The Summer 2025 Transfer Window Thread

[Deutsch Wolf]

Good lad, nice footballer, but as Nick says just neither quick nor strong enough.

Basically Simon Osborn 30 years later.

 

[Lycan]

I'm not particularly bothered about Doyle leaving (plus Dawson and I assume Johnstone) but I really would like us to sign a few English players this summer, even if we have to pay over the odds for them. Nothing to do with the homegrown rules and it's not coming from any kind of Reformy, Brexity place but it is kind of ridiculous that we don't have a single good English player.

 

[big mean bunny]

The fact you have to pay over the odds for them is why I hope we don't. Doesn't make sense to willingly do that.

 

[Lycan]

The fact you have to pay over the odds for them is why I hope we don't. Doesn't make sense to willingly do that.

My issue with that is that the current owners have no reason not to spend big, it's all self imposed. They have the cashflow, the PSR wiggle room and they're charging fans the kind of rates that it doesn't feel out of order to expect that kind of expenditure from them.

To take a random example, Harvey Elliot might move away from Liverpool this summer for £40-50M. That's a lot more than he's actually worth but at the end of the day he's an excellent player in a position where we need to strengthen, he'd automatically be one of our best players if we signed him and we could absolutely afford it while still having enough left to sort out the other areas in our squad. The only reason why we won't get him and he ends up at one of our rivals is because of Fosun and their self sustainability nonsense.

It's an absolute farce that a Premier League club doesn't have one English player that you'd be comfortable starting. I don't want us to become a Yam Yam version of Athletic Bilbao but to not even have one player in the squad capable of making a reasonable contribution is so weird.