8 minutes ago, DarkMata said:

I would point out the same could have been said about Garnacho. Maybe they look at his previous seasons the ones that supposedly created a fight for his signature in the first place. Maybe they see last season with the injuries and lack of game time as a blip and less of a factor in their decision making. Maybe the striker market is that pathetic the desperation will force someone to pay over the odds. Maybe we arent the only club with useless midwits running the show. Maybe Im just deluded.

I would suggest our decision makers are uniquely incompetent, but let's wait and see and mumble a prayer to be on the safe side.

13 minutes ago, DarkMata said:

I would point out the same could have been said about Garnacho. Maybe they look at his previous seasons the ones that supposedly created a fight for his signature in the first place. Maybe they see last season with the injuries and lack of game time as a blip and less of a factor in their decision making. Maybe the striker market is that pathetic the desperation will force someone to pay over the odds. Maybe we arent the only club with useless midwits running the show. Maybe Im just deluded.

We only managed to loan out Garnacho though. I'm aware of the whole swap rule but still, no one else would have paid a transfer fee for him.
I think we could easily offload Delap, Disasi and Badiashile on loans. Getting transfer fees for them is whole different story.

14 minutes ago, DarkMata said:

I would point out the same could have been said about Garnacho. Maybe they look at his previous seasons the ones that supposedly created a fight for his signature in the first place. Maybe they see last season with the injuries and lack of game time as a blip and less of a factor in their decision making. Maybe the striker market is that pathetic the desperation will force someone to pay over the odds. Maybe we arent the only club with useless midwits running the show. Maybe Im just deluded.

I take your point, one season does not paint the complete picture, and our football last season would have the potential to make any player look hopeless, but we only managed to shift Garnacho on a loan with an "obligation" to buy under certain conditions. As far as I know, despite the usual Twitter ITKs saying the obligation is "certain" to be triggered (and I'm not sure how enforceable that would be anyway), the conditions haven't been made public. Apparently, no team was willing to cough up the fee we were hoping for upfront.

I'll be the first to admit I'm a cynic, but I get jaded from all the noise at this time of year (no offence to Strider who was just sharing something reported by the BBC, presumably in the Gossip section). I guess I should avoid the "random rumours" thread, really.

Edit - just noticed yaz said basically the same thing more succinctly...

Edited Friday at 13:471 day by bluedave

5 minutes ago, bluedave said:

I take your point, one season does not paint the complete picture, and our football last season would have the potential to make any player look hopeless, but we only managed to shift Garnacho on a loan with an "obligation" to buy under certain conditions. As far as I know, despite the usual Twitter ITKs saying the obligation is "certain" to be triggered (and I'm not sure how enforceable that would be anyway), the conditions haven't been made public. Apparently, no team was willing to cough up the fee we were hoping for upfront.

I'll be the first to admit I'm a cynic, but I get jaded from all the noise at this time of year (no offence to Strider who was just sharing something reported by the BBC, presumably in the Gossip section). I guess I should avoid the "random rumours" thread, really.

Edit - just noticed yaz said basically the same thing more succinctly...

Like I said maybe Im deluded but I think there are a few factors that might make Delap more easy to move on. He's young, the 'great' season he had at Ipswich was only a year ago and that proved he can do it in the premier league, he's English which adds a premium and as mentioned he didn't really play last year. Moving the Badiashiles of this world is a whole other problem though.

There is an ever increasing trend in loan to buys that never materialise as you eluded to. It's like a try before you buy. In the case of our very own bomb squad we wouldn't have bought any of them if we had that option, and everyone else who tries them will find out quickly they don't want them either. Most will probably be Sanchoed around Europe until their contracts run out, but I have a feeling Delap won't be one of them.

There is a whole laundry list of players that we need to shift if we are to do some more business like signing a Hall, Scott, Wharton or Diogo Costa.

Badishille

Disasi

Gusto

Enzo

Neto

Jackson

Guiu

Delap

True Enzo could be kept and play, lot of issues to sort out on all sides for that to happen.

The rest have little to no chance of a significant role in the squad, and we need the cash injection to finish the job. We need more quality in to challange for the title.

18 minutes ago, DarkMata said:

Like I said maybe Im deluded but I think there are a few factors that might make Delap more easy to move on. He's young, the 'great' season he had at Ipswich was only a year ago and that proved he can do it in the premier league, he's English which adds a premium and as mentioned he didn't really play last year. Moving the Badiashiles of this world is a whole other problem though.

There is an ever increasing trend in loan to buys that never materialise as you eluded to. It's like a try before you buy. In the case of our very own bomb squad we wouldn't have bought any of them if we had that option, and everyone else who tries them will find out quickly they don't want them either. Most will probably be Sanchoed around Europe until their contracts run out, but I have a feeling Delap won't be one of them.

I could see how a "bruiser" like Delap might appeal to a certain type of manager with a preference for playing good old-fashioned "direct" football, such as David Moyes at Everton, who apparently tried to sign him last season but lost out to us. I also find it plausible that Leeds and Forest might also be sniffing around. As a Chelsea fan I hope I'm wrong, I'll be jumping for joy if we somehow do manage to get £40m for him, but he's just not a £40m player (although admittedly that bar has been considerably lowered this summer...). I'd be biting their hands off for anybody willing to pay half that, everybody knows we want/need to sell him, and that drops his value further.

6 hours ago, The Boehly Babes said:

If Emegha is even a squad option it shows how far we’ve fallen.

Bloke is worse than Delap & Jackson combined.

Is he f**k.

How many times have you watched him play?

39 minutes ago, 19seventyone said:

Is he f**k.

How many times have you watched him play?

Maybe 10 x maximum, paid special interest.

Panichelli is 1,000 x the player and the one we should have poached.

It is no exaggeration when I say that Emegha is essentially Lakaka without the eye for goal.

0 football IQ, 0 positional awareness, non existent first touch and for his frame pretty piss poor in the air.

This will easily go down as one of BlueCo’s worst transfers. I’d be genuinely surprised if he sees the field for us. I presumed the only reason we’d bought him was to register a profit for Strasbourg and then sell him on registering a profit for ourselves.

I can confirm that Panichelli is better than Emegha.

A real shame about his injury, no idea if he'll come back the same.

16 hours ago, bluedave said:

He'd be a better fit at one of those clubs and may even score a few goals, but you know what they say, "if something sounds too good to be true..."

I just can't comprehend anybody being willing to spend £40m after the season he had. It's great if it happens and I hope I'm wrong, but I remain dubious. So much bo**ocks gets reported at this time of year, fuelled by dickheads on twitter competing for attention and followers.

Not a chance! So they want to make a profit on a player after he had an awful season. Anyone buying him now will need a season loan first to see if last season was a blip or not.

There is also the little problem of his ridiculous contract. He was on £20k/w at Ipswich, they have bumped him up to £100k/w with an extra £20k/w bonus. At any of those linked teams he will be a top 3 earner. You would need to be certain he can deliver.

13 hours ago, The Boehly Babes said:

Maybe 10 x maximum, paid special interest.

Panichelli is 1,000 x the player and the one we should have poached.

It is no exaggeration when I say that Emegha is essentially Lakaka without the eye for goal.

0 football IQ, 0 positional awareness, non existent first touch and for his frame pretty piss poor in the air.

This will easily go down as one of BlueCo’s worst transfers. I’d be genuinely surprised if he sees the field for us. I presumed the only reason we’d bought him was to register a profit for Strasbourg and then sell him on registering a profit for ourselves.

I must admit, although I haven't seen that much of him, whenever I have seen him I had uncomfortable flashbacks to Bakayoko. I couldn't believe we effectively bought a CF version of him. I even found his YT highlights totally meh.