9 hours ago, abramovich said:

 You should check out Redcafe thread on Frenkie De Jong. It's started in November, it's over 43000 posts and still going.

Half of them are ggmu chanting obnoxious gloryhunters and I wonder how many have deserted them in the last decade. The best thing that has happened to the PL is the decline of Utd and long it may continue.

1 hour ago, PhilH930 said:

The way Barcelona and Sevilla handled this shows just how insular that league must be - trying to protect their own to an extent, but starting a race to the bottom with those economics. 

Spanish league can try all they like to make their league the "best", get angry at Mbappe for turning Real down and all, but they will never match the PL or the height of seria A in the 90s.

17 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

Seriously, f**k Barcelona. They are becoming the most hated club in Europe, and that is really tough to achieve when the likes of Liverpool and Tottenham exist.

I hope they collapse. The f**kers have been getting away with corruption for too long.

Chelsea are in talks with Barca to sell Azpi and Alonso.

55 minutes ago, TheCeleryKing said:

Chelsea are in talks with Barca to sell Azpi and Alonso.

Yeah those talks have been going on for months supposedly.

1 hour ago, TheCeleryKing said:

Chelsea are in talks with Barca to sell Azpi and Alonso.

Barca: "We would like to buy Azpi and Alonso, how much?"

Chelsea:

21 hours ago, Fatty_Speeding said:

I agree with most of what you say, but I also think it's something of a self-fulfilling prophecy when every football fan synchronously chants "Real Madrid and Barcelona are the two biggest clubs in the world and no player can resist them".

The sooner we stop participating in and feeding that narrative then the sooner the reality will change.

I don't believe that this is what I communicated. I'm sure I wrote that almost every player would prefer Barca over Chelsea and that is true. What is not true is that we cannot improve our place in the list of clubs players would like to play for we can. When the money first arrived at City they were a long way behind us in that regard but they are now ahead of us. It can be done but doing so won't start with pretending that red is blue. We begin by recognising where we are, and not by going into a gloom of despondency when a club with greater pull exercises its power to win a few transfer tussles with us.

Finally done and dusted.. can we now move on.. 

2 hours ago, Jangz said:

Finally done and dusted.. can we now move on.. 

I still don't understand this though. Numerous people on here point that Aha they can buy players but they can't register them to play. Yet I don't see any of this in the press and if the leagues all kick off in the next few weeks why would players sign if they weren't sure that they would be registered to play.

Can someone set this thread on fire please?

 

 

 

21 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Yeah those talks have been going on for months supposedly.

We obviously don't want them. If we did, Barca would have signed them by now.

34 minutes ago, DarkMata said:

Can someone set this thread on fire please?

It either needs locking, archiving, or deleting - I vote for the latter !

Mod wake up, Don't let the suffering continue!

This about sums up this thread.

8 hours ago, Jangz said:

Finally done and dusted.. can we now move on.. 

I know. Was really getting frustrated with shedenders holding on to hope of signing him in what was essentially a hopeless situation. 

Hopefully TT becomes more convincing when he calls players to sell his vision  in future. Or better still identify who you actually want and go hard, all in for them.

If I was Kounde, I probably would have done same after being ignored and placed as 5th choice before we made our offer. 

Edited July 29, 20223 yr by abister1

We had the chance to sign him last summer, but messed about. Only our own fault. So frustrating. 

Well monchi had a lot to say about us.. I don't think we typically respond to such stuff but don't know what to make of it.

Monchi saying it was a done deal and that we got cold feet.

Good! Wouldn't want us to drop £50m on a player we have doubts about. 

 

47 minutes ago, Jangz said:

Well monchi had a lot to say about us.. I don't think we typically respond to such stuff but don't know what to make of it.

What exactly has he said?

45 minutes ago, nonotnowjim said:

Monchi saying it was a done deal and that we got cold feet.

Good! Wouldn't want us to drop £50m on a player we have doubts about. 

 

Not sure that's actually true but if it is, maybe it's because we want to go after Fofana instead? Unlike Kounde, he won't need time to adjust to the physicality of the league, and we've already signed one CB from abroad.

Just now, Amputechture said:

Not sure that's actually true but if it is, maybe it's because we want to go after Fofana instead? Unlike Kounde, he won't need time to adjust to the physicality of the league, and we've already signed one CB from abroad.

We have seen ot reported TT was not keen on him, Marina had a deal lined up once the sanctions were lifted, and Todd and TT canceled it and went after 4 other players before returning to Kounde, who TT apparently was still not convinced was the right fit.

 

Kounde was the opposite of Raphinha. The latter made it clear he wanted Barca, the former showed up in London and took pictures with the fans while playing coy about a move we were said to be close to having him do a medical.

We lost a battle for Raphinha but I think we gave them Kounde simply as TT did not really want him.

Confirmed by Monchi:

"

Monchi, speaking to Sevilla TV, said of Chelsea’s interest: “Earlier in the summer, there were more clubs interested, but by last week the only club was Chelsea.

“Last Thursday, we had a verbal agreement with Chelsea, and Chelsea had an agreement with the player. The player was sold to Chelsea, it was all agreed.

“But then doubts appeared, not about the player’s quality, but about his profile, whether they preferred a different type of player. Barca only appeared for the first time at the weekend, the first time I spoke to Mateu Alemany (Barcelona director of football) was on Monday.

“Chelsea wanted to come back, but Barca’s offer was higher, and the player now wanted to go there.”"

Via the Athletic quoting Sevilla TV 

54 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

Confirmed by Monchi:

"

Monchi, speaking to Sevilla TV, said of Chelsea’s interest: “Earlier in the summer, there were more clubs interested, but by last week the only club was Chelsea.

“Last Thursday, we had a verbal agreement with Chelsea, and Chelsea had an agreement with the player. The player was sold to Chelsea, it was all agreed.

“But then doubts appeared, not about the player’s quality, but about his profile, whether they preferred a different type of player. Barca only appeared for the first time at the weekend, the first time I spoke to Mateu Alemany (Barcelona director of football) was on Monday.

“Chelsea wanted to come back, but Barca’s offer was higher, and the player now wanted to go there.”"

Via the Athletic quoting Sevilla TV 

before we close this thread just a reminder how this bullsh*t league operates 

 

LaLiga president Javier Tebas in January:

Barcelona are not in a position to finance a deal for Bayern Munich star Robert Lewandowski, according to LaLiga president Javier Tebas. "The numbers are easy: if you have more than €500million losses from the past two years, you have to recover money," Tebas is quoted as saying by Spanish publication Sport. 

 

2 days ago:

In this regard, Javier Tebas, president of LaLiga, rules out that Barça will have problems to have their new players from the first day of the Spanish First Division. In this sense, the leader considers that, although the culé directive has work to do, "it is on the right track" in terms of financial solvency. "They know what they have to do ," said the president at the 'Kick Off' Gala for the 2022-23 season.

Anticipating the impact of the culé reinforcements in the future of the next League, Javier Tebas considers that the next tournament will be much more closely fought than the previous one, with Barça fighting for the title. "Barcelona has made great additions and will give war, but Real Madrid is the current champion and none of its great players have left.