameyang has supposedly arrived in Barcelona, despite a deal not being sorted. Arsenal have expressed their ‘surprise’. All very Odemwingie

Fair question. I think it’s coming from the likes of Neil Jones and a BBC journo from what I’ve seen, but nothing concrete so far anyway.