Charles Ryder

You can love David Luiz and everything he did for us over the years, and you can also be really annoyed at him over the manner of his departure. They're not mutually exclusive. I'm not overly bothered about seeing him in an Arsenal shirt because I watch them (as in full 90 mins) about twice a season, funnily enough, depending on cup draws. The bit that stings is him trashing his own legacy, which nessecarily is forever cast in a different light due to the manner and destination of his exit. It doesn't cancel out Munich or Baku, that much is obvious. But it's just different now, and that's

Never heard of him. Guess we have to move the thread to ex-players now. Sigh.

If it's true that Lamps planning to roll with Kurt and Andreas for the United game is what kicked this all off, I don't think it will affect things too much. Unless we pick up an injury and Tomori is thrown into the fray on short notice...

On a scale of Eden Hazard (aka bothered/10) to Bakayoko (aka 'am I bothered though'/0), where does everybody sit on this? Subject to the final confirmation of the fee, which I'm convinced will top 10m at the very least if Marina has anything to do with it, I think I'm about a 4 at the moment.

Machismo. When the variation between the initially rumoured price tag and the one leaked a few hours later is 120% (or thereabouts) you instinctively feel like we're being mugged off. Granted, he's and old and rapidly depreciating asset, but given his contract length and the fact that Arsenal are desperate for a centre half it's a very underwhelming figure. But when you start to factor in the amount we'll save on wages (assuming he's one of the top 5 or 6 paid players at the club in the rung below Kante?) it does start to make a modicum of sense. Really, though, it's not as if we act

Yep. Hence 'or bust,' entirely possible he has another year slumming it around Cobham and getting up to extra curricular mischief.

I think a man of David Luiz' means would find a way of managing Babbo long-distance if he was based in, say, Liverpool. He probably already pays someone to do so on his behalf. So send him to Everton, I say. In all seriousness though, bit miffed about the manner of his departure but will get over the sight of him in an Arsenal shirt quickly enough. Unless they beat us into top four... but frankly that's a possibility even if we weren't giving them Luiz.

Good luck shifting Drinkwater to a European club. Think it's England or bust for him, likely on loan as we're hardly in a position to get a big fee marketing him on the basis of his production over the last 12-18 months. Zappa and Baka look likely though. Makes sense to keep Zappa around right up to the close of the Euro window as James is still recovering from injury.

In fairness the stadium announcer mentioned his Chelsea and Czech Rep. status as well.

Don't think so, fairly sure in that circumstance the EL winner spot just disappears and another CL spot opens up in another country based on whoever's first in line in terms of coefficients. Don't quote me on that. But I think that's how it would play out.

AFTV schadenfreude going to be particularly enjoyable tonight.

Going by the Fifield/Terreur reporting, Real value him at €100m while we're asking for something more like €115m. Hardly a major difference that can't be ironed out, this is Real Madrid we're talking about here. A big fee for them is almost a point of pride.

Strictly speaking we can sign players, we just can't register them. Think it was Barca who signed Arda Turan and he just hung out training for half a season before being registered. They even had the cheek to make a formal request to FIFA to allow them to register him early when Rafinha got injured, despite their ban still being in place.

If we get the stay of execution via a CAS appeal then he has the chance to go and not leave us in the lurch, so to speak. As for Vinicius, he's hardly going to be a stumbling block. This is Real we're talking about, they'll happily park him behind Eden for a few years (he's only a teenager, after all) for the sake of adding a new star.

Will be difficult seeing him in a Real shirt, but he's entitled to live out his dream and play there under Zidane. As long as he leaves out the front door, rather than the back one a la Tibo.