24/25 Pre Season

[Insidious]

£50m would get us Liverpool fan Ivan Toney if we were doing some last minute panic buying of a forward

- He's 28
- Has had 4 seasons of Premier League football ever
- One of those 4 seasons was with Newcastle, where he made 2 appearances
- Has scored 20 goals in the Premier League in one season, with less scored in the others
- Would have very little resale value by the time any contract with us was up

There is definitely far better bang-for-your-buck out there than Toney. It would be a great story on a human level if he arrived here as a late-bloomer and tore the League a new one, but I don't see it.

"It's a no from me" as Mr Cowell would say.

[teesred]

Yeah, i'm not massively struck on the idea of Toney.

As we discussed earlier about the death of the tricky winger, out and out goal scorers are going the same way. The best forward players in the world are direct wide men. Oshimen, Laeo, MBappe Vinicius Jnr.

Think the last truely great striker was Benzema.

I would kill for another Torres, Suarez or Sturridge.

Harry Kane wants a word with you.

[miller0863]

I wasn’t for one minute suggesting we buy Toney,too old for a start, though at £50m who would you get? Particularly an English player who has played in the Premier League already.

[justme]

Toney appears a bit of a knob as well. one of the players that a massive club as never showed any real interest in..

[jozza800]

Harry Kane wants a word with you.

Good call. 😂

[Insidious]

I wasn’t for one minute suggesting we buy Toney,too old for a start, though at £50m who would you get? Particularly an English player who has played in the Premier League already.

I'm probably the wrong person to ask to be fair - if we needed an emergency striker (Jota plus someone else got injured at the same time, say) my instinct would be to buy a promising youth talent and to give someone like Danns a spell.

Any time a pathway opens up for a player, I lean towards facilitating them getting a shot, as football progression isn't always linear. Quansah was once less highly rated than Koumetio and has now partnered Van Dijk a heap of times and looks really promising.

[Kev0909]

I'm probably the wrong person to ask to be fair - if we needed an emergency striker (Jota plus someone else got injured at the same time, say) my instinct would be to buy a promising youth talent and to give someone like Danns a spell.

Any time a pathway opens up for a player, I lean towards facilitating them getting a shot, as football progression isn't always linear. Quansah was once less highly rated than Koumetio and has now partnered Van Dijk a heap of times and looks really promising.

Yeah that'll win us stuff.

anyone can play in said position......from youth etc......

doesn't mean they're good enough, let's go mid-table?

[Insidious]

Yeah that'll win us stuff.

anyone can play in said position......from youth etc......

doesn't mean they're good enough, let's go mid-table?

Naturally if we relied ONLY on youth we would slide very, very quickly - and I am not advocating it.

But I do like to see players break through. Trent did, Bajcetic looked great for a 10-12 game spell before injury, Quansah was a pleasant surprise for us all, Nyoni might be a very tidy player in a few years - and so on.

We need to buy too - I have never suggested otherwise. I have repeatedly called out for -

- A centre-back
- A defensive mid in the Busquets mould
- Depth at right-sided forward

- throughout this window. People are inclined to ignore this when it suits them, of course.

[Kev0909]

You're always on about the squad depth and X Y Z can play there..... etc

but that isn't good enough and will not get us anywhere if we have to have players fill in for most of the season.

If anything it'll get us the europa league

[reddownunder]

Yeah, i'm not massively struck on the idea of Toney.

As we discussed earlier about the death of the tricky winger, out and out goal scorers are going the same way. The best forward players in the world are direct wide men. Oshimen, Laeo, MBappe Vinicius Jnr.

Think the last truely great striker was Benzema.

I would kill for another Torres, Suarez or Sturridge.

Not that it would ever happen with our owners but Lautaro Martinez is the one I'd want