Transfer Rumours | Tactics | Who to buy/sell etc

that's really cute, but we aren't going head to head against liverpool in la liga. a draw is like a loss in the league. we dropped a couple of points in october, and already the league was lost, we're going against a side that lost one game last season and have added some changes.

and whilst i do not agree with DoC, with respect to the cristiano situation, (I'm totally in agreement with nick's last point), it's extremely gutsy, damn near suicidal for anyone to put our fate in the hands of isco asensio bale and benzema.....the one common theme with all 4 so far has been inconsistency. in benzema's case he's been consistently crap, i'm not going to bring up all those hattrick of misses against valencia at home last season. liverpool was one game, we're talking about a season of 50/60 plus games

a top quality striker (not some bench warmer) a winger (or midfielder) and a center back should be top priority right now....and i seriously doubt we are going into the season as is, the math doesn't add up.

All this said...if we manage to outplay barca at their own style, it's worth the price of entry lol.

preseason just begun. there will be more urgency in the market if our preseason goes to shit. but i expect us to pick up form.

unlike most of y'all, I'm confident the faith we show in our current crop of players will be repaid with performances.
Or have y'all soured so soon on Lopetegui after just one match?

Worrying about hypotheticals is akin to worrying whether the sun will rise tomorrow or not. one game at a time before doom and gloom about our league prospects if y'all can.

i'm meh with friendlies, i said nothing during or about the utd game, only reason i watched it was because there was nothing on. same with "super" cups and world club cups, i could care less about them, they're glorified friendlies. i doubt flo is basing our transfer decisions on friendlies.....remember what happened in the "super" cup last season? after the first two legs? even if we win all our friendlies ten nil it has little bearing....its a chance for players to meet fans, kiss babies, sign autographs and get a little workout

Apparently Lopetegui said after the game that Modric is staying 100%.

Update re possible transfers

Courtois - just a few days left. Still looks like he will come, but time is quickly running out. If he comes, looks like Navas will be backup / copa portero, Casilla will be sold and Lunin sent out on loan. If he doesn’t, looks like Lunin will be backup and Casilla sold

Theo - looks like his loan deal to Real Sociedad will go thru. His place will either be Reguiton or if they have to (spend money) Telles.

Kovacic - time also running out. Haven’t heard anything since he turned down ManU offer. Not a clue as to who his replacement would be.

Striker - not a clue? Other than it’s obvious Benz and Bale are staying.

So lineup looks like

Courtois, Navas or Navas, Lunin

Carvajal, Odriozola, Varane, Vallejo, Ramos, Nacho, Marcelo, Reguilon or Telles

Casemiro, Llorente, Kroos, Modric, Ceballos, Kovacic or replacement

Isco, Asensio, Bale, Lucas, Benzema, NEW CF (hopefully), Vinicius

Kovacic is trying to force his exit lol, won't return training

Wow, first time that's happened to us. If he wants to leave he can givs us an acceptable offer otherwise he should stay put. What a lack of respect knob

To be fair thats Marca news. Cadena cope reported that he trained on the gym

halamadrid2 wrote:Wow, first time that's happened to us. If he wants to leave he can givs us an acceptable offer otherwise he should stay put. What a lack of respect knob

i believe makelele did that too, before he left us

So in next few days, Courtois arrives, Theo goes on loan to Real Sociedad and probably Kovacic leaves. Expect the GK will lead to an exit of porteros, Casilla, likely Zidane’s son (big loss), and probably Lunin out on loan.

None unexpected but now we are left with, but still unknown

- are we get a new striker?

- who do they get in place of Kovacic (or do they?)

- do they promote reguilon, buy Telles or do they go with Nacho and call up Reguilon when needed.

Makelele was underappreciated and cast aside by our president. Kovacic is still within the club's plans. They haven't bought any new players in his position. He is first in the pecking order to take over from Modric should he decide to leave.

I haven't got a problem wirh him leaving. But just like Morata had to do, he needs to bring an offer that the club accepts or he needs to stay

I can understand his frustration but plenty of players have been in his position before. Varane had to wait 4 seasons for his chance. Isco had to wait around that long for his. Ceballos was treated like shite for a whole year despite being good enough to start etc etc

It's the wrong way to do things. If he really wanted to go he should have sorted out a club for himself before he was due back. And beggars can't be choosers. He can't pick and choose where to go. If Utd offer the highest bid we should sell him to them

Never thought I'd see the day where a player would disrespect our club like that. Usually players leave us because they're unwanted or are denied a new contract. Never like this where you just wake up one day and decide you don't want to continue at a club. And for that I respect Ceballos even more. Never heard a peep from him, rejected other teams despite being far down in the pecking order. Now if Kova gets his wish and Modric leaves he might actually become a starter

i'm not arguing, just pointing out whether right or wrong, that it has happened before. we don't know what's going on behind the scenes, what he's asking for nor what he wants.even when makelele did it i didn't think it was a good look then, and i don't think its a good look now.

but as i said we don't know the behind the scenes nor what was or wasn't promised. the situation puts everyone especially the player, coach and teammates in an awkward position

Real Madrid shouldn't be holding any player hostage... from Ronaldo to Kovacic. If Kova wants to leave, he should be allowed to leave at the highest available price, not the one the club dream about.

It's a massive waste of time to try and force a player to stay almost every time... they underperform and create a bad vibe for the club.

Let him go ffs. kid wants to go somewhere so he can play more. There's nothing wrong with that.

I don't think Madrid is holding anyone hostage. Like any reasonable club, they set a price and if a club doesn't match it, nothing happens. It's Kova's agent job to convince a club to match the fee set by Madrid.

This is Kovacic today



Marca with that shit reporting, kid got beaten up on social medias for nothing.

he still wants to go though

Doc wrote:I don't think Madrid is holding anyone hostage. Like any reasonable club, they set a price and if a club doesn't match it, nothing happens. It's Kova's agent job to convince a club to match the fee set by Madrid.

But then the player also has the right to be a malcontent... because it's not market economics to ask for a price that nobody is willing to pay. That's just bad faith on Madrid's part.

Let Modric walk ----> Sign Thiago. Perfect fit for Lopetegui's system, knows half the team.

Let Kovacic walk ----> sign another young CM/DM like Paredes, De Jong, etc...

No reason to hold on to players who want to go imo, it's a matter of replacing them.

If we lose two of our deep playmakers, we sign two to replace them. Thiago is a top 5 CM as far as i am concerned, so it's a no brainer. Last i hear from Honigstein, Bayern were still open to sell.

Kovacs is croatian yeah? if he wants to do Thiago for Kovacic + cash that works too lol

halamadrid2 wrote:Wow, first time that's happened to us. If he wants to leave he can givs us an acceptable offer otherwise he should stay put. What a lack of respect knob

robinho did that and more to leave for city.
makelele is also mentioned.
you guys really have short memory huh.

well, regardless of whether kovacic skipped training or not... if a player wants to leave, let him leave. we shouldn't hold him hostage.

its a contract, club sets a price to keep themselves safe, goes both ways, we still don't know what's going on behind the scenes. the player signs a contract and knows all about the market value and release clauses at the time of the deal, if they don't, then their agent does. its normal for the club to stall and call another club's bluff, see if anyone bites, if it gets out of hand they'll let the player go, if not, if there's a higher bidder they'll negotiate a deal...its business

Real Madrid is the last club to be associated with holding anyone hostage, look how many players we let go for peanuts in the past; the list is endless, just ask massimo moratti, dude owes our club and flo multiple Christmas presents for what we've done for inter over the years

we don't know the whole thing about this kova situation, we can only wait it out and see what happens....but from what we know, right now, the club isn't doing anything wrong or unethical. let's wait till a full story or statement is issued

thank you @turok, totally forgot about robinho, i think there was even an awkward situation because we were playing a "super" cup tie against valencia at home and he didn't play, the rumor at the time was that he refused to play and was upset at being used as a bargaining chip for cristiano. can't remember if he refused or wasn't selected, but i remember him doing the honor lap with the squad after we won...great comeback game btw, de la red also scored a wonder goal in that game. de la red would have been class imo.....i once again disagree about the hostage stuff

titosantill wrote:thank you @turok, totally forgot about robinho, i think there was even an awkward situation because we were playing a "super" cup tie against valencia at home and he didn't play, the rumor at the time was that he refused to play and was upset at being used as a bargaining chip for cristiano. can't remember if he refused or wasn't selected, but i remember him doing the honor lap with the squad after we won...great comeback game btw, de la red also scored a wonder goal in that game. de la red would have been class imo.....i once again disagree about the hostage stuff

robinho was talking shit/mocking Schuster from behind when he was on the bench vs valencia. thats the kind of shit you don't forget. when the cam focused on robingo saying shit to Schuster's ear u knew something was up. schuster looked annoyed as shit. robinho got unsettled ever since those Cristiano Ronaldo rumors began. we won't know for sure whether he was being used as a bargaining chip or not but it pissed him off all the same. then he cried to our president Calderon and then he left.

the Calderon years were something else alright.

is true he signed a contract but it's not how we normally operate. that is not like we're going to give him what he wants anyways. too many players ahead of him. keeping him only hurts the morale in the dressing room. I would not want to disrupt the dressing room right now.

we didn't keep him, we negotiated a deal. same with makelele, we didn't keep him, we negotiated a deal. i don't get how someone is a hostage if we negotiate a deal to let them go, we as a club also have a right to get what we want don't we? if the fax machine fiasco was a utd issue and done on purpose on their part, that's keeping someone hostage.....all those players were transferred weeks or a few months after going public. contracts go both ways.....agents too have to be smarter. what thiago's agents did with barcelona was an extremely intelligent move that young players should take note of. let's get an official bid for kova and see how the market plays

With respect to Moratti, he gave us Roberto Carlos for basically free so we both benefited from one another.

Also, if there aren't legit bids for Kova coming in and the one club who got his attention, he doesn't wanna go because of the manager (Man Utd), how exactly is he gonna leave? I would understand if bids coming in and the club is chasing everyone away but he isn't exactly attracting all and sundry.

nah we more than made up for the carlos move....at one point almost everyone he was getting from us was turning into a star for them, and at very cheap figures too

btw what's the consensus on this courtois move? i don't think we've discussed it at length on here.

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11668/11463704/chelsea-goalkeeper-thibaut-courtois-fails-to-return-to-pre-season-training