Men's Soccer (Football) Thread Soccer • Page 778

MGW has agreed to terms and has already passed his medical with Spurs. We’ve paid the release clause. Yet he is training with Forest today.

 

We’ve brought in Gyokeres, Zubimendi, Madueke, Mosquera, Norgaard, and Kepa so far.

Andrea Berta, you are doing absolute bits here.

 

Catching up on the Sheffield Wednesday business and it’s mad.

Their highly-rated manager Danny Rohl publicly announced he wanted to leave and went for a job interview in Germany, but didn’t get it. Then, rumours of a takeover emerged and he returned to the club, only for the players to protest against him.

Today, he took training for the first time this season, but if the players and staff aren’t paid by the end of the day, most of them can leave for free and the owner has no money because he never actually had any to begin with and so he’s massively in debt.

This would leave them focusing on academy players, the issue being they had to sell their best prospects earlier this window to teams like City to keep the lights on.

The prospective new owner is now considering putting in the money to get them paid before the takeover is finalised just in case.

 

think Eze is still likely? I’ve read Bayern are sniffing around too.

 

Possibly. But I think it will depend on moving players on, like Trossard.

 

Imagine the luxury of upgrading Trossard to Eze. It's like night and day between the SKY teams and the rest.

 

Need Spurs to start selling players too.

Richarlison and Bissouma are the only ones with any kind of noise around them. Son and Davies are two I think could go as well. And then possibly Bentancur. I think the club would like to keep him but if we bring in another DM + can’t get a new deal done with him…he’s probably gone. It’ll also depend on how much Frank trusts the young midfielders. I think it’d be smarter to keep him around though.

 

It feels like Brighton are keeping Mitoma this window which would be a huge win. Still quite concerned someone comes in late for Baleba.

 

I think I saw a rumor of Davies to Wrexham, lol.

 

I think that’d be awesome lol he’d do well for them

 

Should genuinely just sell your women's team and training ground to yourself like Villa & Chelsea. Seems that's the trendy way to cheat these days so why not?

 

Wasn't suggesting Arsenal were cheating, man. Genuinely believe such a deal, Trossard to Eze, would be very luxurious and something you only really see the "SKY 6" being able to complete.

Chelsea I feel no sympathy for considering how untouchable they seem, but as for Villa and my team: I wouldn't blame the clubs, moreso the system that isn't fit for purpose and encourages these swindles in order to compete. What are they supposed to do? Sell players like Branthwaite for pittance to Spurs, Chelsea, etc?

 

ha, I didn’t think you were. Just honestly think every team should do it to catch up. Afaik Everton haven’t yet?

Forest have shown the only way to break in is to openly break the rules and deal with the punishments later. Which shows how messed up it is.

 

Everton are in the process. They've set up a holdings firm for Goodison Park on the UK Government website that is affiliated with the Friedkins.

On the subject of dodgy, you didn't mention that Textor wants to buy Sheffield Wednesday in your earlier post. Fun times ahead.

 

Excited for Everton’s new stadium. It looks amazing. But most importantly, the angle of the broadcast will be improved!

 

I don't know how much of you know about Celtic but thought I'd give my insight in to the rumbling frustrations going on at the moment.

Celtic are unlike any football club in the world - we have cash reserves of £70m+ and probably have paid more corporation tax on that cash reserve than what we have spent on the team. The money sits without any intention for it. We have recently spent money on some new training facilities for our youth and womens teams however have not invested in either. We could do with some stadium upgrades but have the most risk-averse people running our club with no appetite other than self preservation rather than attempting genuine progression.

Our footballing structure is archaic. Our corporate governance is terrible. Our CEO was in position for 20 years prior to resigning (chaotic covid season) but returned as Chairman and has remained in that position. We are run on the whim of our Irish billionaire minority owner, but majority shareholder. We have no Director of Football and are notoriously bad at negotiating deals which resulted in us overpaying for Adam Idah (£9m) and Arne Engels (£11m) last season. The performances of those two has resulted in hesitancy to pay big fees again and as such here we are... the transfer window.

Our season starts 3rd August and we have had Tierney return for free - purely because he is a fan - and signed Benjamin Nygren for £1.75m who looks promising. However, as I said about our cash reserves, we've barely lifted a finger this summer and sold Kuhn for £17m and received £5m from the Frimpong to Liverpool deal. We're obsessed with net positive deals.

We are badly in need of an upgrade in quality and signed a £250k Japanese defender from a club that got relegated. He's looked okay but hes a symptom of our 'we take punts' approach. It is so frustrating to be a dominant team with glaring problems.

Our end of season was stale, losing cup final and generally was poor. KT coming back improves LB but thats all we've done. We are in a situation where we don't trust Idah. We don't know if Maeda is better as a striker or on the wing. We've sold Kuhn, we sold Kyogo in January (which was correct) and haven't replaced him in January or in the summer yet. Our presumed next signing is another Japanese player for £1.5m who has scored 3 goals this season (had scored 20+ season prior but looks like an outlier). We constantly change our LCB between Trusty and Scales because we don't trust either and our depth at winger is brutal. Jota injured his ACL so is out til 2026 at least.

All of these problems with so much money in the bank is laughable. Rodgers is now in to the last year of his contract with us and its going to be a nagging problem until he clarifies the situation. He likely will not whilst our approach is this. We are sleepwalking in to a Champions League qualifier at the end of August and hedging our bets. It is a brutal state of affairs.

 

That was a good and bad read at the same time, if you get me? Quick questions:

do you still think you'll win the league at a canter? Or will Rangers under Martin and Thelwell (who is quite savvy in the market btw) finally offer a realistic challenge?

What do Celtic fans realistically expect in the Champions League? Group stage qualification does look like the best you can hope for based on what you've just said. I don't want to come across as condescending.

 

Fabrizio says we’re still in for Eze, while Trossard is probably headed to Bayern or Fenerbahce.

What a mad summer for us transfer wise.

 

So would this be a sign that Isak is leaving? Or will they just have both?

 

if I was to commit right now then not at a canter but id still expect us to win. I don’t particularly rate Russell Martin but they can’t keep getting it wrong and I think you’re in a situation that a bad window for us and a good one for them would definitely go some way to closing the gap. They’re an unknown quantity at the moment so can’t comment too much on their summer but they have qualifiers a lot sooner than us.

not at all, I think league phase qualification is expected and demanded. Qualifying for a playoff the hope and anything beyond that would be considered a sign of progress. We need to improve but we’re stuck in a malaise where being better than rangers is enough for most fans. I’m 33 and I haven’t seen Celtic win a knockout European tie in like 20 years? Admittedly we haven’t been in that many but we got to a European final in 2003. Our coefficient is horrendous and I think from next season we’re looking at three qualifiers for the champions league so this is a really big season to be playing with fire over qualification from a financial standpoint. I think I’d be happier with giving a proper attempt to win Europa league but that obviously comes with failure to qualify for champions league nowadays. I don’t think the majority share that opinion.

 

I've seen talk that Isak's form dipped towards the end of last season, attributed to him carrying an injury that Newcastle needed to play him through. Hence the tactical shift that saw Barnes and Jacob Murphy do most of the legwork. The theory also goes onto suggest rotation between Isak and Ekitike throughout a season.

 

Makes sense to have a rotation there. I’m just not used to teams spending this big for rotation. But it seems to be the new norm.

 

I think we’re seeing the teams react to the absolutely crazy calendar. Teams have decided they need 22 top players going forward, ideally versatile ones, with no passengers.

The reality is that probably only 4/5 teams can afford to do this, but their hand has been forced really.

 

Agree on Martin. Although to completely fair, he did get Southampton playing very well in The Championship which is a much more competitive league than the SPL - no offence! His inability to adapt/distinct lack of quality players was his undoing in the end.

It's funny you said the amount of knockout games you've seen Celtic in. I'm 36, so similar ages, and all I've ever really seen from Celtic in Europe is THAT final and several huge nights at Paradise. The atmosphere is second to none, granted, but it just seems to me as a neutral that the fans have accepted their place as just that. Obviously, you can't go and expect the club to knock out PSG (or the recently crowned world champions *sic*), but delivering some ambitious plans for such a devote fanbase would be nice.

 

Oh ok. Thought he was PL bound.