Chez

Possibly, but on the other hand, perhaps you could say that they have waited, allowed Liverpool to show their tightfisted colours and then waltzed in at the eleventh hour and got their man by simply paying the fee needed. The only possible reason Lavia would turn Chelsea down is if he is concerned about starting games - and that issue would not be solved by Chelsea coming to the table earlier. As I said earlier on this thread. Chelsea to come in with a £60m take it or leave it offer, job done.

Fair enough, some journalists will be given snippets of information by agents, so may have the inside track, but fuck me, there is not a chance in hell that any agent or player speaks to a journalist while negotiations are taking place and says they "prefer Liverpool or X or Y". No way. Not a chance. Lavia would be absolutely over the moon to get a move to either club. So I call this `bullshit'. It's made up, fucking bullshit.

never going to happen. The buying club might loan him out, but they won't want to loan him to a side in a league lower than he has already proved he can excel in.

his performance at their place last season, where he was the stand out player, will possibly linger in their minds.

Nixon saying Wolves and Bournemouth both looking at Che for about £10m. That adds to previous reports of Everton, Forest, Fulham, Palace and Burnley being interested. I wouldn't be surprised if Sheff United didn't fancy him too.

is he on another level though? I watched him a fair bit last season for Forest and I didn't see what the hype was about. Early on in the season he did fuck all. That said, I've not exactly been blown away by Tella.

Would be a smart move, but I can't see us spending £20m on him, especially if Alcaraz stays. We have blown our dough on that AM area. Also, I can't see him wanting to make a sideways move. He will be intent on a Prem move for sure. Another AM option might have been loaning Brooks out for a season from Bournemouth, but again I suspect he wouldn't want to step down a league and he may well go straight into the Bournemouth starting side anyway. Having that talented player to unlock defences what critical to Sheff United's promotion last season. Hopefully we will have our own Ndiaye in Alcaraz.

I wonder if Liverpool include some more add ons that are perhaps a little harder to attain to supplement those that are easier to attain, but combined take the deal up to £50m, whether we will go for that. Or do we want £45m plus £5m of very acheivable adds on. Would be nice is Chelsea just rolled in at the eleventh hour and said "£60m cash, take it or leave it" and blow LFC completely out the water. Lovely.

I agree. We've obviously done the `player wages' part of these deals and just need the players we expect to leave to leave before getting the transfer fee part done.

I am struggling to understand why Tella is considered to be a £9m player by Burnley, while Gibbs-White became a player worth £25m with £17m of add ons when he joined Forest. Gibbs also had done very little at Wolves in the Prem and there was no guarantee he would replicate his Sheff United form when stepping back up (and was that form any better than Tella's anyway?). They seem like very similar quality players to me.

Not surprised we haven't offload our `unwanted' players yet. No club ever can get rid of that type of player easily or quickly. If it all happened tomorrow that would be brilliant, but it will be last week of the window for many of them. It will all work out in the end.

It's usually stated as profit, but who knows. It would harsh buying a player for £10m, sell him for £5m and still have to give the original club a million of that.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/66315014 Burnley sign another winger on loan. Is their interest in Tella officially over?

we gave up any opportunity when we spent a fuck load in January and got relegated. The fact we have signed two players and spent £10m already despite offloading very few is bloody brilliant IMO.

I think rallyboy was asking if City got 20% of the full £50m or 20% of the £40m(£50m - £10m we paid for him).

Tall lad. The recent goalscoring stats are certainly dazzling. But I'm not totally convinced to be honest. He seems to get in the right areas which is not to be underestimated, but there are quite a few tap ins, unmissable headers and pens. We've Onuachu here already who could knock those in - should we actually create chances. I don't see many real clinical finishes, fantastic strikes and goals out of nowhere. Left foot looks weak. No idea what his all round game is like, but it would need to be great. Prefer Aaron Collins to be honest.

I don't want to reprise the `expectation' discussion we had regarding the City signings from last summer, but the official website said this about Josh McNamara: The 19-year-old joins the club on a two-year deal and will link up with Dave Horseman's Under-21s for the 2023/24 season. which suggests he is not expected to be playing for the first team this season. However, should he or any of the other young keeper impress, perhaps they could fill in on the event of injury.

Possibly just made a mistake or perhaps we've sold two players this week that have yet to be announced.

who was that keeper conceding at his near post?

we are turning down offers for him?

Alcaraz did have games last season when he went missing. He's a good player, but you need to get him the ball and in the right areas and we don't always do that.

some bloody decent players passing through Lille.

I think it goes without saying that buying clubs speak with a players agents first, find out what they want in terms of wages and also understand their current contract - if they have a buyout clause for example. If the player has zero intention of moving, there is no point in the buying club negotiating with the owning club. Actual discussions between the buying club and the player do also happen as we found out with van Dijk. Is there an official rule preventing buying clubs speaking with player agents?

What (game/incidence) makes you think this?

I believe that wording has been used in an article, but I don't think it has been in any official statement or any SFC employee will have been quoted as saying it. I guess it all depends on where you read it and the credibility of the writer.