Best for all parties that he moves on. Probably worth a quid bet that he scores against us this season...
The only times I've seen him play were the Dutch games a couple of weeks ago and he was... underwhelming to say the least. Made no saves against Italy (3 shots on target, 3 goals, goal 2 and 3 I reckon he should have done better) and 1 save against Croatia.
Not sure if that's just because Netherlands were crap, but he did come of his line rashly, flapped at crosses and I reckon he would have saved a couple if his positioning was better.
His stats at Feyenoord are a lot better, but the quality is clearly a lot lower than the 2 finals. His stats in European competition weren't as good either.
Article says Maguire and Elanga. Which would also be a cracking deal. I do think it's highly unlikely though, player swaps almost never happen.
I hope he can have a proper go joining the first team, but I do think there's something to be said about letting him develop in a place that he's comfortable and happy to be. There's no way of knowing if he went to a lower level PL side if he'd bed in and get the minutes he needs.
He clearly has a good relationship with the fans and manager at Sunderland, so I don't think it'd be a waste for him to have another season there.
I watched a compilation of him dribbling. Absolute mad man. If we get him it'll be worth it for the entertainment alone. Assuming we can put enough goals in the opposition net I think we'll have to put up with the very occasional howler, but the same can be said of Ederson & Allison.
It's festival and gigging season so that's a great distraction from the transfer/takeover clickbait. Glastonbury on iplayer and going down to see Blur tomorrow. Should be great craic.
Sensible Transfers: Manchester United
I've gotta say this is one of the most uninspired bits of content TIFO IRL has done (Kane as budget striker option?!), but hey, worth a discussion.
If the reports are true and we're not going for Kane, who do we want in?
I like the look of Vlahovic, I think he could be Ten Hag's type of striker. He scores different styles of goals, big enough to be a target, good touch and might not blow the bank as he's struggled to settle at Juve.
I do think there's plenty of options on the market that would improve us in that position (Hojlund and Kolo Muani for example). Anything would be an upgrade on Martial/Weghorst as our striking options!
No worries. Seems like all sorts of outlets just went mad with it. Decent article on the athletic on the whole ordeal.
No worries. Same sort of rubbish we read every day about United signing every player under the sun.
I don't speak Arabic and I don't trust google translate to get nuance, so I'm going to copy and paste a comment from a different forum I frequent:
"the entire thing is a joke. Al Watan never reported anything. Any person who properly reads Arabic knows that the tweet itself started with “news reports:” and that it indicates the tweet was aggregating, similar to the bbc rumors page or a filler article that says “reports in Spain suggest…” with no info claimed of its own.
the editor was retweeting fake Fabrizio Romano accounts. He was simply fooled into thinking there’s were substantive reports elsewhere that the deal was done, and made a tweet indicating that “News reports:”The paper has tweeted 3-4 times in the past few months doing the same aggregating on Guardian articles, and even the Sun staying sheikh Jassim would buy West Ham if he failed at United.
It is a joke that it even made it to the stage where questions were being asked and so many misled, there never was a claim that it was done by the Qatari paper, period. "
Hopefully this preferred bidder nonsense is announced this week. Sooner it's sorted the better.