In fairness Palinhina is a 27 year old who had just two seasons at Sporting Lisbon as a starter under his belt.
Previous to that he was on loan at Braga. Any scout who identified him as the ideal signing would face an up hill battle trying to prove it.
He will be 28 by the time new season starts.
Macallister and Luiz were the two we should have been pushing for at the end of the window instead of Arthur. Both the right age, profile, suit our system and only a year left on their contracts.
Both have gone on to have the best seasons of their careers so far.
Weāve missed out on a number of these opportunites. Botman in January '21 is another obvious one, he looks like one of the leagueās best centre backs now.
No more Kabak, Davies and Arthur like signings, theyāve been a total waste of time and money.
Palinha has been excellent for Fulham but it would be a terribly uninspiring bit of scouting to go and blow that much of our budget on him, and Iām not sure heās good enough on the ball either.
Isnāt that why we have the people we have?
So instead of seeing a lad that was playing in the Scottish third division four years ago and just got relegated to the Championship again, we actually identify him as one of potentially the best fullbacks in Europe?
Itās not about what theyāve done or where theyāve been, itās about what they could be for us.
But you also have to be able to prove it, not just say āI reckon he could be goodā. The performances and stats have to be there to back it up. I never saw the lad in Portugal so I dont know how he performed but at 25 Sporting Lisbon, his club, didnāt even think he was good enough for them and had him out on loan.
To be honest I still dont know if heās good enough or if hes just better than what we have - Fabinho is arguably one of the worst starting DMs on current form. To get back to the being top 4 or even higher though Iām not sold that Palhinha is actually that good compared to other options.
Mental the amount of midfielders weāve ignored, I hope we havenāt waited for Bellingham or bustā¦ basically threw away a year.
But thatās what I mean. If we couldnāt see he was good enough last season youād be annoyed if we thought he was good enough now.
Itās probably just lazy journalism. But there are those links with Nunes too, another that could have been had last summer. Have to wait and see but would very much be a kick in the teeth if weād put our eggs in the Bellingham basket only to end up with someone a year later than we could.
Not a fan of those kind of stats.
Too many important variables not taken into account.
Main ones being, whoās playing alongside him, and whoās he directly playing against
Ā£60m on him as the rumours suggest is excessive. Would rather pay the extra money for Rice or Ugarte who took his place at Sporting.
Gavi on a free! Wow!
Any stat showing a player who can actually win tackles regularly does seem attractive.
more brown envelopes incoming
Itās starting to look like we have put all our eggs in one basket, aka Bellingham. It will be atrocious and lots of eggs on our faces, if he does ends up signing for a rival in PL.
Start mentioning him as LFC interestā¦and good old Shitty will pipe uo with 30millionā¦
At the moment its just social media talk, personally I donāt see how we are going to pay 130m ish for one midfielder and we need at least two.
We should use Bellingham as a distraction to secure our two midfielders we are really after
Itās alright if we do well next seasonā¦If we start the next one with the same start as this season, then get ready for a whole of banter in real lifeā¦
Too bad the owners are very very conservative and/or skint themselvesā¦
Right on cue
