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The Summer 2025 Transfer Window Thread

Wilf Wolf said:
Prior to their injuries Boly and Jonny were imperious. No weaknesses like Semedo who was poor in the final third and regularly beaten in the air at the back post. Obviously they made errors but not the same ones time and again. No sleight on him not being on a par with them as they were two of our best defenders, probably the best, we’ve had in fifty years. Semedo certainly improved in his final two years and I wish he was staying but he’s nowhere near the player Boly or Jonny were.
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Jonny and Boly were exceptional, obviously, but they weren't perfect. Coady famously had to hold Boly's hand a bit; when he arrived he went to sleep too easily. Jonny was immaculate on the pitch but created his own problems elsewhere, like throwing 'bows at Chirewa and smashing up the dressing room.

Semedo's only real weakness was the back post defending. People say he isn't involved enough going forward but he had exactly the same number of goal contributions as Jonny. Nélson did play more minutes, but equally was available to play significantly more; Jonny played ~52% of the 16,200 minutes he was here. By comparison, Nélson played ~85% of the same amount of minutes (both here 5 seasons).
 
Wilf Wolf said:
Prior to their injuries Boly and Jonny were imperious. No weaknesses like Semedo who was poor in the final third and regularly beaten in the air at the back post. Obviously they made errors but not the same ones time and again. No sleight on him not being on a par with them as they were two of our best defenders, probably the best, we’ve had in fifty years. Semedo certainly improved in his final two years and I wish he was staying but he’s nowhere near the player Boly or Jonny were.
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Prior to his bad injury Jonny played most games. He was a different player afterwards.
 
Atalanta were one of the teams interested in Silva right? They've had a bid rejected for Mateta.
 
Alan said:
Something something Seyi something something helped opponent up while the ball was still in play
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Something something Mark Rankine player of the season.

Well deserved, as I recall, mostly for being the only player not out injured for at least half the season! ;)
 
Didn't mention the forced Jeff mention, inconsistent Jinky
 
So Nelson is off to be coached by Mourinho. Can't say I blame him and good luck to him. A new country, a new club and a new challenge.

Going to be honest, he was a player who grew on me over time. Initially I thought he was an horrendous waste of money as he was out of position a lot and got caught napping many times. Slowly but surely he learned and over the last 18 mths I thought he was a solid dependable player. Naturally, things change. When he signed, we have delusions of grandeur. Then reality hit and survival became the mission. He played a huge part in making sure we survived the last two seasons and last season, for me, was his best.

From his comments, it seems obvious that this was a very hard decision to make and I don't blame him for taking his time. Life moves on.
 
Squeak said:
So Nelson is off to be coached by Mourinho. Can't say I blame him and good luck to him. A new country, a new club and a new challenge.

Going to be honest, he was a player who grew on me over time. Initially I thought he was an horrendous waste of money as he was out of position a lot and got caught napping many times. Slowly but surely he learned and over the last 18 mths I thought he was a solid dependable player. Naturally, things change. When he signed, we have delusions of grandeur. Then reality hit and survival became the mission. He played a huge part in making sure we survived the last two seasons and last season, for me, was his best.

From his comments, it seems obvious that this was a very hard decision to make and I don't blame him for taking his time. Life moves on.
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Agree with lots of that :)

Not sure if the implication is that ‘delusions of grandeur’ are one and the same as thoughts of anything more than a grim battle for survival. I think this is limited thinking, the sort that leads to accepting the kind of, really quite appalling, squad problems we have today. The idea that fans can either ‘demand’ Champions League football OR accept the kind of filth we saw in the first half of last year is simply inaccurate and unhelpful.
 
Thing is, they’re currently showing/making out that it’s an impossible window to get deals done. It’s not, is it? We are a Premier League club - which automatically has pull compared to a huge % of teams out there. We’re only finding it so difficult because of the way we are being ran by Fosun - despite the “penny dropping”.

We could go to one of probably hundreds (if not more!) right and left backs in world football and demonstrate that they’ve only got to be better than Hoever and Hugo and you’ll be in the starting line up of a premier league team. Sure, I get we need “the right fit”, but Christ - the right back who came on for Lens in that second half last night was a step up on Hoever and I doubt they’d be holding out for millions upon millions for him! There will be literally hundreds of players that we could go out and sign today in key positions for realistic prices that would improve us immediately - but they continue to make a meal of it. I appreciate it’s trickier signing an understudy for the midfield two, because they’re not a guaranteed starter - so they may take a bit longer to get that over the line. But perhaps don’t send out all the other available options on loan/sell them leaving us woefully short in the meantime and worse, if no one is eventually signed? We finished last night with a midfield two of Munetsi & Chirewa… that’s our back up?

Our lack of recruitment and urgency to get things done in a timely manner in this window (and in past windows) is borderline negligence. The squad in its current state will be in another relegation scrap, absolutely no doubts about that. Sure, Fosun might get another 2-3 players over the line before the window closes, but it’s still not good enough and once again, we’ll be relying on three other teams being worse.

I strongly suspect we’ll have some concrete rumours crop up over the next couple of days after last night - which again just proves to me that they work on a reactionary basis rather than a carefully pre-planned one, despite all the shit they spin.

Did Vítor have an interview after last night? Would love to know his thoughts.

(Apologies for the long post!)
 
I could believe the club know the Bueno and hoever aren't good enough, and I could also believe they can't find players who are not only better than these two but also good enough for the PL.

They're probably trying to avoid spending money on players who, whilst better than the incumbents, still aren't good enough for the PL. I can believe the pool of players were fishing in is actually quite small/competitive given the parameters.
 
It would be foolish to say anything other than we need replacements for RAN and Semedo.
What we saw with the Pubill saga is that a (presumably!) well scouted option, who is young and has prospects to develop into an saleable asset, is also being scouted by top clubs. If one of those clubs is in touch with his agent then a player is going to hold fire before making a decision. You’d hope that there are targets to move onto.
As for recruitment and succession planning in those areas, we had 2 fullbacks out on loan at European top flight clubs and signed another who was highly rated. The problem for us all to see now is that Lima is more Hoever than RAN and with Hoever and Bueno not kicking on as we’d have liked, we’ve got problems down both flanks. I’m sure there’s experienced options available it’s whether or not the club want to have prospect of no potential for profit when they leave. As @Andy says there’s also a risk with younger players that they are no better than what we have.
It’s a conundrum that needs solving.
 
Makes you wonder how good our scouting is. As Jinky says there must be plenty of wing backs available that would be satisfactory and delighted to join us.
 
AndyWolves said:
I could believe the club know the Bueno and hoever aren't good enough, and I could also believe they can't find players who are not only better than these two but also good enough for the PL.

They're probably trying to avoid spending money on players who, whilst better than the incumbents, still aren't good enough for the PL. I can believe the pool of players were fishing in is actually quite small/competitive given the parameters.
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The thing is, leaving the different approach of perma-glamour/monied clubs aside, other prem clubs who have to operate in a similar, recruit, develop, sell manner to us seem to have proven in the last while that it is achievable to have a fit for purpose recruitment system. Brighton are often highlighted as successful in this respect - but what they do isn't a dark art - it is simply a very professional data driven model.

So to your point about not spending on dross, there's mileage in that and the pool may ultimately be small, but we show no signs of learning how to fish in that pool and that is frustrating as it is under our control as a club.
 
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