2013 Summer Transfer Thread

[stokeriño]

We won't really know how well Chelsea are doing until we reach November and find out whether the traditional implosion persists or not.

[Nerf]

Can't we just all agree that one of United/City/Chelsea will win the league and one of Arenal/Spurs/Liverpool will finish 4th and wait and see

[brenchill]

I think Villa will finish 4th. Because why not.

[Lineker]

Montpellier president Louis Nicollin has claimed that Aston Villa are one of five clubs to have made a bid for midfielder Younes Belhanda.

"He is leaving," Nicollin told LeSport10. "There are four or five clubs that have come in. It is now down to the player to choose now because we are almost in agreement with the clubs. He will leave for 14-15 million euros."

Asked if the offers were concrete, he replied: "Yes. From AC Milan, Inter Milan, Atletico Madrid, Galatasaray and Aston Villa.

"We have no problem now, he [belhanda] has the authority to agree with whoever he wants now.

[stokeriño]

Liverpool? Finish 4th?

Roaming around the newspaper sites picking out the different "hitlists" of Mourinho's is fun: Jovetic, Dzeko, Mangala, De Rossi, Fernandinho, Yilmaz, Sneijder...

Would love Dzeko, but City would never sell to us. I don't think he could pull a Berbatov and go AWOL on his way to the airport either.

[Nerf]

Liverpool? Finish 4th?

I said this about Arsenal, and the fuckers somehow managed it again!

I'm happy with anybody but Spurs, basically.

[Plubby]

*blink*

What about Everton?

[Jimmy]

Do you think you'll sell anyone to raise funds? I've seen Luiz linked with Barca, but like you said last night, you'd think you'd have 70 mil odd, which wouldn't fund half the players. What's your gut feeling on who you'll bring in?

[stokeriño]

Not sure about specifics (other than Schurrle), but I think we'll end up with...

* A new reserve keeper (just to hold the fort for the next year or two I guess)

* Andrew Schurrle (AKA a ~£20m player to add depth to the forward/attacking midfield ranks)

* Some manner of central midfielder

I'm no longer sure about whether we're looking at another striker. Torres is going nowhere and there are few obvious links beyond spending another million billion on Cavani. I also doubt that central defence will be a priority until, perhaps, next season - despite some rumours to contrary.

The Luiz rumours are, in my mind, simply nonsense. They got worse over the last couple of days because some reporters have interpreted Luiz's "I don't want to talk about it" response to being asked for the 12th time about his future as code for "I'm leaving".

As though Luiz would have spoken with Mourinho, or indeed known anything more than he did a week before when he happily responded to his (FIRST) question about Jose with a happy bubbly "he's great it's going to be great working with him" type answer.

The media have to provide all major clubs with at least one "BIG PLAYER POSSIBLY LEAVING" story all summer so that their fans can get all fret up about it and bumping up their page hits. Now that Super Frank is no longer serving this purpose for them they've moved on to Luiz. Simple as that really.

Liverpool? Finish 4th?

I said this about Arsenal, and the fuckers somehow managed it again!

There's a difference between predicting Arsenal will drop out of the top 4 for the first time in...forever...and predicting Liverpool will overtake three teams next season.

[Jimmy]

Would you want another striker brought in? Obviously it would be hard to say no to someone of Cavani's quality, but where do you stand on Lukaku? (If you said it when we were talking about him earlier, then my bad).

Also, haven't seen this mentioned yet I don't think. Mentioned in an article talking about Monaco wanting Nani.

Meanwhile, Liverpool defender Daniel Agger is wanted, with L'Equipe claiming Monaco are 'very close' to signing the Denmark international on a four-year contract.

[stokeriño]

I do like Lukaku. It's one of those things where you hope he will be as wonderful at Chelsea as he was at West Brom and therefore a selection of Lukaku/Torres/Ba would be fine, but...there's just that glimmer of uncertainty that makes everyone a touch nervous in pre-season.

For example Chelsea's striker much more rarely get to maraud forward on the break and instead have to pick their way through packed lines in the opposition's back third. This kind of possession game is a consequence of filling the midfield in the 4-2-3-1 with the kind of skilled passers we have, and whether Lukaku would manage to be as effective in that arrangement I don't know.

BUT THEN for all we know Mourinho might take us back to 4-3-3 with Hazard and Mata on the wings, freeing up space in the middle for Lukaku as the striker to throw himself about. Or he might do something entirely different even to that... Who can say.

It's tricky. Such is our recent history that even if it were revealed that we signed Cavani tomorrow (and doubtless parting with a few truckloads of cash to do so), we'd just spend the next two months thinking "Oh God, oh God, please let this not be another Torres/Shevchenko..."

[Nerf]

Agger is going nowhere. Perhaps not ever.

[brenchill]

It'll be interesting to see the Liverpool fans' opinion of Rodgers if they finish 6th/7th again next season.

[Nerf]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm personally giving him the remainder of his contract (another 2 seasons) to break back into the top four before I lose faith. I fully believe he's the man for the job though. I put us about 5th this season, but even then, Liverpool are actually exciting to watch for the first time in years, so I'm behind him fully.

[Hobo]

It'll be interesting to see the Liverpool fans' opinion of Rodgers if they finish 6th/7th again next season.

I was expecting 7th this year. Next year, I'd settle for 6th at this point.

I think next season gives the potential for the Liverpool and Spurs to catch up with United, Chelsea and City since they're all under new management.

[stokeriño]

Chelsea are always under new management.

[Hobo]

Well, swap Everton for Chelsea then in what I said.

I don't see Everton finishing 6th under Roberto Martinez.

[brenchill]

They'll be 19th at Christmas but will not lose a game from March onwards.

[Crybaby Bunting]

And most people don't see Liverpool finishing 4th under FSG

[DavidMarrio]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm personally giving him the remainder of his contract (another 2 seasons) to break back into the top four before I lose faith. I fully believe he's the man for the job though. I put us about 5th this season, but even then, Liverpool are actually exciting to watch for the first time in years, so I'm behind him fully.

Pretty much this. He was given a three year contract with the idea that we'd be breaking into the top 4 in his 3rd season, this year was always going to be a rebuilding season because he wanted to implement his style so I wasn't surprised that we would finish 7th this year. Next season hopefully we can push for 5th and get closer to the top 4 instead of being 12 points behind 4th.

I echo the fact that we are actually exciting to watch, it makes me sad when I remember the dreadful football we had under Hodgson. I think we suffered for the fact that for the first half of the season it was a learning curve for Rodgers and the team as to what he wanted to see on the pitch and work with the squad he had, the injury to Lucas had an impact for the first half of the season and the fact that we pretty much had Suarez up front because Carroll had went out on loan, we waited till January to get Sturridge and Borini was sidelined.

I do think we should look to loan out some of the younger players to get them first team experience, players like Suso, Sterling, Robinson etc they have potential but they need first team experience especially with us not being in Europe its the perfect time to loan them out.