Chez

Pretty fair. He is a very good passer of the ball. Hopefully we will see it (the ball) now and then.

Who is laughing? A Celtic fan that thinks he's worth a shed load more? I really wouldn't worry about it too much. What is funny is that Atlanta, a club that has a pretty decent transfer record in recent times and has money to spend, are bidding around the same amount. They don't seem concerned about the opinion of Celtic fans about their bid. I'm glad we are going in at about the same level and not splashing massive amounts straight away. Shows a lot of sense (not showing desperation) that perhaps wasn't there before.

OK. That's all I needed to know.

Never said you did. But explain to me how how he is worth more because Atalanta have bid (especially when their bid was less than we bid)?

He may be worth more, I don't know, but just because the likes of Atalanta are bidding, that alone doesn't make him worth more.

Which is why we have apparently offered more, not the same. We don't know what Celtic want until we reach that figure.

You'd prefer that our negotiator had been to Risdale school of negotiation?

How do we know what price Celtic will sell him for?

the Bourdeaux friendly would be a good time for Mara to have a decent game.

If we don't think we can, can we afford to stockpile another striker? Someone or more importantly, the wages of someone will need to be offloaded. I wonder if we might loan him back to Sunderland. Not ideal for our finances, and I suspect he'd be desperate to stay and fight for some game time in the Prem

Sounds promising. Glad our scouts have finally got around to viewing the 2019 HCDAJFU thread.

if we play one striker, then BBD, Stewart, Mara and AA in reserve seems like more than enough bodies, assuming Stewart's fitness record improves. Unless we play two up front or Mara goes, I can't see us signing two strikers in this window.

I intentionally didn't include Aribo as I am not sure he's an attacking midfielder anymore. He and Smallbone seemed to have similar roles in central midfield. A little more freedom that Downes, but certainly not free roles. The formation we are going with will obviously determine if that role even exists. If we sign O'Riley, we'd need to have a formation that suited him. I'm with you though. We need a focal point of attack and Brereton might be the ticket. Another wideman too with the type of quality Asprilla offers.

I doubt you will get many arguments about that on here, but boy does it look tough to sign decent strikers these days. With one up front, we do need goals from other areas. We have the numbers, but do we have enough quality at left and right wing and in the form of a more attacking central midfielder? Alcaraz,... Fraser???, Sulemena, SAA AA, Edozie, Dibling Will SAA and Dibling go out on loan? Is Fraser going to be anywhere near as effective in the Prem? Will he be used as a wing back? Can Sulemena offer something? Can AA and Edozie do it in the Prem? A lot of question marks.

That kind of price would be pretty painful, but the club simply can't allow players to walk for free, so we might have to take what is given - as they did with Hoj. Easy to say on here `for that money we would be better off just keeping him as he will help keep us up', but it would effectively cost us £10m + his wages for 38 prem games. That's about £250,000 a week - serious money for us. Is he worth that to us? The alternative might be to sell KWP and pay £250,000 a week (wages and loan fee) to loan Ramsdale for a season, although I don't think actually that's a real possibility.

Good thinking. The only issue is we are probably relegation candidates, so might not be the most attractive of Prem sides. Being able to offer bigger wages (than some of the Spanish sides) is obviously a major draw, but if those wages are halved on relegation, that reduces the impact. We obviously tried to sign Jackson a while back. We do have a scout in Spain according to transfermarkt.

Who you thinking? Romeu or maybe Ansu Fati (was on loan at Brighton last season)?

I'm sure it will, as we have just seen him have a great season in the championship and we have seen him play well in Prem too, all be it not in the relegation season. However, we may think more highly of him than other clubs. How much of a market there is for him I am unsure. If he isn't going to sign a new contract, we have very few cards to play. I recall that the fee we got for Hojbjerg (also in last year of contract) annoyed me (£10mn for a lessor player IMO) because at the time other players in the last year of their contract seemed to be going for ridiculous sums - amounts almost akin to them having several years left. Perhaps they were (more) premium players, so it was different.

You quoted Dusic who had said 'biggest cash generator'. Are we getting more this summer from Sulemana or Alvarez?

The price of players is insane. Watford's Asprilla seems to be a similar amount.

Not sure if anyone actually offered any money for him last summer, but the 'decision' to keep him paid off. How many of his 15 goals were crucial, I'm not sure, but that is nitpicking. It was though an up and down season, but in short we looked worse without him, even when he played badly. Personally I thought we should have sold him and reinvested, but I guess we spent anyway and that didn't pay off. Maybe that's a warning about grass being greener. Let's hope our next striker is fit enough to play now and then.

I was going to post similar. Charkes really didn't impress me at all last season, so that second holding midfield role needs filling unless he makes decent strides. Conte obviously rates Gilmore. Brighton seemed to get their act together when he got in the side, so I am slightly surprised they are taking offers (maybe they are not). I wondered if he was a better option than Reed. That said, they want £15m for him, so Napoli will need to find a few bob.

Do you mean show a little more faith? You might have a point, but is Meghoma even at their level? With Manning struggling and falling out of favour, of RM thought he was ready why wouldn't he have played him? Unless he's simply not ready.

doesn't seem like he is going to get a lot of games this season at Palace. That is slightly concerning as they will know what they have and with Olisse going you'd think he was closer to starting. He obviously is going to prefer a move to us over a loan to a championship side (so long as it looks like he is going to play a fair bit). Palace have the contract card, but if he is impatient then he'll push for the move.

Ah. First time I've come across him. Makes sense. Looks brilliant. I wonder who we are looking to bring in to add some quality/ creative spark.