Not Actually that Crucial a Summer as of August 2023...beginning to now think everything isnt fine!

Now that the young winger has been confirmed I don’t want us to be signing anymore projects until we bring in some real first team quality players who will walk into the side.

 

Holm and Tilio are fairly cheap punts and will at least be good squad players (high hopes for the former, mind).

Now it’s time to start bringing in some real quality. Need 5, maybe 6, players ready to go straight into the team.

 

Certainly giving me the fear, not liking all the sound bites coming out like you have mentioned.

We were going into this summer with a treble winning double winning league side and now we lost our manager, now by the reports one of our best players is for the off. And losing an influential player like Mooy suddenly this window has become much harder.

 

Like who? Honest question, Hatate, Jota Abada would of been described as project players when they were signed. No established player from a top 5 league is going to come here for 20k a week.

 

To be fair there’s a chasm between the likes of Holm and established players from top 5 leagues. We now need to be shopping in there.

Hatate, Abada and Jota weren’t projects in the way Holm is. Hatate had just won the J League and was in the TOTY. Abada was banging goals in for a poor team in Israel at the age of 19. Jota had spent a season on loan in La Liga and was a standout in the Portugal youth teams.

 

Don't even need to shop in the top 5 leagues. Plenty of talent in the Belgian, Dutch, Austrian, Swiss leagues if we are smart enough.

 

Beginning to feel like the new season is cursed already:

Ange leaving out of nowhere

Rodgers returning (my thoughts are well known on him)

Unveiled our worst kit ever

Jota leaving

Mooy retiring

We really need to get it right this transfer window.

 

I know I keep going on about it but we definitely need some height in the team.

 

Tillo is already a full international at 21 and Holm has been nominated for the golden boy award. Jota was fairly average in his loan spell in Spain and never impressed in the Benfica first team, so Benfica had given up on him. The last established player we signed from a top 5 league was James McCarthy and we had to give him a crazy long contract to make up the difference in what he could of earned in England. We have been very smart with recruitment the last few years, so hopefully Holm and Tillo will good signings.

 

Hopefully they are, but I think Holm and Tilio are much bigger "punts" than the other three. Aussie league is abysmal so hard to gauge how good Tilio is, and Holm is off the back of a fairly average season in Norway by all accounts. Wouldn't expect either of them to go straight into the first team.

We need 5 or 6 to go straight in.

 

With Mooy gone, we almost certainly need another B2B midfielder. An injury to either Hatate/O'Riley and we're incredibly light there.

 

We paid 3.5 million for Abada, who the manager stated was good enough to come into the side.

We arranged a 6.5 million buy out clause for Jota who had quality. Clearly we took the option to activate the clause.

No * way we are spending that money on projects.

Also Hatate was a first team regular in a better league.

When did I say anyone from a top established league would come here for 20k a week?

buy the way we can afford more than 20k a week you know.

Maybe more players like CCV or even Jota types instead of projects like I stated….. or are they not out there……

 

With the imminent departure of Jota, retirement of Mooy and the possibility of more exits it's definitely into crucialest territory

 

With Mooy retiring and Jota pretty much gone, I'd say we need the following.

GK
CB
LB
CM
LW

If Abada leaves, we need another RW too. Busy summer.

 

Ccv was 23 yrs of age, never played a first team league game for spurs and was loaned out 6 times to championship teams, Jota was bang average for both Benfica and valiadoid, both players arrived here with very little hype and turned into superb signings.

 

That's just for the first team in my opinion.

 

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Did he play first team football while out on loan? Yes he did.

Was he much better than what we had? Yes he was.

Again he came in first team ready and that’s the type of player we need.

Jota was classed as the best youth prospect to come through Benfica in a long time, but when Jorge Jesus came in as manager he never gave Jota a chance and sent him on loan.

Even when the deal came out about Jota’s loan agreement with us the Benfica fans where unhappy as they saw him being able to come back into the side and look at what happened to Jorge Jesus, sacked and we got a steal.

Again Jota came in and was better than what we had, first team ready.

We need first team players who can walk into the side.

Jota had loads of hype surrounding him.

I’m not asking for hype, I’m asking for good quality first team players who can walk into the side whether these are 18 or 28.

Even the Oz contingent says this lad Tilio has question marks, I don’t want anymore signings like that until we sign real quality. Then let’s go down that route again.

Again you said about Top 5 leagues we don’t need to shop there to get real quality.

 

Can pretty much guarantee business will ramp in the next few weeks


Also think we will get a player signed out the blue no media links or anything

 

There's been talk of us breaking our 9m transfer record twice in this window.

With Rodgers in and with the money available I rated that chance as 40/60

But with Jota looking like he's away and question marks over 4 or 5 others. I think its now 70/30 that we will have 2 signings over our record in the next 8 weeks

 

I sincerely wish I was that positive. Truly.

As a glass half empty guy I see it far more likely Tilio and (insert incumbent squad player) will duke it out for Jotas spot.

As I said previously on the BR thread, ppl are far too quick to assume that Rodgers has been promised the moon.
It's far more likey he's been promised transfers will not be lost on haggling over pennies and players won't be signed without his say so.

They aren't the same thing.