Of the four senior signings - Kudus, Palhinha, Simons and Kolo Muani - the latter is the one I'm most skeptical about, by a distance. Frank said we wouldn't bring in filler. RKM is filler. It feels like a deal that made sense when his stock was high 2/3 years ago, but looks like a panic deal now
There’s a difference between filler and cover. At this point Tel feels like filler more than any of the other signings this window. I like him but we don’t seem to have confidence in him as a winger or striker, so what’s the point?
At this point, a one season “filler” is just what the doctor ordered.
loan with no obligation seems to imply that either Solanke is hurt and/or Odobert/Tel aren't much in the immediate plans.
Rumours today are that Solanke ankle worse than first thought and might req surgery
Conflicting rumors make you suspect the worse one is true.
bsky.app/profile/ownb...
That’s from January - there is one circulating from today that its not as bad as feared.
no, that's how we do dates in the UK (and most of the world). It's from today.
I really wish we could all just use the very sensible international ISO YYYY-MM-DD format. Not least because it sorts in a list properly.
what's next you'll ask us to agree on metric system, kilometres, and all speak Esperanto?
This is how I always date file names. As you say, only way to sort properly.
When colleagues ask me why I do that and I tell them, they're like...
It just makes sense! My current workplace's filing structure has me wishing to visit great furious fire and vengeance upon it. Thankfully, everyone who has a vested interested in the existing structure is leaving between now and Christmas, so it's Scorched Earth Time baby!! :D
day, month, year is the common practice outwith the USA en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
The last is a loan with no obligation 🤷
And clearly last-minute cover for an injury
Don’t see how a dry loan could equate to a “panic deal”…pretty good player and we have a lot of football to play with one very injury prone striker and another on the shelf already.
Counterpoint: We were interested in him as recently as the last window.
Striker cover to me is a no brainer right now with Dom's injury (no buy just a straight loan). We can't just rely on Richarlison. I agree we needed a winger really but that is a separate issue. Frank clear he wanted first team only so clearly the right player not available. Lookman still? 🤞
Yeah. He is clearly just (good) cover, and strongly hints dom's ankle is not good. Given richys injury record, this feels sensible. LW I really want(ed) savinho, but if not, I'd get Lookman now. Lookman, tel, odebert. Dom, richy, muani. Kudus, johnson, kulu is stacked. Just need passers behind em..
Seems there is an option to buy. Think this says more about Solanke and his ankle issue.
Gold and Ornstein say there isn't
Thought the report from David said there was an option? Meh, dry loan then? Maybe he does well, leaves a good impression, and then we negotiate during January or next summer.
No, Romano said there was an option. He now says there isn't
Wild start to the day. Maybe we can wrap this one up and then focus on a left-sided CB/ LB.
Emergency cover on loan 🤷
He's being described as able to play across the front three. Nonsense. He's played 90% of his games at CF. Richy has a lot more experience at LW, and he's not great there. Looks like we'll be making do with one from Johnson, Odobert or Tel on the left, none of whom are ideal.
Sure, Xavi can play there but then we have no creativity at 10
Left half space is literally where Simons plays most of the time
Loan signings are by definition filler I guess we didn't want to be coming out of the window with Richarlison as our only fit senior striker. We should be mostly playing Odebert and Tel left anyway.
Right? One of our 2 strikers got a serious looking injury on Saturday, and on Monday we get a risk free loan of a player valued at 90m a couple of years ago. This has been a pretty great transfer window for me
Feels very much like a reaction to unexpected injury news and as it’s a loan I can live with it. Who knows, he might be a good fit for TF - he loves a run in the channel