"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

Might as well kick this one off now that there's a holy trinity of ilx footblols (JT, Arry 'n Brum) all in one report:

John Terry: Birmingham City offer ex-Chelsea & England captain contract

that's one less to worry about

hoping Fosun decide to act like proper entitled billionaires and bring us Assombalonga

Only just got over the shock we have smashed our humble transfer record into pieces + paid £8m for Mooy and now we are trying to raid FC candy crush for Ince (7.2m). I quite like Ince as a player, but there is a bad smell around that squad of overpaid flops.

I am enjoying us being the predatory dick club for once tho. In your fucking face Candy Crush!

FC candy crush :D

Meanwhile:
- Ajax' captain Klaassen supposedly being scooped up by Everton for 25m or so
- Can't help but feel ManU's signings are either not good enough (Lindelöf) or both not good enough and way too expensive (Morata). He's alright but can he do it on a rainy Tuesday night etc. Just like previous season no idea what Mou wants, how he wants to play etc.

wait, the Carabao Cup ????

lmao

The Carabao Cup first round draw, the first event for the new sponsor of the League Cup, descended into farce when its live Facebook video commenced with no sound and then crashed immediately after the first club, Birmingham City, were drawn out of the hat.

This has to go down as one of the most embarrassing sponsorship launches in living memory.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2017/06/16/league-cup-first-round-draw-live-thailand-carabao-cup-ties/

😡 When your Sunday League manager WhatApps the group saying you have to play a double header... #CarabaoCup pic.twitter.com/FTl8jUG3at

— The Sportsman (@TheSportsman) June 16, 2017

Alves to Manchester City looks like it might happen, which in turn probably makes it more likely Walker stays at Spurs.

Would be good to have Pandemic's view on the Gnabry to Munich - Costa to Juve chain.

It seems like it would be a really good signing. I thought Alves kind of lost his spark but his move to Juve did him a world of good, he had a great season. Didn't City express they want to get two left and two right backs though (Alves, Walker, Mendy, Bertrand)?

Echoing your sentiment on Pandemic; sadly, he's still MIA.

Tired already of Cron dominating the transfer news cuz he's "upset" and then staying at Madrid anyway. I need some good Terry to Brum news tbh.

Mendes is gonna bring Cron to Wolves, banking on it

he can still do a job at our level imo

Wouldn't wish that on your team tbh.

Yes I hate is guts, but if I set that aside for a mo', and he truly is thinking of leaving Team Franco, I would genuinely like to see him at PSG. Going back to ManU can only end in tears tbh. PSG seems a very good fit. Though of course he's not going anywhere, and my dream of him disappearing forever into China, drowning in the Yangtze because his pockets are too full of yen, is probably dead.

Palace apparently in for Frank de Boer as new manager. Good luck with that.

Salah to Liverpool seems like an exciting prospect tbh.

How on earth is Xherdan Shaqiri still only 25?

Spurs are being strongly linked with Matías Vecino of Fiorentina - who is a fairly solid DM iirc.

rumours going around that liverpool might go back in for vvd, or he might put in a transfer request. seems a risky enough game, they'd prob have to pay an extra wedge of money to stop southampton reporting them. but if he decides he wants to leave maybe there's a chance.

some talk of aubameyang too but i can't see that happening.

Wouldn't it be lovely to see a player like that opt for first team at lfc or spurs rather than higher salary and bench at Madrid or wherever

Don't subscribe as a rule to complaints about modern game but the waste of talent in the top squads irks

most important off-season development: neymar's new do

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/06/23/11/41A87D4100000578-0-image-a-62_1498213944215.jpg

he must be the youngest guy yet to qualify for Show me some men who look like old lesbians!

http://i.imgur.com/ErvvCV6.jpg

someone missed the u20 world cup

We just signed a Porto player who looks like Belguim's own Grant Holt and has a degree in civil engineering. We are already planning for the Championship '18-'19. Nah like fuck .. we have also allegedly a very sexy incoming signing: Mounie from Montpellier for £11.5 m, and we beat off West Ham for his signature.

beatin off ham

well some of us are getting a bit carried away at the moment, but hopefully practising some tasteful restraint amidst the excitement of uncharted territory :p

Matic

really

Really expensive but I mean what's even expensive anymore

Ian Stringer‏ @StringerSport 5h
Would you be happy for #LCFC to pay £40m for Gylfi Sigurdsson? (merely a question, as ever, I know nothing)

big lee lee‏ @tubbytriathlete 5h
Replying to @StringerSport
On the basis we paid around 46m for Musa and Slimani then it's a huge yes compared to them its massive value for money

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/jun/29/steven-caulker-mental-illness-addictions-gambling-drinking-qpr

good to read this and get a little taste of the misery that runs through football

Just reading this. A great read. I'd always wondered why this guy didn't make it, because he was a genuinely exciting prospect when he broke through

"Money covers the cracks. It can be evil. It prolongs the agony."

Otm. Very good story, good for him to speak up. Hope he'll find a good club.

i mentioned this on the reading thread but has anyone read "living on the volcano" by michael calvin? it's a series of interviews with managerial football men from up and down the leagues. like sean derry, ian holloway, brendan rodgers, many others. written about 2015 i think. it plumbs a lot of the same depths and maybe is even darker in parts than the caulker article above. martin ling had a long stint of electroshock therapy to get over delusions and depression after getting sacked from a job. having said that it's also got some of the most ridiculous "wisdom of gaffers" speak i've ever read.

the book generally takes you down the well-travelled path of clubs gone mad, crazy chairman, no respect for the manger, all managers needing more time etc etc, but really as i read it it just tends to confirm my feeling that managers are the biggest fucking frauds in the game. the training, at least in the uk, seems to be dire, many of them still gravitate to their jobs based on playing careers despite there being barely any provable link between success in one and the other. they make a shit ton of money despite failing repeatedly and in absence of any skills they try whatever they can, blindly latching onto ideas from other sports or areas of life like enchanted rabbits' feet. it's like the only way they can survive the pressure, which i accept is extreme, is by defying logic and sense and rationality for huge portions of their working lives. 95 per cent of them fail and 2 or 3 per cent are a mixed bag, xanaxing themselves with bizarre narratives about past jobs etc.

if i had to pick one quote that sums up the illogical and mad philosophies of these poor bastards, it'd be from joe dunne, a manager i'd never heard of before who had a few months at colchester before getting sacked:

"top managers adapt and move, i like to think i'm a forward-thinking young manager, but some people, in their ignorance, will argue i can't be, because i've operated in the bottom half of league one. we have to get them to open their minds a bit more. don't judge people based on who or what they are, or where they've been."

like i think we need a new philosophy about managers in the uk - we shouldn't be discussing how often they get sacked, we should be discussing how often they get hired.

The last brit manager we had used to give the players a day off training while he went back down London every saturday night. Before every game he would talk up the opposition in terms of how much they pay their players and how impossible it is to compete with them. After he had talked himself out of a job and bored the team through 5 wins in 28 or something we got a German manager and everything was fucking great, The End!

I should have said Everything changed baby, everything changed.

Portuguese media claiming we've agreed a deal for Ruben Neves, i am not gonna stop grinning until August if this is true

Our transfer action has been so headspinningly sexy in the last 48 hours, it is too much to process. Some Danish int keeper, Tom Ince, Steve Mounie, Mooy, Oliver Burke 4 times 10 mill players and these aren't fanciful rumours, but actually really happening as I type! Brighton fans getting jealous that we have stole their "progressive-club" cache and getting all the condescending attention they feel should be going their way. The chairman trolling bitter Leeds Utd fans with commercial department's The Yorkshire Club branding, which I used to think was nauseating as well tbh - but now it has become useful!

.. and the Derby fans are naturally inconsolable that we have nicked their most consistent and creative player, nice karmic fuck-you revenge for when they tapped up Butterfield 2 games into the season.

You are going to be a valuable addition to the EPL threads imo calz

We've frankly needed a bit of spice, "that type of poster"

I'm a self-confessed shit poster tbh. You probably need Nachk back more than a artless monosyllabic fule like me!

I was talking to a taxi driver t'other day and explaining I could have actually got a free carer's season ticket this season but declined because the full capacity noise of prem fixtures will be too much for the kid. You fucking idiot, you could have sold it to me! was his response. I've definitely missed a trick there!

OMFG NEVES IS GONNA HAPPEN

"i am not gonna stop grinning until August if this is true"

I am totally down with £10m+ spends on shit hot players and the feelgood factor it brings these days, NV. But have never experienced the horror of such a big money signing turning out totally dud yet!

anything's possible but the sheer unbelievability of nipping in ahead of the Prem teams and buying a lad this highly rated is worth a long honeymoon anyhow

Some on our lot seem to think cos we have signed a striker who scored only one less goal than Mbappe in Ligue 1 last season, then QED He deffo as good as Mbappe! We top 6!

it's nice when your board has the vision and guts to actually invest properly for the Prem. now you just need to offload Nakhi to some promotion-hungry Champo team *cough*

there is talk that Burnley want him as a replacement for when Gray (another of yours that got away) is sold. He is a really tidy player is Nakhi, but only has a year left on his contract and has not committed previously to remaining here, so his exit might be inevitable. I'd personally rather see him stay tbh.

Neves to Wolves is a Mascherano & Tevez to West Ham reboot.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻📞Welcome JT to Birmingham city...Aston Villa🌈!#UTV! @AVFCOfficial Announcement shortly!

— Dr. Tony Xia (@Dr_TonyXia) July 3, 2017

I offered my commiserations on t'other thread, Windsor. At least I'm assuming you aren't quite feeling those hand-clap emoticons today!

Is there a new PL thread yet?

Didn't realise there was a game tonight.

Sanchez will no doubt move on to great things, no idea how much Ajax will want for him in this market. 40m?

No new thread yet. C'mon people, we need title suggestions.

'Tottenham are still a big club' is sadly starting to feel relevant again

"Liverpool won't tap up the Premiership"

"Marouane Fellaini is our best player actually"

"The Best Sports Entertainment League in the World"

"We’ll take it step by step and be humble."

"It doesn’t matter: the club will always be a giant."

there haven't been enough standout terrible quotes.

"I'd love us to sign some players you don't have to Google"

Meanwhile:

BREAKING: @Phil_Coutinho hands @LFC an official transfer request - Sky sources. #SSN pic.twitter.com/Ju1vtSwKLJ

— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) August 11, 2017

Already denied by Liverpool

denial is my approach too

Apparently they'll be after Eriksen if they can't get Coutinho so I'm kind of hoping you're disappointed.

See you next season, mate.

— Spurs In The Blood (@SpursInTheBlood) August 11, 2017

as i already said the money is essentially worthless to liverpool - they were trying to buy ketia and vvd for a combined total of 120m or more, so not sure what an extra 80m will do. i would imagine they can tough it out and keep him.

there haven't been enough standout terrible quotes.

I blame this entirely on the decline of Real Football Men managing in the Premiership.

The Real Football Men will be finding Championship jobs hard to get next and going to L1/L2, these oligarchs know they are all mainly duds, and the British club-owners all also catching on.

Money means nothing and no kicks for free

Newcastle fans pissing and moaning about TV fixtures on the radio. they shd boycott telly.

these Geordies don't half love to lay it on about how hard their lot is, even when they were top of the table last season ffs!

lol arsenal

on pace for a high-scoring season

the arsenal lineup in "defence' is a tragedy

and i say that as a liverpool fan

lol, this game looks like Coritiba vs Atletico Goianiense in the brazilian league

in the end WEnger will put Giroud and cross balls into the box

Wenger out, blud

Arsenal: still hilarious.

Think they will win this though.

they're creating enough to do so

Fam out

Wenger back in.

awww, where's the fun in that?

i'm sure TV football pundits will respond to this game in a measured and thoughtful manner and not use it as a bellwether for the quality of the coming season

Two defensively shite teams. Lacazette looks handy

Tony Pulis has signed a one-year contract extension to keep him at West Brom until 2019.

Pulis is joined on the bench this year by new assistant manager and former Hawthorns boss Gary Megson.

Wow, one can't imagine the excitement and romance of being a WBA fan right now. I'm so jealous.

they get really pissy when you laugh about it

Stoke fan @DRK_Jacob asked Shawcross: "What was it like seeing Pulis headbutt James Beattie naked?"
To which, the official account responded "It was a spectacle."

The charming dressing room etiquette of the Real Football Man.

They are the Co-op of the prem. "our insipid ready-meals only use meat derivatives scraped off the floor of British knacker's yards".

I assume we're still using this thread as some sort of protest against the league starting on Friday night?

Gonna go with 'Thread of real players you don't have to Google - EPL 2017/18' unless anyone has any better ideas.

OMG.

‘I can just about remember Trevor Francis becoming the first £1m footballer in Britain in 1979. Even allowing for inflation over the last 38 years, Neymar is not worth 198 Trevor Francises, nor 100, nor a dozen. I’m not even sure he’s a better player, full stop.’

This is some real cometh the hour cometh the man shit from Robbie Savage here.

RS has done more to bring 606 down to the level of Talksport than anyone else imo. I'm not saying it was ever a great show in my lifetime. But I find it completely un-listenable since he has been on board.

An old friend of mine who had a fairly boring non-league career, once stayed at the RS mansion while he was having a Leicester trial. Even though he is a pretty diabolical person himself, he was pretty shocked at how arrogant and full of shit some of the young prem "stars" were.

"Neymar is not worth 198 Terry Francises"

Even allowing for inflation!

198 Terry Francises wouldn't be worth much on the pitch, you need 11 Terry Francises at most. Any more would result in an oversupply of Terry Francises, crashing the Terry Francis price overnight. This is basic economics.

aye you have to be careful with that genetic replication QE game.

I like how he says 'even allowing for inflation' and then immediately compares costs not allowing for inflation.

'Even allowing for inflation, this thread is not worth 198 Terry Francises' - Liverpool won't win the Premiership 2017-18