Socrates

We’re interested in Dumfries? I hope this is an attempt to make Barcelona go for him.

The casino always wins. Barcelona fans might be laughing now, but there’ll be a price to pay and when that day comes they won’t be getting much sympathy from the rest of the football world.

Don’t mention it to Xavi but apparently Harry Maguire is our next target. We wouldn’t want them muscling in on our plans…

What a complete mess this window is turning into. I find it hard to believe we go about trying to sign a player we really want in such a disastrous way. It beggars belief that we would wait till our chief rivals for him sort out their finances, while we enquire about every other centre back in Europe, then finally turn back to Kounde as if he’s our last resort. What kind of cack-handed way to conduct transfer business is that? It’s almost like we don’t know what we’re doing.

Well if Broja doesn’t fancy his chances of dislodging Werner or Batshuayi in the squad, then he’s right to move on. You’d think with the departure of Lukaku a path for impressing Tuchel had presented itself. Personally, I think he should be happy West Ham are willing to take him on and we pocket 30m towards a new striker. Good business for us and a good move for the kid as well.

I read that’s the reason his agents pushed him towards a move to Bayern and the German league. They didn’t want to expose him to the grind and physicality of the Premier League as they feared he wasn’t ready for it. Going to Bayern is the easier option. German league isn’t so relentless and you get guaranteed Champions League every year.

De Ligt looks like he is going to Bayern Munich for a rumoured €90/100m. More than we were willing to pay. We could get both Kounde and Kimbepe for a little more than that. In fact the rumour is that a deal for Kounde is in the works…

They have these things called “levers”. They’ve pulled one already and all this money came out of it. Like a fruit machine. Apparently, they’ve got a second one they can call on this week.

According to Simon Phillips on Twitter…

How likely is it that Barca can afford Lewandowski and Raphinha? As well as Alonso and Azpi who are both contracted to us so would command a fee? Anyone know how much we are asking for Azpi and Alonso?

Played for France tonight while injured and f***ed his hamstring. Now needs an operation. Thank you Deschamps.

Sterling? No thanks. Dembele, Jesus and Nkunku should be our priorities. Sell Werner and Ziyech. Keep CHO and Pulisic. Bring back Broja as a squad player. Only way we’re going to compete with Liverpool and Man City.

Dembele, Jesus, Kounde and De Ligt would be great signings if we could pull these deals off. I guess we’d have to sell Ziyech and/or Werner to accommodate them. That still would leave a decision to be made about Lukaku and whether we’d need to sign an out and out goalscorer. We were linked to Nkunku but that seems to have gone cold. And a midfielder too now that Tchouameni seems to be going to Madrid.

Denzel Dumfries now being linked as part of a deal for Lukaku. He’s a right wing-back so would be a replacement for Azpi. Don’t know much about him but his goals and assists stats are pretty impressive. https://football-italia.net/dumfries-could-be-inter-key-to-recalling-lukaku-from-chelsea/

Yes. I’ll be surprised if we don’t bring in at least one experienced defender. Koulibaly has been mentioned but I don’t know how realistic that is.

Odd. I thought we were under sanctions. Tuchel has been suggesting that we can’t even talk to potential targets. Has Marina been tapping players up? Good on her.

Yes. Last summer was the time to recruit him on the back of winning the Champions League. Instead we signed Lukaku, Saul, and sold off most of our promising young defenders. Has to be the worst transfer window in living memory.

I think Tomori was probably the best of the academy defenders we sold off. Or at least the one most capable of breaking into the first team. How we ended up with Sarr as fourth choice and sold Tomori is a bit of a mystery. I think we're a bit screwed with centre backs. Losing both Rudiger and Christensen at the end of this season is very poor planning. Are two replacements even enough given that Silva is 38 and Azpi might be leaving as well? It's a crazy situation to be in.

Well, that was torture to watch. Scraping a win against mediocre opposition. Just about sums up our second half of the season. Farewell to Rudiger and Azpi who will both be missed. And to Saul, Sarr, Barklay and Christensen, who won’t. Looking forward to some high-quality signings and a summer spending splurge. Should be an interesting summer!

Reports are that Tchouameni is being linked to Real Madrid, especially now they have money to burn following Mbappe deciding to stay at PSG.

Thank God we secured a top four finish with a couple of games to spare and we didn’t have to go to the final game needing a result. I wouldn’t want to put any money on us needing a result at the moment. I know all the attention has been on defensive reinforcements this summer. But our attacking options this season have been a serious disappointment. It’s not through lack of trying but Tuchel really has tried every possible permutation. But Pulisic missing that chance tonight just about sums up our attacking play this season. How did he manage to miss that? Blimey.

I think I’d have started Mount and Chalobah if fit. Or at least had them involved at some stage. At least you know they intend to be here next season and might actually care. To be honest once I saw we were relying on Loftus Cheek as midfield cover we were pretty much screwed. He’s lucky he’s getting such a run of games. As for what Sarr and Saul were doing on the pitch only Tuchel knows. Agree about Mendy. Great shot stopper. But that was a last minute cross he should be going for and punching away. Less said about what Havertz and Werner were up to those last few minutes, the better. Brainless from the pair of them.

Rice would surely choose us if given the chance. Problem is he'll cost around 100m which is likely a big chunk of our transfer budget this summer. Not a deal breaker if we think he's worth it. But we need to spend in a lot of other areas, practically rebuilding our entire back line, another midfielder and another striker. We'd have to do some very creative selling to make the numbers add up. That's assuming West Ham don't decide to play hardball and hold on to him for another year.

Strange thing is today Tuchel played what he seems to have settled on as his strongest side minus Kante. Only problem is he probably should’ve rested Havertz and Werner who played on Thursday and were pretty dreadful today. Maybe he was trying to build up momentum for his strongest team for the Cup Final rather than play the best team for today’s match. I’ve noticed that with Tuchel. He often picks a side with the next game in mind. Instead of the best team for that particular game. He did it against Brentford and Arsenal recently when we got stuffed. And in a strange way he picked the wrong side today with the Cup Final likely in mind. He just needs to pick a team to win the game in front of him. Sometimes you can be too clever. That’s not to say we’d have won the game today if he’d rested a few and played maybe Pulisic, Lukaku, Chalobah, Ziyech. But it’s a better use of squad resources than playing the usual suspects to death.

I hope these Rudiger leaving reports aren’t true. Otherwise we’re going to have to rebuild our entire back line by the look of things.