goodrobotusses

Think if Wirtz ends up at City he gets a Haaland-sized contract. We're not gonna do that.

Think that one is probably gone tbh. Seems as soon as the Alonso-to-Madrid wheels started turning, the was a build-up of noises from Madrid that they will cough up for the player after all. Guessing Alonso has said to Perez that he wants Huijsen/a ball-playing CB and that's lit a fire under them.

And if he chooses not to go now or if no one bids? Unfortunately, if Madrid have got their claws into him too there is next to nothing we can do.

Maybe there's a deal to be done because John Textor is trying to shift money around his clubs to prevent Lyon from imploding.

Oops, shows what I know haha

Yeah. He carried the injury into the season, playing through pain until they finally decided to operate, as I remember. Took him a bit to get back up to speed, as you'd expect, but think he's back to where he was now.

Would be expensive but would go a long way to offsetting the loss of TAA's long passes from deep.

Biggest trophy Arteta's ever won.

Hughes briefing the journos while filing his nails nonchalantly, "Yeah, if we decide it's worth buying a right-back, I suppose this lad is one we'd look at."

That or we’re all going to die.

Didn't read the Goal story, but have a feeling that, because Ted Knutson on The Transfer Flow and then Josh Williams on TAW mentioned him from a stats perspective as a potential TAA replacement, links are now going to magically appear. But who knows, maybe it's legit.

That's true enough but I would worry about any inflationary side effect on the wages of other players in the squad who earn less. Transfer fees can differ wildly depending on whom you're buying from, but I reckon you generally want your wage bill to reflect the status and role of the players within the squad. That said, I generally trust our recruitment team, so if they decided he was good enough and worth it, then I'd be all for it.

I get that, but it was my way of saying we could better use our resources than giving a wedge to someone who'd probably only be a squad player, even if we're saving on the fee.

I suspect he's going to want a salary beyond what he's actually worth, given he's run his contract down.

Just listened to the LFC rebuild pod on my run now. Some interesting names I’ve never heard of, but no idea if we’d go for any of them. Worth a listen at least.

I listen to this podcast (although not this episode yet), but these lads do my head in. In the last episode before this one they were speculating about which club could best use Darwin, which in itself is fine, but spoke about the player the entire time from a purely stats perspective like he is some kind of footballing savant because he "takes a lot of shots". The analytics stuff is a useful tool, and I have a lot of respect for those who really know how to use it, but when you look at football only from that perspective, you're missing quite a lot. Like, for example, the fact that Darwin doesn't seem to understand the offside rule, and that most of those many shots he takes don't go in the goal. In terms of raw materials and ability to create and get on the end of chances, Darwin is a freak, yes. But none of that really matters if your attacks ultimately come to nothing because he can't finish or he's offside.

He popped into my mind the other day as potential RB-CB cover. Looked up his season and seems he’s not played every game at Leipzig, but not really had much in terms of injuries either. Defo a player Slot knows though, and should fit in seamlessly if Gomez does leave as expected.

In that Sky interview on YouTube, when talking about Gravenberch's season, Slot said of Grav's adaptation to the No6 role that he still needs to improve his one-touch passing in that role. Think that would help us a lot getting the ball through the lines while being pressed and probably the reason we were after Zubimendi last summer.

Reading the report, defo seems to be coming from the Stuttgart hierarchy. Basically that Liverpool are seriously interested, but Stuttgart don't want to lose him, but oh go on then €60m if you insist. This is the lad they bought to replace Endo then? We missed a trick not repeating the Caicedo-Baleba jokes.

Not sure what happens to Szobo when he has to play a pass from near the touchline. Weird habit of his to hit hospital passes when he's down there, just today it was more noticeable because it was so close to our goal.

I trust Slot to make the call on Bajcetic this summer. The lad clearly has talent with the ball and a willingness off it, but whether that all comes together to form a proper DM remains to be seen. Would certainly save us plenty of money if he turns out to be of our level.

That might be where we come unstuck. Seems like he might be one of those young players who is mapping his whole career out already, like Raiola did with Haaland etc. We supposedly have a no-release-clause policy at the club, and he might fancy heading on to Madrid in two or three years rather than five. Either way, if he ends up at Chelsea because he fancies Chelsea/London more, or wants to have a built-in escape hatch via a release clause, we'd probably be better on the whole to skip. That said, this is probably all pre-window chatter and guesswork, and he could just as easily still end up with us, in which case great lad etc. Danny Ward being our first-choice keeper worked out well in the end though.

Getting flashbacks to reading Jane Eyre in A Level English here. Around the same era, no less.

He's a weird player to assess, though, because he's been shunted around so much to accommodate and support others that it's hard to know what his true level is. As Benzo mentions, he's been mostly on the right and sometimes in the middle at Madrid due to Vinicius and others, but think he played mostly from the left at Santos. He's one of those where, if our transfer people got him in, I'd be excited because I'd trust their judgment that he's perhaps been underutilised. But the simple assessment is he's playing second and third fiddle at Madrid and for a fairly mediocre Brazil because he's not as good as the other lads.

On Rodrygo, we tried to sign him from Santos but he didn't want to go at the time, so our transfer boffins clearly like the player.