Chez

seems like a good deal for us. Never thought we'd get a loan fee for him and always thought we'd have to supplement his wages. To secure a transfer fee for him, great news.

IMO Lingard was one of the most overrated players in the history of the game. A couple of very good goals (in big games at Wembley) and very little else. Why United gave him that huge contract I will never know. We'd have to make him our most highly paid player, unless united too a huge hit. No fucking thank you.

I wondered if Tiémoué Bakayoko might be worth considering? Massive failure at Chelsea, but he looked a top player at Monaco. Loans to Milan and Monaco didn't lead to transfers, but the fees mentioned were hefty, so maybe no surprise they didn't sign him permanently. He might consider a little old club like us as beneath him, he might not. He's on massive wages at Chelsea (about £110k a week), but Chelsea paid £3.5m of that when we went to Milan, which would mean about £45k a week. For me, Chelsea is a club that has a lot of talented players that need new homes to allow them to get their careers back on track.

nice work. Very handy for someone that nips in and out of this thread - I totally missed some of those links.

Hmmm. I'm not impressed to be honest. He is clearly an athlete, but not sure about him on the ball. Again, these three short videos are not enough to make any reasonable decision on.

cheers. I like the sentence: ...he was not only the best player for Toulouse, but he was also one of the best players in Ligue 1 last season. Watched this video too. He nicks the ball off opponents well, which is obviously needed, but with ball at feet he looks very limited. Again, a youtube video tells you little, but my opinion matter nothing as to whether he comes or not.

this must be one of the least impressive youtube videos I have ever watched when looking at players I don't know mentioned on here. If this is all I had to go on, then it'd be a massive no.

I never thought of it like that. Let's hope we have actually done some serious scouting in Europe and have a couple of gems up our sleeve. When a manager comes from an oversees league I expect them to bring some talent with them like Koeman did.

Quite exciting that we should get a new CM and winger. Shame the CM will not be out first choice target and how good the winger will be with the little funds a Boufal departure will provide I am not sure.

is he good enough to make a difference? Started really brightly at Bompey, but seemed to fade.

I am guessing he is referring to the Juve Weston McKennie gazumping

Despite terrrorising us a few times (all be it missing a hatful of chances too) he doesn't seem to be rated there at all.

Need much more from him. Injuries were a nightmare last season. If we can get him firing it will almost feel like a new signing.

I will try to modernise my thinking so that I can converse with you more in future. It's so enlightening. That said, you've got me there. Redmond is picked on a regular basis and he doesn't do nearly enough in a lot of games. Manager expectation levels for our wingers must actually be quite low. If Boufal can't live up to them, then he isn't as good as I thought and we need to upgrade

keeping possession is important, and you can create goals through passing like the brilliant goal against Chelsea, but over the years we have been poor on the break, due to poor decisions and playing it too safe. Redmond is another that can beat men all ends up. He needs to throw caution to the wind a bit more and risk losing the ball. Get to the byeline more often. Just run down the line, slowly if need be. The worst that will come of it is a corner usually. But no, we stop and pass back to keep the ball. It's a mixture of management/playing philosophy and individual confidence.

For me Redmond plays it safe too often. We work hard to move the ball into the final third, but when you get a winger one on one with a fullback and his first thought is keep the ball. Like John Barnes became for England. His first thought should be turn and run straight at the fullback. Every. Single. Time. I guess thats not the instruction from Ralf though. I know this may sound strange, but often thought the same of Boufal. He almost played within himself, choosing to pass it simple rather than doing what I'd like to see him do which is attempt to beat three men. When Boufal and Djepeno (when moved further forward as playing him at wingback was madness - yeah Ralf knows what he is doing all the time!) played together at Sheff United last season we looked a very dangerous team on the break. Not sure if it was just injuries, but we didn't seem to put that same attacking line up out again, which is a shame.

What has football from 50 years ago got to do with this discussion? My point was that I think wingers, in comparison to centre midfielders, are treated poorly. They are subbed early, they are dropped at a whim and often moved on far quicker than players in other positions. Very few wingers play for a club for a long time. Le Tiss, Giggs...er? Why si that? Because manager expect wingers to beat the fullback almost every time and create chance after chance. But they don't. They can't. Or at least everyone apart from Ronaldi, Giggs and Messi can't over an extended period. I do wonder if many managers fail to recognise quite how difficult it is to skip past a player. Tackle someone in front of the manager and you'll get a ten game run. Skip past a player once, but fail to do so a second time and you are benched. I repeat that Boufal may well just not be good enough (you seem to keep missing that part of my reply), but if that's the case, lets not get another workmanlike running midfielder in to replace him. Let's get another that can do just as he does - beat a man through pure skill - but with whatever is seen to be missing. I also repeat, my judgement is always cloudy when it comes to players that can dribble and run at players. If I was the manager I'd stack the side with the likes of Bolasie, Zaha, Antonio etc. just because I love watching that type of player.

As I stated, maybe he is just not good enough, but how many tricky wingers/dribblers do have the ability to play in this league? It strikes me that beating a defender all ends up is the hardest thing to do, and doing it consistently is almost impossible. When you find a guy that can do that, IMO you need to show faith in them, not drop them when they don't create or score a goal in a game. Flair players get treated terribly. Managers will pick a dependable workmanlike centre midfield every week, despite them not being good every week. Why are flair players not treated the same? I guess Redmond has got a fair crack of the whip, undermining my argument. Is that because he is just more talented, retains possession more or because he works back more?

You are right, but he has had his fair share of injury problems over the last four years, not just since Zidane returned. He only played 23 league games in the 2015/16 season and 19 in 2016/17 season. This created frustration for Zidane and probably led to the falling out. He was forced to pick young players, who did well, which meant Bale wasn't first choice. They didn't see eye to eye from then on. Zidane returning was obviously the worst thing that could happen for Bale. I've not seen him a lot in recent times, but he's still a top player, but he seems a different type of player now, more powerful, but maybe not as quick? It will be interesting to see where he is played.

Good quality player, which is what we need (quality), but has had injury problems, which would put us off, I suspect. Everton would have to pay half his wages for us to consider him.

Yet another flair player that IMO needed a manager to put some real faith in him in order to get the best out of them. He'd play well coming off the bench, then given a start, perhaps didn't shine, so was immediately dropped back to the bench. Maybe he simply is not good enough, but if you are going to spend £24m on a player, you ought to know what you are buying, good and bad, and with that knowledge, know how to utilise them. In my eyes he should have been given a long run of games, starting them all and with the manager getting the ball to him and encouraging him to take players on all day long. I must confess to wanting to watch flair players with tricks that can dribble past payers perhaps more than anything else and this means my judgement can be faulty, but if he goes we must search for another like him, just better.

We'll bring in one. A CM. If Boufal goes, I doubt we will replace him, which is a shame as I think another creative player is needed.

Yep. Zaha could easily have had three. Took Stephens to the cleaners on one occasion, however this is pretty standard affair for teams like Palace and Burnley. They have defenders and defensive midfielders that are not great on the ball and that means they turn over possession a lot and it forces them to play more direct and hit teams on the break. Whether its by design I am not so sure. In my eyes they are just not very good footballing sides, so make up for it in organisation and then players like Zaha and Townsend give them an out and a threat. I know Zaha is not well liked or respected by Saints fans, and mentally he can be a bit frail, but I like him a lot. He makes a very very average Palace side dangerous. He's never been quick. He finished last season brilliantly. He has a good footballing brain, good touch and awareness and decent engine. I think he holds his own at this level. He needs competition whether through the youth scheme or an acquisition. I'd expect him to get a new contract. The club may have said they don't need to sell to buy, but its obvious that every pound we pay these guys is pound we cant spend elsewhere. We need to use the loan to buy market much more ourselves taking guys that flopped at a club for whatever reason but clearly have talent.

I wonder sometimes if the `blocks being in place' is what slows down the moving of the ball. We certainly need to bolster centre midfield, but couldn't Djenepo/Boufal be that left winger?

Whenever we are without Armstrong we seem to lack zip and thrust. Invariably we underperform and fail to win.