"We've got bucketfuls of agents throwing players at us. We'll trawl through it." - The PL/CL/EL/world off-season transfer thread '17-'18

it is kind of amazing that an agent is allowed to get involved with a club to such an extent. it's essentially printing money, even moreso than just being an agent is in general.

not claiming the rest of the game is any better, just saying.

i think the extent to which this becomes sinister depends on how the Wolves get on over the next couple of seasons. top 6 finish this season is still a big ask i think, and god knows there's enough of our own fans praying that we fail so they can be right about the uselessness of players and managers who "don't know the Championship" and try to play "fancy Dan football" - which i think means trying to keep possession and play with a shape or something. if we can get up in the next couple of years and establish ourselves even as a mid-table Prem team i think a lot of the attention on Mendes and Fosun drifts away, or becomes acceptable because that's the Prem and everybody expects you to be corrupt, cash-splurging dicks in the Prem. i think the negative journalism now is largely about us as mid-Champo chancers having the temerity to behave like this.

"i think" getting a bit of overuse there i think

i feel like it's more because he's the world's most famous/successful agent and the relationship almost seems formal.

and it was then mendes says "sign that guy" when he pockets millions each time that happens. i mean to an extent this goes on everywhere, mino raiola has a close relationship with diff clubs obv... i suppose as long as it's not a formal relationship there's nothing against the rules. i think people have been trying to establish the extent to which mendes is actually running things.

like eg mino raiola doesn't have a coach installed anywhere, afaik

haha v good

well maybe he does, but i've not heard about it. it doesn't take much investigation to say "a mendes client is the manager", ergo an easy story.

the club's official position is that Mendes doesn't dictate transfer policy, he's an advisor. well, we would say that, but it feels reasonably true. we still have a (imo pretty useless) recruiting team run by Kevin Thelwell and John Marshall. one reason i'm not that fussed about Mendes at the moment is that even the failures he's suggested/negotiated have been more exciting than the low-budget dross that the official team have brought in over the last few years - illustrated by us having almost nobody that we've been able to move on even at break even prices.

i'm pretty sure that Lambert wasn't a Mendes appointment, and he was shit enough to confirm all my prejudices about the Champo manager merry-go-round. we'll see whether Mendes/Fosun is a shocking breach of the rules, a taste of football clubs to come or something that will diminish if the project succeeds or fails badly. right now there's just no incentive for me to pine for the 1950s hoofball we've been stuck with for decades or to listen to media that regularly fawn all over the Scarface-esque shenanigans of the Prem deciding to go on a "this is taking things too far" steez because they think Mendes is a wrong'un. it's just fun and hilarious and i'll take whatever consequences ensue.

yeah not trying to neg you or wolves - as i say i'm sure it's all rotten, just felt like i can see why it's a sort of juicy story.

Wasn't Allardyce at this same carry on, getting players to sign for his agent

oh yeah i can too, i'm not defensive, i'm not suddenly "yay Prem mega-dickery", it's just a spectacular change in fortunes with a lot of juicy infighting between anti-football luddites in our own fanbase. the very real possibility of it crashing and burning isn't even a negative to me at the moment, just a possible outcome of this craziness.

xp i was gonna mention Sam, 'Arry, Ferguson, Mou. Obv the latter has his own Mendes connection.

railo and man u at the moment is p lucrative.

"it's just fun and hilarious and i'll take whatever consequences ensue."

To totally misquote the Simpsoms Movie: you ever tried a fun transfer window without millions of quids. It's boring. Nobody notices you.

like eg mino raiola doesn't have a coach installed anywhere, afaik

― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), woensdag 12 juli 2017 10:51 (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://i2.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article8213014.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/Mourinho-main.jpg

Challops obv but he sure knows how to make buckets of cash off ManU.

It’s reported Ranocchia would like a return to the Premier League, but prefers a more prestigious club.

He had also been targeted by West Bromwich Albion.

Good luck with that "more prestigious" club route, pal!

Lol! Grayson bidding 900k for Vaughany is insanity! He's lost his fucking mind already!

Are there any inklings of Spurs signing anyone?

All it seems to be rumour wise is which players of ours other clubs are targeting

Juan Foyth from Estudientes seems likely - though they clearly missed a trick by not having that in place by June 4th.

They were heavily linked with Sebastian Driussi for a while but he went to Zenit.

Janssen, sissoko, lamela gonna be like three new signings

I've seen Josh King mentioned

Sigurdsson to Everton seems to be somewhat closer

Ajax' Abdelhak Nouri won't ever play again :( He was player of the year of the Dutch championship last year. Very sad news.

Walker to City for £50m looks like it's happening.

LEVY

Worlds most expensive defender, Tottenham second choice rightback Kyle walker

woah

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/jul/13/juventus-leonardo-bonucci-set-to-join-milan-shock-move

Wow... Did not see that coming. Calling AC Milan Juve's "rivals" seems moot at this point, with Milan not even in competition for a CL spot for what, the last five years? Seems like a huge step backwards, despite Milan's "project" (ie. Asian money pouring in) as of late.

Last note on Januzaj: ManU sold him to La Real, but there's a buy back clause apparently. Rip big clause, heaven need etc. Can't see it happening but it's nice they added it to the sale.

Memphis has one too. Keeping our options open!

:)

Seriously though, would a cap on the numbers of contracted players per club not be a good idea? The top English clubs are loaning out dozens of players every season. The adagium is: hit and miss. If they manage to sell one out of ten half decent players to some dumb club financially it's ok for them, and screw the other nine. Players who'll never make the first squad in the PL, but they keep them on because financially it pays off.

NAC Breda, promoted to the Dutch Eredivisie, have secured the loan of five Man City players for the coming season. FIVE. PSV are desperately trying to sign Van Ginkel from Chelsea - who was here on loan for two seasons - but Chelsea refuse to sell, yet again, because the loan construction makes them more money. So it will probably be a third season on loan for him (we can use him, Chelsea sure as hell can't, and won't). It's ridiculous, football clubs turning into trade businesses this way.

LEVY

yeah incredible stuff, managed to sell a player to a rival having signed nobody. what a summer.

Heh

By the time we replace our reserve tantrum RB I feel that we can look forward to some other business using that money

that stadium won't fund itself!!

Yeah £50m for a 27-year old right-back who is maybe our eighth or ninth best player when we already have a ready-made replacement. The money should go on someone that isn't a fullback though, and we need Danny Rose back quickly.

The likelihood of Pep bringing out the worst in Walker seems fairly high fwiw. It took maybe two years of Poch waterboarding to get him to cut out all the stupid mistakes.

Otm. Walker will be walker without poch.

XP lol if that is actual criticism of paying for a stadium.

Hah! Man City pay £50m for a so so RB and they let us have Tommy Smith on a free. After one season in the prem he will be worth at least £20 m at the current crazy rates. And he is developing into a shit hot RB, believe me he won't disgrace himself in the prem.

I'm a big fan of Chelsea, united, city wasting their money on established shite (or at best, overpriced) and allowing exactly that to happen to their untested youth.

Still a little gutted about Charlie Daniels tbh

Got to give it to the very generous and carelessly profligate youth systems of City and especially Chelsea, it saves a lot of FL clubs the expense of developing them. And sometimes I think the experience of failure/rejection makes them stronger players.

There are rumours that Ricardo has been earmarked as a replacement for Walker. He has been on loan at Nice for the last two seasons and done very well. He'd pose a similar kind of attacking threat .

His contract is owned by Porto, though, and they want €25m for him.

IMHO Guardiola is making a rod for his own back with that price-tag on Walker. I wonder if Sheffield Utd had some kind of sell-on fee when they sold him to Spurs.

Levy's there now in a room just affixing '-Peters' to every 'Kyle Walker' on that City contract.

Happier as is tbph

Welcome to Chelsea, @TimoeB08!

👉 https://t.co/XA1aBMBFU8#BakasBlue pic.twitter.com/IlrH2bIBlC

— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) July 15, 2017

don't think he's that good ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

rogue question mark there for some reason

this is a weird one

Tottenham ramp up Ross Barkley interest with Everton ready to compromise on £50m price tag https://t.co/3EWV1S2K5A #coys #efc

— Indy Football (@IndyFootball) July 16, 2017

£30m is apparently Levy's target price. Doesn't make any sense to me.

is he even good?

He's ok, but not 50m ok

he's like a young Wayne Rooney

with about an eight of the talent and a significantly lower footballing IQ