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Sports The Football Discussion Thread!

I must admit this is the first I have heard of it, literally haven't looked into any Boro transfer speculation or any Boro news at all really since we hired Monk. A quick glance at my usual Boro forum tells me we're in for Howson, Assombalonga & Gunter (haven't heard his name in a while). I would be pretty happy with any of the three, especially Assombalonga who I hoped we would be after before the relegation was even confirmed.

Really need to see some movement on wingers though, it's our weak spot every season.

TechnicolourMemecoat said:
Pre season friendlies begin this Friday for my team (AFC Totton). It's been a long 10 weeks with no football to watch.
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Respect for supporting a non-league side. It does make me curious as to how your soft spot for Inverness came about though, do you have family in Scotland?
 
Eruption said:
I must admit this is the first I have heard of it, literally haven't looked into any Boro transfer speculation or any Boro news at all really since we hired Monk. A quick glance at my usual Boro forum tells me we're in for Howson, Assombalonga & Gunter (haven't heard his name in a while). I would be pretty happy with any of the three, especially Assombalonga who I hoped we would be after before the relegation was even confirmed.

Really need to see some movement on wingers though, it's our weak spot every season.



Respect for supporting a non-league side. It does make me curious as to how your soft spot for Inverness came about though, do you have family in Scotland?
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Yeah I've got family and friends in Inverness, try and get up there to see them play at least 4/5 times a season. Went to Hampden 2 years ago when we won the Scottish Cup.

Totton are my hometown team. The town is right next to Southampton and Bournemouth is only 20 mins away the other side so when we're at home on the same day that Saints and/or Bournemouth are then our crowds drop a little bit. Just renewed my season ticket this weekend for the 9th season in a row.
 
Howson and Cyrus Christie in, good to get some transfers done. I don't know much about Christie at all, but anything is an improvement on Barragan.

Very sad news about Carl Ikeme & Bradley Lowery. Today is also the first time I heard about Yeray (Athletic Club)'s cancer diagnosis, which is again very sad to hear but it was nice to hear the heartwarming story of his teammates shaving their heads in solidarity.
 
Sounds a bit like Nsue then, he did the job two years ago so that's fine.

We've sold Bernardo Espinosa which is the best news I've had all year. Awful player, have no idea how our recruitment team thought he was Premiership quality.
 
So United's transfer window appears to be taking a downturn as we're apparently going for Perisic for £40 million. That'll be a great deal...for Inter.

As an aside, AC Milan are having what could possibly go down as one of the greatest transfer windows ever (if people keep track of these things), bar perhaps United's 2006 when our only signing was Michael Carrick and we sold our top scorer and captain in the same year, yet won the league. Not only have they gotten Gigi Donnarumma to sign a new deal (although the presence of a release clause makes me thing his agent expects him to either replace Buffon next year or end up with us, as we appear to be Mino's new favourite club), but they've signed arguably the best central defender on the planet (Sergio Ramos is Bonucci's only equal imo), as well as adding seemingly the first good Portuguese striker in a generation, two key components of Atalanta's massive overachievement last season, Musacchio and Ricardo Rodriguez for small sums in today's inflated market, and you could argue the same for Calhanoglu and Lucas Biglia.

It may all come crashing down on them, but right now it seems like their ownership is actually putting their money where their mouth is.
 
Britt(le) Assombalonga for 14 million. One of the best goalscorers in the league but isn't his play style awfully similar to another striker you recently spent big money on but didn't do too well up there?

Assume we'll be signing another few players through the spine of the side with that Murphy money. Who'd have imagined 12.5(rising to a record fee with addons) a year ago when we rejected a 300k bid from Coventry.

Can't say I've not really been following transfer news outside of the Championship.
 
Assombalonga. What a name.

Which Murphy is this? The way the transfer market is right now, one good season for an English player puts them over £10 million value, you could probably get £30million from one family alone if the other does well.

As an aside - as Sunderland were relegated, is Jordan Pickford now the record sale by a Championship club?
 
Jacob, he was with Coventry in league 1 before last season. During that same season Josh was POTS at MK Dons in the Championship.

It'll be Pickford or Sissoko from Newcastle last year. As for incomings it would be Assombalonga but for Jorge Mendes FC signing Ruben Neves. Wonder when this bubble will burst.
 
I think Assombalonga is quite different to Rhodes, Assombalonga can create his own chances through his strength whereas Rhodes is a pure poacher. Being a poacher isn't necessarily bad, but in our woefully uncreative team he never stood a chance. Plus Karanka never really wanted him there. I wish we hadn't sold him, but unfortunately we did. Hopefully Assombalonga stays fit and I can see him scoring twenty goals, but even if he doesn't we still have Bamford and Gestede.

It seems we're operating under the presumption that the Murphy twins can't bear to be apart as now we've made a bid to sign Josh Murphy so he can join Jacob in the North East. If he ends up moving then it's definitely been a bad few weeks for Norwich.

AC Milan mean business this season, hopefully they can break Juve's monopoly on Serie A. They might not be done just yet either, apparently they're also in for Morata.

I think you're probably right on Pickford, but no doubt it will be broken again if the current rate of inflation in football continues. edit: oh yeah it's probably Sissoko, nevermind.

Finally, as for Perisic, I think you have the money for it. He could be a useful signing whilst Martial keeps progressing. Sure he's not worth £40m+, but I'm sure Ed Woodward has a lot of money available.
 
Wish I had the confidence to just laugh it off.

I would say that all of our departures thus far have made sense, even if we haven't liked them all. This just wouldn't now that the we're out of the woods financially.

Josh has better offensive weapons than a player that's just gone for silly money. I sure hope that anything below what we've gotten for Jacob isn't even considered, even without as much first team football last year.

It's all player power though. If he decides he's 'unsettled' and he makes it known then I suppose Webber would sell. I assume that's what this public bid is about.
 
I always felt like the Murphys had a strong link to you as a club, so I'm sure he won't be throwing his toys out of pram just to move to Boro. I definitely can't see us making another £10m+ transfer.

I didn't realise Wolves had picked up Ruddy, they're having a real go this year.
 
Ruben Neves clearly is not right in the head. Youngest captain in a Champions League game, and for Porto too - not Partizan or someone else from out east where all their good players are gone by 19.

Ivan Cavaleiro and Helder Costa made sense in a way - in that Monaco and Benfica respectively were glad to make a profit and get rid - but not from a player's career health point of view. But Ruben Neves really doesn't make sense at all. He's clearly been taking some bad advice (unless Mendes knows something we don't and Porto are going to get relegated this year).

Ruddy is a Mendes client? Who knew?

At least our new favourite Mino seems to get his players at the very worst to move sideways for more money (Pogba to us), Mendes is acting like the conductor of the great Portuguese-youth-money-laundering-and-human-trafficking circus.

Norwich should really just put their foot down with Josh Murphy. This isn't like when Bayern signed Bastian Schweinsteiger's younger brother or Milan signed Jose Mauri's older brother, he's clearly a player who could make a go of it. Middlesborough are probably just hoping to get him on the cheap due to the family connection.

It seems like Milan are going to run afoul of FFP - even if they have the best commercial arm in Italy it's still nothing like ours or Madrid's.

I really don't like this Perisic deal - we've bought Lukaku so surely Rashford should be first choice out left? Mourinho spent a season praising his workrate and now he's apparently giving Shaw a chance, seems like an ideal combo. Martial meanwhile has had nowhere near the drop-off Memphis had, should get another year at the very least to make a go of it.
 
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