carefree franco

Talented but injury prone! There’s a couple of young centre midfielders who look promising at juventus as well.

Oh definitely! even from a non biased viewpoint though I think being dropped (and knowing that your club are looking for 30 million to sell you) for Jason Steele at Brighton is different than being a number two at chelsea. I would only want him if it was made clear that he will push kepa for game time this season and he’s likely only going to be number 2 after that and he was happy with those conditions.

I wouldn’t be thrilled with the signing but if it’s a straight swap with lukaku then it’s roughly 40-50 million pound player (not much more than Jackson) Depends on wages and if he’s happy rotating with Jackson and not being an automatic starter then I can see the benefit. Especially when his game looks like it’s similar to the striker United have just spent 70 million on from the same league. Italian football is an interesting league though, Inter replaced 100 million lukaku with Dzeko, Giroud was a title winning striker along with giroud. Tammy is one of the best strikers over there. When the better defenders these strikers face are the likes of Koulibaly it does concern me…

I watched a video (I put it in the Pochettino thread) that pointed out that for a progressive style of play, Pochettino has never had a keeper who is in the more modern style. Forster at Southampton, Lloris at Tottenham and Navas and Donaruma at PSG. It’s hard to know what’s true out of what you read but apparently Kepa was “for sale” and a buyer wasn’t found so chelsea are looking for someone (like Sanchez) who is happy to provide competition for Kepa this season and look to buy a Costa or the Dortmund keeper next season to smooth the finances over. The way I read it was the keeper position needs looking at eventually but it’s not as urgent as striker or midfield. So if Caicedo comes in and Jackson is as good as he appears in pre season and we get an elite keeper next summer and Sanchez is the backup then I guess it makes total sense.

Interesting video of how Pochettino is shaping the squad up

Premier league experience is 1 full year in the premiership. Other options include Pallinha, varella, Redondo, onana, zubimendi, Lavia, kone, gourna and camera but I’m sure there’s more. Yes ugarte and rice have been snapped up but that doesn’t mean that Caicedo is the only option. For the 100 million we could get one of those players and one of Cherki, Olise or Kudos.

I’d be seriously looking at Alan varela, apparently looking to go to porto for 10-15 million euros. Seriously impressive in Argentina. Him and Enzo as a pivot would be very good. If he goes to porto it will be very similar to Enzo where he’ll get a big money move in a season or 2

We walked away from ugarte Because we didn’t want to compete with PSG when it came to wages. There are other options away from caicedo who I’d want to look at before agreeing to Brightons price. Alan varela is about to join Porto for around 10 million euros. Similar fee that saw Enzo go to Benfica last summer. I know we have plenty of young midfielders but Caicedo is the same age and only has one more year than varela in a top league. I would personally love to see chelsea drown their bid out of the water because similar to Enzo I can see Varela moving for a lot more than 10 million in a season or two. Zubimendi is another quality defensive midfielder but he might have his heart set on barcelona. tchouameni would probably cost the same as caicedo and I’d say he’s a safer bet personally. I don’t think we should go for a stop gap but we could go for Redondo and alverez and loan Redondo out for a season or 2 until he’s ready and use Santos and Alverez in that role.