Virgil van Dijk

You can sign talented CBs for less than the half price requested by Soton for van Dijk. Stefan de Vrij fee isn’t over 35M like Davinson Sànchez, Laporte, Inigo Martinez or marquee players like Jerome Boateng.

This market is crazy.

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Why are you having a conversation with yourself?

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He’d be a considerable upgrade on what we have but 70 million quid is overs, I’d still rather us go big on a central midfielder if it was a choice.

:joy:

I don’t know why I have a triple post despite I’ve added the second and the third to the first.

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:joy::joy::joy:

I have to say, my guess is VVD is (much) better than Schneiderlin, but this sounds awful like something you and Darkseid would’ve said a few summers ago. :grimacing:

Surely there is some young French defender out there we should be looking at for not such a ridiculous fee who is younger and will be as good or better than VVD. For now we are in pretty good shape with 4 good CBs for a three, and a 5th (Per) who is fine as an emergency option, as well as Kolasanic who can play at CB. Bielik needs a few more years but is also the best CB prospect we’ve had in a long time. Spending £70m on VVD would be a bit mad when we have such gaping holes at CM and attacking midfield/winger. That money needs to be spent on someone who can replace Alexis and help to soften the blow when Özil starts to decline, or even potentially leaves.

Anyways, thinking about our transfer window at the moment, as this post has just forced me to do, is depressing. It’s amazing that the season is about to start and we’ve still not sold a soul and it’s looking very doubtful we’ll sign a CM, much less that creative/attacking player we badly need. Trying to stay positive and think that we can make a signing like Mustafi last season at the end of the window, but yeah, I’m guessing the best we can hope for is one of the CM and the attacking player (hopefully the CM), or at best both but one of them being a sop like Lucas last season.

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Oh my god I’m dying.

You think Mourinho could be interested? Was there anything in Spanish media that would suggest that their relationship was in any way not ideal?

Who knows. No, from what I know their relationship is great, Özil is too much of a little idiot savant to find any fault with Mourinho (or Wenger, it would seem).

I do think Özil looks to be staying but it’s weird that the contract wouldn’t be finished by now, it seems like it’s been like a year now of reports coming out every 2-3 weeks that Özil and Arsenal were about to agree to terms only for it to end in nothing.

I reckon he will wait til post window then sign if no one comes in for him. No point completely killing off a potential move from his point of view but if it doesn’t happen then he might as well earn some more money.

shame

Yea, exactly. The longer it takes and if he ends up going into his final year the more I’m convinced that he could even see his contract out, unless we manage to do something significant next season and well, thinking about potential destinations I wouldn’t be surprised if Mourinho tried to sign him on a free, given that he does like signing former players he likes and trusts. It would at least be the most logical destination I could think of as of right now.

You might be right but I doubt it mate.

https://twitter.com/mixedknuts/status/804004306810769409

:giroud:

Nah that can’t be true, Wenger promised that the uncertainty over his future would have no effect on the club :hipster:

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Doesn’t sound particularly believable.

Sounds perfectly believable tbh.

Not sure I believe that Wenger met a player in a hotel before any official bid had been made or anything of the sort.

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Yep, me neither.

He’s already taken it back in pre season. He’s also made some other statements already that are either worrying or comical.

Seems to be the norm these days so I don’t see why this wouldn’t be true. IIRC he made contact with Alexis in Brazil and apparently he’s been in contact with Mbappe’s family, so why wouldn’t that be true too.

Indeed. Plus I’m not sure you need to bid. You just need written consent from the club that owns the contract.