HazardousChoice

And she does an absolutely awful job at it. The only reason the government didn't Sanction Marina is because they didn't want to be seen doing the club a favour.

She was named best club director out of sympathy and pity. As stated previously she's like the special needs kid at the school sports day that finally manages to flop over the line 3 minutes after the other kids but all the parents clap and cheer as they stand on the podium while all the cognitively functional kids are already enjoying the ice cream of victory. I'd assume all the other directors love her after they fleece her so regularly, the Dortmund director getting 60m for a bench warmer who wasn't good enough for them, Leicester getting 30m for Drinkwater, Monaco getting 45 for Bakayoko, AC Milan getting an Option to buy on Tomori for a ridiculously low price meaning if he flopped we were stuck with him, if he performed they got him on the cheap. The clubs picking up our centre backs on frees this summer after Marina stopped negotiating with Rudiger for no reason and watched us go into the season with all 4 of our centre backs out of contract at the end of the year. Rudiger himself stating that was the reason he started talking to other clubs. The agents of all our players collecting 100K more than they could have earned at any other club. there's no shortage of people who would vote Marina as best director she's been great for 19 clubs in the premier league.

Sevilla wanted this done with us last year, they were literally desperate for it to happen by their deadline prior to the season. Barca don't have the hurdle or liability that is Marina though, they'll sign Kounde before we manage to make an offer. Then we'll sign Christensen back off them for 100m. The Marina Masterclass.

Given how horrifically bad she is at negotiating fees for pretty much every signing we've made under her tenure and the ridiculously inflated contracts she offers players meaning we can't get them off the books I'm convinced she gets a kick back off every club or player she negotiates with.

No chance of completing this or any other transfer with Marina in charge. Boehly not sacking Marina like he should have the day he took over the club has set us back years (A bit like the rest of Marina's tenure)

Pulisic was absolutely awful at Dortmund and would have left for £5 million if he had a different nationality most likely to Mainz or another club more of his level. I don't know the commercial numbers and he was a commercial signing not a football one so if it turns out he's brought in 50m a season then fair enough but I find that highly unlikely. As a player he's never had the talent for the highest level and that had been clear since early in his Dortmund days. I find it incredulous Marina could manage to spend 60m on a player that wasn't good enough for his previous club. In terms of transfer fees without looking at the benefit of Hindsight I'd go as far to say the Pulisic is the worst signing in the history of the club. A player that had never had a good season and was being benched by younger more talented players in a weaker league should never cost the kind of money we squandered. Pulisic has actually been far better than us than I think anyone who watched him at Dortmund could have imagined he'd be but he's nowhere near the level required and the fee just didn't make sense at all for what he'd shown on the pitch. But Marina has never been very good at negotiating decent fees for incoming players. And somehow she's even worse at negotiating contracts which is why we've ended up with so many players we can't sell. 150K a week for Ruben, 170K for Kepa, 120 for CHO, 100K for Drinkwater, 270K for Werner, 150K for Pulisic. Shrewd as ever by Marina.

I'm sorry facts don't fit your feelings. Look at the fees Marina has "negotiated" and ask yourself how many looked good value for money at the time or if many other clubs would want to make those signings. Also lose the superiority complex, a nearly dead club forum, reddit, Instagram, Facebook or whatever other terrible platform you use has no high ground over football twitter.

Then why do we drastically overpay for every player we target? How many signings do we make where it looks like we've negotiated a decent fee prior to a player signing for us? She paid 58m for a bundesliga bench warmer who had flopped at Dortmund benched by 2 younger more talented players. There are very very few incomings Marina negotiates that look like we've got a bargain. I'm not surprised she won an award. She must be incredibly popular amongst the other directors after they all routinely fleece her. It's a bit like giving the special kid a trophy on the school sports day. Sure they came last and forward rolled over the finish line 2 minutes after everyone else but they tried! Getting rid of Marina should have been Boehlys number 1 priority, she's been horrific at the majority of her job and we'll be we'll rid of her. As someone who despises Spurs I'd love her to end up there. Hopefully before Bissouma is complete so she can offer Brighton 75m

I'd be a lot more optimistic about this Window if we'd got Marina out. Keeping Marina is an absolute disaster. She's terrible at her job at the best of times, having her bundle her way through another window of failure on her way out is just absurd. If we could trick City and Liverpool to both hiring Marina on a part time basis we'd walk the league

Keep Werner for the first game of the season then

Tbf Haaland looked far more talented at 17 than Lukaku has ever shown the potential to be at any point in his career. I think it's incredible how public consensus on Lukaku has shifted so often over the last decade for a player that has remained identical to when he made his debut. People who hadn't watched him in Serie A trying to pretend he'd improved or Conte had made him a better player was absolutely hilarious. He was still the same untalented lump he's always been but the calbire of opposition was much lower. The top defenders still found playing against Lukaku the easiest game of the season because he lacks any tools to trouble them. I thought we did great business selling him to Everton for 28m and my opinion hasn't changed since then, the guy is just fundamentally not a very good footballer and his flaws (primarily his lack of techical ability or control in tight spaces) will always be exposed at the highest level. Having a number 9 is great but they have to have some basic level of technique and Lukaku doesn't meet that standard. If you watched Benzema and Lukaku play side by side you wouldn't think they're even playing the same sport

🤣🤣🤣 I'm afraid that's one of the most "ridiculous takes" I've ever read. You'll say he's younger but he absolutely isn't close to being one of the best dms in the league. He isn't fit to lace Fabinho or Rodri's boots and given his lack of techical ability I don't see that change. Tchoumeni is more of a gamble on a potentially world class player. Rice is a guarantee of mediocrity, he's nothing special regardless of his passport colour or how often he goes on Holiday with Mount.

Tbf we regularly start Pulisic who has been embarrassingly bad his entire career aside from 1 month. Lukaku who has embarrassed himself in pretty much every single big game in his career over the last decade and Ziyech who has never performed in a top European league. When it comes to attacking talent I genuinely don't think we have a team of very good players at all. Does anyone really think any of those guys would perform any better at other top clubs? For the money we've spent we've assembled an extremely poor set of attacking options and aside from Havertz and Mount if you group him in with the forwards I'd swap all of them for Jesus.

Gutted we missed out on Tchouameni. Now we're going to end up with some bang average nothing player like Rice for a similar fee and then be left wondering why we can't compete with the absolute top teams. For a 20m squad depth option he'd be ok. Rice is basically a less talented Mikel with an English passport, links to the club and a great PR team. Useful squad player for sure but is he really ssomeone that should be commanding even half the fee West Ham would want for him? Not for me.

One of the worst posts I've ever read. Sterling was better at 18 than Pulisic has ever shown the potential to be. Sterling is a proven goal scorer at the top level, an elite dribbler and has great movement and positioning. Pulisic is playing in the Premier league solely because of his nationality and would be on the bench at Mainz now after joining them for 5m if he was German considering how badly he flopped at Dortmund. I understand people not wanting Sterling (personally I'd love to sign him) but trying to pretend he's not far better than Pulisic is hilarious. Sterling has had seasons where he's had nearly as many goals contributions as Pulisic has career goals.

Aren't you the same guy that defends Pulisic and says he deserves another year when he was putting up 2 goal 2 assist seasons at Dortmund and has never had 18 g/a in a league season? Asking for a friend. Dembele doesn't have the most impressive stats in the world but stats aren't everything, if they were Lukaku and Bruno would be world class players and both have never had the talent to play at the top level. Dembele is ridiculously creative by every metric and creativity us something sorely lacking. If we miss out on Dembele and have to watch another season of us passing it aimlessly from side to side because no one can beat a man, dribble at all or play in between defenders I don't know what I'll do.

We could only dream of being so lucky. I'm more worried about how we'll shift the American Drinkwater with his ridiculous salary.

Tbf Pulisic was awful at Dormund and they still managed to fleece Marina for a huge fee. Dembele looked a top talent, there was a time when he was rated more highly than Mbappe in France. He's a special talent and was always going to command a huge fee when he left Dortmund. Signing Coutinho for a similar fee was far far worse, decent player but clearly wasn't ever going to be one of the best players in the world like his fee would suggest. Barca are terribly ran in general

We have 4 goal a season Pulisic still in the squad. Are we really in a position to forsake Jesus?

You're making the mistake of making a completely irrelevant post. Minutes per goal is irrelevant. Mane has outscored Pulisics best season every season of his career aside from his debut season. The fact Pulisic can't nail down a starting spot and keeps finding his minutes cut because he gets benched by younger more talented players is a mark against Pulisic not for him. Yanks use minutes per goal like some holy grail stat despite it being utterly useless because it overwhelmingly favours bench warmers that come on with the team pushing for a late goal against tired legs. Any argument for Pulisic can basically be applied to arguing Chicarito is one of the best players in premier league history. I honestly don't buy that Liverpool are interested, but Pulisic is more of a Minamino level signing than a Mane. You talk about Klopps judgement based on him being rumoured to like Pulisic but what about the Judgement of all 3 managers who have actually coached him in his club career who all ended up benching him? Were they all wrong?

That's an understatement. Dembele is a far better player than Pulisic could ever dream of being. Dembele even had Pulisic benched and shining his shoes at Dortmund. Being able to scam a club for an inflated fee due to his commerical value and being able to bring Dembele in on a free would be some incredible business for us. Exciting times.

Ridiculous post. Mane was far better at 23 than Pulisic is. By 23 Mane had scored double figures in league goals 4 times, twice of them in the Premier league with Southampton while he was clearly their best attacking player. Mane has scored double figures in the league every single season of his career aside from his debut season. Pulisic at 23 averages 4 league goals a season has never scored double figures in a league season despite playing 7 seasons at elite clubs including 4 in the 2nd most attacking side in the weakest defensive league in Europe (Everyone scores a ridiculous number of goals in the Bundesliga but Pulisic) and has been benched by younger more talented players and people around his age at every club he's played at (Sancho, Dembele, Mount, Havertz, Werner) He's not some unknown or young talent. He's a flop who's played 242 games across 7 seasons without managing a single good season in his career. His 1 month post lockdown purple patch in the most unusual month in football history were players weren't sharp and the games were completely different don't take precedent over his shockingly bad Clun career. The only reason anyone would see Pulisic as a talent is the exact same reason we signed him. His nationality and commercial value, nothing to do with what he's shown on the pitch. Comparing Pulisic with players that didn't get the opportunities Pulisic has wasted is absurd. Not to mention Salah looked better for Basel playing against us in Europe than Pulisic has ever looked in his career. Pulisic just isn't that talented. How many more bad seasons does he need before people stop pretending he's something he isn't? The lad should be the first piece of deadwood cleared this summer, I was hoping we could use Pulisic + Cash for Raphina but crippling Liverpool by selling them the new Freddy Adu is too good an opportunity to pass up. He's got 2 years left, he's not good enough to deserve a new contract and his commercial appeal is still there overshadowing how poor his career has been. how could anyone think we should pass up this last opportunity to sell him for a hugely inflated fee? Get to it Marina!

Selling Pulisic to Liverpool would be the perfect transfer for us. We get a rubbish player off our books for far more than he's worth (he's a 5-10 million pound player with a very valuable passport) and we get to cripple a rival. I don't see the talent at all, he's an objectively awful footballer who isn't good enough to be labelled inconsistent. I've watched him for 5 years or so and still have no idea what he actually does well. 15 or so good games across 7 years in a club career spanning over 200 games isn't inconsistent. It's flat out bad regardless of how often his patriots share them. He suits Liverpools system perfectly but he's nowhere near good enough to play at the highest level and would be a massive drop in quality for them going from Mane to Pulisic. People are fearing this will be another Salah or KDB situation but they had both shown a lot more before signing for us and after we sold them before they ended up at their current clubs. KDB even looked better in his short time here than Pulisic. Pulisic is much closer to Scott Sinclair or Schurrle than either of those 2.

Lone striker being the only number 9 at the club in being top scorer shocker. It also isn't a style issue. You can't control how the other team set up, we could play incredibly quick one touch but we'll still face dozens of teams over the season who have 9 men in their own box for almost 90 minutes. You can't speed up to catch them out because they're never going to move or they'll drop the second they lose possession. Liverpool and City are much quicker than us and they have the same issue, the difference is they have players with the technical ability and guile to operate in these tight spaces, create space in the box and use that half a yard to create a chance. We have some talentless lump that can't consistently keep his first touch within 5 yards of himself. Neither Klopp or Pep would consider Lukaku on a free and they wouldn't have considered signing him on a free last summer. He'd have got the Benteke treatement. The talent just isn't there to play at the highest level The idea that a fat lump with no movement is "occupying centre backs" as they mark him out of the game without breaking a sweat while we struggle to create a chance is one of the most hilarious things I've seen repeated about Roms static play. I think it's more accurate to say that in many games Rom slots in the centre of the oppositions back 3.

Forget CHO and Ziyech, you could have had Prime Messi, Xavi and Iniesta supplying him and Lukaku still would have embarrassed himself and the club. The guy is just not very talented. Even before signing for us Lukaku was a dreadful footballer as he proved in his last spell in the premier league Teams deny us space in behind, that's how the vast majority of small clubs set up against top sides and it's also the way that completely neutralises Lukaku. Has Lukaku ever been one of the top 100 strikers in the world without space to run in behind? not for me. He's got an absolutely awful level of technical ability so instead of thinking of which creative players we need to somehow make this Donkey look like a professional footballer perhaps we just need to recognise Lukaku actively makes our creative players look worse because he has awful movement, poor hold up play so they can't build off him and absolutely no technical ability to create space for them to then use to create chances back for him. It's immeasurably easier to create chances for players Like Salah, Mane, Son, Kane, Ronaldo and any other player with energy movement than it is for Statuesque Rom as he man marks a centre back that will dominate him in the air.