Minteh is not a “can’t miss” especially at the prices they are asking for. Better to swerve then.
It was not like he was our first choice. He is merely a good option and likely a couple others will emerge this season.
Availability to play is important.
But are they gettable in the winter window?
The club already has a lot of work to do next summer with Alisson, Tsimi, Virgil, Endo expected to leave as a minimum and question marks over other positions. Thats before we consider the likes of Mac who may want out (or we want to upgrade on).
Minteh may not be great player, but he was likely fairly high up on our list behind Diomande and Barcola, he still has potential to improve on his current levels and along with Munoz can sort out that right flank for the next couple of seasons after which we can hopefully be back in the position of looking for upgrades rather than trying to fill holes in the squad.
I won’t pay 60-90m for an Eredivisie player.
There are not any strong English wingers available, as they already played for City, Barca and Arsenal - I do like Bowen, though.
However, there are quite a few great or promising English midfielders around that can still be approached. I prefer Scott because he will make a great partner for Nyoni in the long run plus he used to play under Iraola.
I am a fool for finding a clever cheeky bid and so I accept I end up with some ideas that are actually dumb, but I thought we really missed a trick not trying to get a 12 month loan for Bowen. You could imagine him coming on after 60 mins in every game and playing any of the front 3 roles as needed…he’d get a lot of minutes. And would run himself into the ground doing it. He didn’t want to leave west ham, but that is why the loan was such a compelling idea.
Paymemymoney
No no, I meant 60 to 90 mil for Camara and Smit combined. Not for just Smit. He´d be cheap. Bit of a punt.
Wouldn´t want any of the English wingers. Don´t really rate Scott that highly either and I can´t think of many other English ones. I rate Wharton´s talents but he needs a kick up the arse. Mikey Moore looks interesting but not as a winger and he´s at Spurs. I think if we want homegrown players it has to be defenders or maybe a keeper. The two Newcastle full backs stand out.
I like these ideas but why the emphasis on buying an English or British full back? Is it because you want a homegrown player there?
It is possible to not be English but still be counted as a homegrown player in the PL, e.g. Frimpong. And being British but not English could mean not being HG.
Cases like Frimpong is the exception rather than the norm.
At current rate it seems Chelsea will get Camara, though.
Both Scott and Wharton were standout players in their clubs last season. Another one is Gibbs-White, who had 3 consecutive 15+ G/As seasons. Alternatively, Hinshelwood already had 2 full starting seasons as CDM at Brighton at 19 years old. Oh, and James McAtee absolute clowned Macca and Szobo yesterday. Other than Hinshelwood, I do rate all of them above our current midfield.
As for full-backs, Lewis Hall is the obvious choice for the left-wing. However, Livramento is as injury-prone as Bradley, so we can consider bringing Neco Williams home.
Both Welsh and English are HG. And England has been among the top 5 national teams of the world since 2018, so it is good to get more English players.
English/Welsh players also don’t need time to adapt to PL environment. Plus, it is good for our Academy players, most of whom are British, to have a few senior British players around.
Been saying it all year: the easiest way to improve this team is to buy a new right back with good passing ability. Frimpong is decent, but he isn’t what we need.
Buying a good CM with both passing and defensive quality costs £100m+, and I don’t think that’s possible now. our backline clearly lacks ball-playing ability. Neither Frimpong nor Kerkez provides that.
If not, just stick with Szobo at right back.
Well if we can get somebody really good who is not British but homegrown, great. Good point.
I would like a few more British players though, just as I think it´s nice.
Lets see. Maybe we can. We can offer him more football.
Of those, most dont fit the profile of what I think we should be looking for. I don´t want box to box runners like we have already or players with little passing game. Hinshelwood seems more box to box than a Dm to me and Mcaetee a bit more of an advanced type as is Gibbs White. I think we need a really good passing player from deep and a good DM.
Good point on Livramento. Good player but seems to be injury prone.
I mentioned before that I quite like Minteh so I believe he will improve. But those are gouging prices that Brighton are asking for… which at those prices there would have been options if we did not leave it so late.
What I’m definitely not in favour though of is swapping our most in-form player (in Gakpo) for someone who won’t be available to call upon for a long time…
Is Minteh worth going short in a position of need for 1/3 to 1/2 a season + a 70m+ fee?
Who plays up top if Isak gets injured? Barcola or Munoz? Makes no sense but then Hughes seems intent on ripping things up.
Would take Gakpo money and try to pry Brazilian Estevao from Chelsea. He plays RW and not playing much there.
Yeah interesting shout. I think he´s a really talented player. Pretty good dribbler, quick and I can see him developing his goal scoring a lot.
He is young though so we would have to be quite patient and in the short term he might be a bit of a downgrade to Gakpo. They´d be daft to sell too.
Chelsea aren’t letting him go.
Even Adam Cleary feels that we need a specialist 6 to allow the attackers and our full-backs to do what they want to do…And remarked that LFC is very bad at squad building…Essentially saying Hughes is shit at his job…
Cheers for posting.
Nothing papers over the cracks like a top quality attacker in football, tbh.
Glad we got him.
Thanks to the collective efforts of Hughes, Edwards and to a certain degree, Slot, whatever we built up with Klopp is all gone…
It is. Almost all of it.
But, it´s also worth saying that Klopp left us with our 3 very best players being 30 plus years old. It was such an error to not buy any players that first Slot season, other than Chiesa.
We did win the league but I think it damaged our long term prospects to not buy anyone (other than Chiesa), and we then did little to help the last summer. We had to know Salah, Van Dijk and Ali would be of the ages to decline quickly. We had to know that Diaz leaving would weaken our wide options. Now we have to build up again. Barcola isn´t a bad piece to add though.