'Even allowing for inflation, this thread is not worth 198 Terry Francises' - EPL 2017-18

also it's so obvious they are chancing their arm trying to get two players with the neymar fee, in a market where that won't happen, because there's no one replacement they can sign and perhaps signing both coutinho and dembele, or y'know, anyone really, might sate the fans for five minutes. i see dortmund have told them to do one as well.

They're the laughing stock of the summer. Not sure about his days being numbered, as I'm not sure who would have to send him out. Messi and Iniesta piling on the pressure too, and rightfully so.

LG do you still think VvD could go your way? Soton signed Dutch defender Wesley Hoedt from Lazio today for about 15m. Same position really.

hard to say - it's similar to coutinho except dunno where it stands as regards us actually making a bid after the whole tapping up unpleasantness. i'd feel a lot better about this season if we signed a defender. if we don't then it's heinous for us to leave sahko out in the cold.

Maybe Liverpool have indeed condeded and feel 'humbled' wrt VvD and will wait another year? Humbleness being a v rare treat in football though.

I do agree for you that you *really* need a defender, or three. Not even Barcelona w/ Vermaelen and Matthieu were so out of whack, with a brilliant attack and shamble defense.

Be kind to my typos.

@david_conn 10m10 minutes ago

Manchester City (Group) have bought Spanish La Liga club Girona, in a partnership with Pere Guardiola, manager Pep's brother & agent. #mcfc

Class

If it weren't for this supremely dodgy acquisition I would never have found out that FC Girona's second-choice goalkeeper is called Bono.

surely the money would've been better spent buying a couple of Prem teams

FC Feeder Club/Academy Training Slope, I'm guessing.

Barcelona muestra interés por el mediocampista Galés, jugador del Stoke City, Joe Allen; preparan primera oferta de £30M.

according to some reports the 'Welsh Coutinho' had a blinder against Rochdale last night.

Imagine spending nearly half the Neymar cash on Paulinho and Joe Allen.

surely that's a pisstake about joe allen - that video of brendan rodgers calling him the welsh is a deeply enshrined meme.

i do think joe is good tho and liverpool should have kept him.

Mbappe to PSG seems to go ahead. French papers reporting 150m euros and a PSG player going the other way.

Swansea are probably signing our best defender, right/wing back Santiago Arias. Meh.

Apparently some former wonderkid, who has gone off the boil slightly, called Emre Mor is either Everton or Hudds bound. We might even have the edge because they can't realistically guarantee him much football. That would be quite a biggie for us, apparently around the 12m Euros mark.

Lol, googling Emre Mor just now brings up Dutch and Turkish news articles from the last 24 hours saying his agent got him addicted to snus!

he sounds like a cocky gobshite, I come up with some quote about him wanting a move to Real or Barca. It doesn't look like that is happening soon!

Converting Allen into a #10 was a pretty smart move from Hughes, not the sort of thinking you usually associate with him. He's a fairly limited footballer but does a couple of things well enough - hard to see how he'd be much more than a bench option for Liverpool right now though.

Weve signed Swiss RB from FC Ingolstadt, Florent Hadergjonaj on a season long loan with option to buy. He doesn't look a day over 14 years old.

Looking forward to those chants of "There's only one Florent Hadergjonaj", amirite?

lol! Our lot used to get confused enough over Clark/Clarke, so there is nope of any of them ever spelling this one correctly.

http://indeksonline.net/public/uploads/image/2016/11/1_1480410732-9684682.JPG

Formerly of... BSC Young Boys :)

https://www.htafc.com/siteassets/image/players/florent-hadergjonaj/16x9-florent-hadergjonaj-002.png/Large
he seems even younger on the latest official site pic!

Dorian Hadergjonaj

It is safe to say that back in the days when the police would request people to take part in line-ups, they wouldn't have ever asked him. Not unless it was minor crimes division (scrumping, stealing gobstoppers, garden hopping).

"Sometimes it's Haaaadergjonaj"

Even more ridiculously there are reports that Sissoko to Juventus should be finalised in the next 24hrs.

http://www.htfc-world.com/reports/Newcastle3/newcastle200817_r41_c1.jpg
i'll probably get fp'ed for overdoing the Hudds stuff today, but this from HTFC World's latest cartoon match report made me lol.

I still think sissoko has a top level central midfield career in him

Group A: Benfica, Manchester United, Basel, CSKA Moscow
Group B: Bayern Munich, Paris St-Germain, Anderlecht, Celtic
Group C: Chelsea, Atlético Madrid, Roma, Qarabag
Group D: Juventus, Barcelona, Olympiakos, Sporting Clube de Portugal
Group E: Spartak Moscow, Sevilla, Liverpool, Maribor
Group F: Shakhtar Donetsk, Manchester City, Napoli, Feyenoord
Group G: Monaco, Porto, Besiktas, RB Leipzig
Group H: Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, Tottenham, Apeol Nicosia

PSG ne sera pas sur cette chose - It's the Champions League 2017-2018 thread

Barcelona have confirmed they have reached an agreement in principle to sign Ousmane Dembélé from Borussia Dortmund, with the France forward now expected to become the second most expensive player in history in a deal that could be worth €150m (£138.4m).

The outrageous price tag aside, I do think he is a very good signing for Barca.

makes more sense than Coutinho for sure

presumably this means the deal for coutinho is off now right?

they were supposed to be after both of them

Dembele will take Neymar's place in the front three. Coutinho would play in midfield

Uh paulinho

Wow. I've never even heard of Dembélé!

0 US mane

Dortmund signed him for €15m from Rennes one year ago. Only has a handful of caps for France too xpost

A fella would get to thinking it's not too late to be a million pound footballer yet tbh

He scored 10 goals in 49 games, plus 12 assists (of which 10 were to Aubameyang). I can see him link up with Suarez and Messi in the same way.

xp otm

Dembele still looks pretty raw but you only need to watch him for a bit to see why he's so highly rated. fast, but not just in terms of being able to beat defenders in a foot race. even when he's only moving at 70% it's like he's in fast forward compared to everyone around him. ridiculously two-footed and turns like a ballerina. amazing to think where France might be if him, Pogba and Mbappe develop to match the hype

Yeah, France in theory are out of this world. Guess we'll find out when they play sad Holland next week lol.

Euro 2020 is gonna be the one

That's the one being played all over Europe isn't it?

WC Russia 2018
EC All over the place 2020
Qatar 2022

^^ dire run.

I've come around on the multiple locations idea now

if only cos one of them is Dublin lol

Yeah maybe it's not that bad. But it's just so cynical: how can we get even more money out of this?! Wait, I know, get 13 countries involved instead of just 1 lol.