Rudiger will be gone...
Christensen will be gone...

 

Dave and Thiago Silva are the last Mohicans, they will be 33 and 38 years old respectively next season. Signing up some reinforcements in the summer is a must!

But the problem is that as soon as we say hi to our transfer targets their price goes up by 50% so how can we find 2 world class defenders that are at the very least slightly better than Christensen and that would cost less than 150m? Or can we count on Chalobah and Sarr? (or Miazga and Baba-Rahman)

Who are the players that can solve all of our trouble and defend our honor, for a decent fee?

PS. Leaked footage of Lukaku spending his wages:

Levi Colwill won't cost us anything, so there is one for you.

Lets bring Guehi and Tomori home. Then we are sorted.

We could bring JT out of retirement and give him the same food Thiago has been eating.

Rudiger isn't gone yet, he will surely make his decision in the summer so the new owners might have one more stab at keeping him.

Assuming we do that, then a £60m acquisition of Kounde and we should be fine for the next season.

I still don’t think Rudiger will go and that he’d prefer to stay with us. Surely if you’re the new owner managing to keep a fan favourite like Rudiger would be an instant win for them.

Other than that I think Colwill can come in pre-season and make a big impression. In terms of money signings I’d still like us to go for Kounde who we might be able to get for cheaper than we were quoted earlier this season. We also need to look at strengthening the depth we have at wing back/full back given we’ve seen what happens when James and Chilwell are out.

Look at our sorry defence before Tuchel came along, we wanted them all gone, now they are wanted by RM.

We need to stop looking for perfect defenders, and look for defenders who Tuchel can work with.

So i think he should be the one with the biggest say on who we try to buy.

As long as Azpi and Rudiger stays, I don't think we will have much trouble finding suitable targets, as that will leave us with room to maneuver in the transfer window without having to be desperate and also integrate Colwill into the squad. 

I still haven't seen much of Kounde to make a proper judgement, but there are a few names out there who seems like decent prospects like Lille's Botman (rumoured to be available for 30M), Fofana if he can recover after injury, and that Hungarian CB we were linked a while ago as well. Pau Torres from Villarreal is another one who will likely be available for a big transfer soon with a similar transfer fee as Kounde.

I would assume we'll be back in for Kounde again. I don't know if he's any good, but we seem to want him.

So I'd expect:

Chilwell, Alonso
Silva, Rudiger, Kounde, Chalobah, Colwill
James, Azpilicueta

Next season.

Ideally we'd sell Alonso and sign a better LB to complete with Chilwell, and again ideally, we'd sign another CB, rather than only having 3 senior and then straight to the youngsters.

If Burnley go down then James Tarkowski could be a cheaper option - could work out just like Cahill which wasn’t a bad piece of business!

Alonso desperately needs to be upgraded too (Emerson isn’t going to cut it either) so there’s that to consider. 

2 hours ago, CaitlinCFC said:

We could bring JT out of retirement and give him the same food Thiago has been eating.

Thiago has access to the fountain of youth, it’s the only explanation. 

I think Big Frank will want Tarkowski up at Everton.

27 minutes ago, strider6004 said:

I think Big Frank will want Tarkowski up at Everton.

I think Tarkowski will fancy a season off a relegation fight 

Tarkowski will be 30 in November, and that doesn't really fit our usual signing profile.

Attila Szalai was the Hungarian guy we were supposedly linked with before, and he's only 24. Much taller and cheaper than Kounde. 

If we want to challange Liverpool and City over the whole season then the new owners need to back up what they say about investing in the squad and keeping us at the top level.

We have seen this season we are woefully short in some areas, and not in others.

Where we are not short:

A quality back up keeper, cover in Central defence bar one player (Sarr).

Everywhere else we are. Forwards we have two consistent performers, Mount and Havertz. 

Midfield we have no creativity and no back ups for Kante or Kova. And wingbacks well, we saw what happened when Chilwell and James went down.

Players like Gallagher, Broja and Colwill are godsend we better not waste, but we need to cover all those positions. We cannot expect them to be as good as the first choice players, City and pools are not, but they need to be a lot better than what they are.

I hope Ampadu gets the chance to take over from Christensen. He's a bit of a forgotten member of the loan army, but he's a tough, versatile, ball playing defender who can also do a good job in midfield. Still very young but he's played a fair bit while out on loan, and has really shone in qualifiers for Wales.

He'd learn a lot from Silva and Rudiger ( we HAVE to hold on to him), not to mention James.

We were interested in Kounde weren’t we?

Christensen can bugger off, replaced by Kounde. Colwill can come in and take up similar role as Chalobah. I think Rudiger will sign contract and stay.