lchk

We do know why the club's bid for Koulibaly failed last summer and the reason was provided for by the Napoli president - they couldn't get an adequate replacement in time when the last offer of 47 million pounds was tabled days before the transfer deadline date. Marina was made an initial low ball offer and when that was naturally knocked back, she increased subsequent bids by mere fractions right until the last week of the transfer window. No allowance was given to Napoli to have a replacement lined up for one of their key players which to me is an idiotic move. David Luiz was signed on the last day of the window because PSG deeemd him to be surplus to requirements. If Luiz was considered an important player by Unai Emery, the club could very well have finished without a centre half signing or being forced to buy Djilobdoji Mark II.

I want to know what your thoughts are. Seems like you believe you know how it works.

And you know how transfer negotiations work ?

Time will tell if he's correct or spouting board rhetoric. Just wait for a few more weeks....

The Board needs to gets its objectives right. If the Board wants Conte to win the EPL title again and be serious challengers for the CL, then sanction the large transfer fees that would be needed to back Conte. If they decide to be more like Arsenal's board, then set top 4 and round 16 of the CL as the new objective and keep that 50 million pound club transfer record for Torres in 2011 as a limit for transfer spending on a single player for the next 50 years. If they expect their cake and eat it, the board must be right morons. And Conte wouldn't want to remain and work with a bunch of morons. I wish him all the best regardless of the decision he makes - he's a genuinely decent bloke and deserves an employer that matches his ambition and ability.

To realize that, you merely need to stop surfing football forums and shut of your twitter feed. Or adopt my approach - expect last minute Djilobdojis and Hectors to be signed and you keep your sanity.

In this case, Moses is a much better wing back than Baba Rahman. There is no need for a back up, what is needed is competition.

No problem about opinions. I very much doubt if Baba Rahman is even good enough to be on the bench, let alone get minutes. I would like to see the Board bring in proper competition for the defensive positions and that means spending the necessary cash to make that happen as the back ups aren't good enough.

A better defender? Comparing to Moses's defending isn't exactly a high benchmark

Baba Rahman is a joke and i very much doubt Zouma, Andreas and Ake are Conte's ideal defenders for his squad. The fact that Ake needed to speak with Emenalo instead of Conte regarding his future is quite telling. Needing to throw big money only after assessing all of them would result in Cotne missing out his prime targets as it will be too late in the transfer window.

Is a repeat on the cards? Let's see....

If the club signs Bakayoko and announce his arrival in early July when the transfer window opens, I will be mightily surprised. Until that happens, I still don't believe the board can get transfers done early and especially if they are the manger's first choices.

What is your price ceiling then? Even so-called potential players are easily in the 40 millliom pound range nowadays. If we go by your yardstick, the only players worth signing are the Djilobdojis and under-16s of this world. Then temper your ambition to be like an Arsenal fan.

There's something called inflation and if you expect prices to hold from five years ago when hazard signed till now, I would call this delusional. A hazard like talent would easily exceed 100 million pounds in today's market. What are we? Some cheap Charlie like Arsenal? Hell, even Wenger has thrown 118 million quid to Monaco for Mbappe.

Well, there's always the safer route of buying cheap players like Djilobdoji and Hector. Maybe even make a bit of profit if they don't work out. Potential and ability be damned.

What I want the club to do is sign most if not all the first team improvement targets before pre-season begins and those targets have Conte's input and approval. If the Board can't do that during this summer transfer window, then they don't deserve any trust ever again.

I doubt Levene is getting any feeds from the club - it's more likely that he's a self-appointed mouthpiece. What he wrote can be written by anyone in this forum. He hasn't even provided a single name that is strongly linked to us and the reason is simple - he knows no better than any of us.

You are reading me wrong. However, a majority of the Conte's targets should be signed and arrived at the start of pre-season to fully maximize squad training.

What is there to settle down about? Just stating a fact.

The club has moved very quickly......in selling players. That's two gone in one week. As for incoming players............

The question is whether Lukaku will join us after the chasing is done.

Boateng has been out for a good chunk of the Bundesliga season due to injuries. If Bayern Munich wants to sell him due to the lingering effects resulting from his injury, then I wouldn't want that problem to be passed to us.

A little disappointed to see him go but it is for the good of his career and I wish him well.

Good points but still won't happen due to his stature and there are no end-of-contract situations plus he's playing at a superior club.

Nah it's a pipe dream. Nice to speculate about though.