I watched a few AC games this season, a useful enough player but he never grabbed me as an immediate transfer target. Good athlete, definitely, so there is some upside - tbh, I thought he was a couple of years older than he is.
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Yeah not someone that particularly stood out in Europe for me.
Also I love how it went from 50m to 70m in a day it’s the reverse Macallister.
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I genuinely can’t recall that…
My Milan-supporting mate is absolutely furious, he won’t talk about the sale at all. I think it has more to do with Tonali being an Italian international and a fellow Milan supporter than his playing qualities, though.
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It’s a good signing for arsenal. Would have been great if it was 20m cheaper
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https://twitter.com/OliverKay/status/1671823753070747649
Fucking hell.
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The Cheaters are just hoping to snuff out any semblance of a PL challenge
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That’s a problem with the “home-grown” rule. There are only going to be so many top home grown players so if they can hoover up the best players to pad out their squad it leaves everyone else relying on journeymen when the injuries hit.
TBH, I’m surprised that they haven’t tried to bid for Trent. I suppose it only works on the smaller teams (no offence to West Ham).
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Or… everyone else could put more resources into developing home grown talent. Which is kind of the point right?
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They could, and often do but that doesn’t necessarily help as that is a long term project and an additional cost to the club that has uncertain outcomes, diverts funds away to first team squad signings and falls risk to the same problem - clubs like City hoovering up the talent but at a younger age.
Don’t worry Mikel. Pep will be happy to sell Kalvin Phillips to you.
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It’s the point from the view of the FA as they want as many talented players as possible available for the national team. Ultimately, they don’t care who they are playing for. Unfortunately, the home-grown quota system means those players are going to be priced at a premium and that premium will always be dictated by the funny-money teams. Those that want more than a minimal first team squad will have to make do with players that are not good enough to play for the national team.
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I suppose it doesn’t infringe any rules. Does it?
From the Guardian …
As far as transfer strategies go, Newcastle snatching Rúben Neves on a two-year loan deal would be a shrewd if controversial move. The Portugal midfielder has only just left Wolves after a seven-year shift with the ink barely dry on his £47m contract with Al-Hilal in the Saudi Professional League. It’s not that Eddie Howe has convinced the Saudi club to tear up the legal document. He may not have to; both Newcastle and Al-Hilal are owned by PIF, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia.
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I think they may have a preference for the players to be at the same club as it helps the players to develop an understanding of their colleagues games - but I only recall Erikson making a big thing of this.
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Erikson was just lazy. Once the honeymoon of the 2002 cycle ended he started getting the normal grief from the press over everything and he seemingly decided it wasn’t worth fighting so just gave them what they wanted. That meant picking players from big/CL clubs even if they weren’t playing. That provided some short term incentives for English players to concentrate themselves at the CL clubs but dont think there was ever any indication this was a preference of his bosses.
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You have to wonder how long until they engage on Salah. There isn’t a bigger possible player for them.
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Arkadiusz Milik from Marseille to Juventus for €6.5m.
Filip Djuricic from Sampdoria to Panathinaikos on a free.
Arnor Sigurdsson from CSKA Moscow to Blackburon on loan.
Junior Adamu from RB Salzburg to Freiburg for €9.5m.
Luis Suarez from Marseille to Almeria for €8m.
Ruslan Malinovskyi from Atalanta to Marseille for €10m.
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To be fair they needed to sign someone in goal.
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Edin Dzeko from Inter to Fenerbahce on a free.
sky sports breaking news City close to signing Rice