Transfer Rumours | Tactics | Who to buy/sell etc

A lot of factors have gone in our favor regarding Courtois and Hazard potentially joining us.

Hazard and Courtois have both been crying out to join RM for years. Abramovich knows this, and knows he's not going to get much out of these players if he holds on to them. Look at Chelsea's net spend the past few years, I'm pretty sure they have sold more than they have brought in. And the biggest factor here, is that they have a new manager, who I believe would clash with the personalities of Hazard and Courtois, especially if they were made to stay.

Hazard has 2 years left on his contract, Courtois has 1.

This is going to drive down the price and by no means will be 200m. Costa made a fuss and was sold for well below value, something I expect Abramovich wants to avoid again, so dealings will be significantly easier than Neymar or Mbappe.

what's wrong with 4 years of an elite footballer in his prime? and it might be even more. I saw a 35 years old Ribery almost taking the life of our defense last year lol. Also, no one has quoted a price for Hazard yet.

Anyway, i think you are wrong in that we do it something fresh in attack. Hazard is particularly interesting because he is an excellent dribbler and we dont have any player who can be that dominant in 1v1. We make fun of him calling him the sideway dribble king but it would be naive not to recognize how dangerous he can be in the final third opening space for his team mates.

Well, Uncle Flo kinda agrees with you since he has definitely been leaving Hazard on blue ticks and seen for those 3 years.

In any case, if Hazard gets signed and gives this club 4-5 great seasons, the money we would have spent on him would not even matter.

vanDEEZ wrote:A lot of factors have gone in our favor regarding Courtois and Hazard potentially joining us.

Hazard and Courtois have both been crying out to join RM for years. Abramovich knows this, and knows he's not going to get much out of these players if he holds on to them. Look at Chelsea's net spend the past few years, I'm pretty sure they have sold more than they have brought in. And the biggest factor here, is that they have a new manager, who I believe would clash with the personalities of Hazard and Courtois, especially if they were made to stay.

Hazard has 2 years left on his contract, Courtois has 1.

This is going to drive down the price and by no means will be 200m. Costa made a fuss and was sold for well below value, something I expect Abramovich wants to avoid again, so dealings will be significantly easier than Neymar or Mbappe.

Just hearing courtois and hazard really makes you think that we are in advance contact with them. i have a difficult time imagining that both would say these things if they were just hoping that we get interested.

Remember what is Perez n1 requirement when he goes after a top player? he wants you to speak out about leaving. Both have been very clear they not only want out, and they want to be together in their next club yet. It would not shock me that with the WC over, things move fast this week. we will see.

Hala is not being unreasonable here. He's making very good and valid points.

We need to get our priorities straight going into the market. The goalkeeping position is and should be the last of our worries. Why should we waste our time and money to bring in Courtois? Is he prime Casillas or Buffon? No, so let him sit where he is, he's not talented enough for us to go out of our way and sign him.

Let's deal with the glaring, major and urgent issues first. Cristiano must be replaced. We need to bring one or two players to bring in the goals. We must spend big on a goalscorer.

So before we spend a fortune on Courtois and that sideway-dribble king, let's focus on recapturing the firepower we lost upon Ronaldo's sale.

The Demon of Carthage wrote:Hala is not being unreasonable here. He's making very good and valid points.

We need to get our priorities straight going into the market. The goalkeeping position is and should be the last of our worries. Why should we waste our time and money to bring in Courtois? Is he prime Casillas or Buffon? No, so let him sit where he is, he's not talented enough for us to go out of our way and sign him.

Let's deal with the glaring, major and urgent issues first. Cristiano must be replaced. We need to bring one or two players to bring in the goals. We must spend big on a goalscorer.

So before we spend a fortune on Courtois and that sideway-dribble king, let's focus on recapturing the firepower we lost upon Ronaldo's sale.

And what are our options there? There is no half decent striker on the market. And we won't be able to replace Ronaldo with a single player whoever that is. I don't think getting Hazard will prevent us from getting a striker.

There is no upgrade from Ronaldo. Fact

The Demon of Carthage wrote:Hala is not being unreasonable here. He's making very good and valid points.

We need to get our priorities straight going into the market. The goalkeeping position is and should be the last of our worries. Why should we waste our time and money to bring in Courtois? Is he prime Casillas or Buffon? No, so let him sit where he is, he's not talented enough for us to go out of our way and sign him.

Let's deal with the glaring, major and urgent issues first. Cristiano must be replaced. We need to bring one or two players to bring in the goals. We must spend big on a goalscorer.

So before we spend a fortune on Courtois and that sideway-dribble king, let's focus on recapturing the firepower we lost upon Ronaldo's sale.

Literally no one has said Courtois is our top priority, and no one is saying Hazard is going to replace Ronaldo's presence/goals. These are just the most likely first deals that are being discussed by the media.

But the fact is there is no direct replacement for Ronaldo, so we have to go a different direction.

Hazard is just a start. I think everyone in this thread can agree that the club will likely be looking at Hazard + a CF, so before you start putting yourself on an island believing you're the only person to realize we just lost about 40 goals per season, read what people are saying.

According to Marca, Bayern are open to negotiating with Madrid for James. Well, i did not expect they would, so this is done dealio then?

http://www.marca.com/futbol/real-madrid/2018/07/14/5b49000e268e3ef16b8b4604.html

It makes sense to me. James has made it clear he wants to come back to Madrid. The manager who brought James over is no longer there, and they now have a new manager who probably would prefer to work with his own players (just guessing)- not to mention James wasn't a must start type player after Carlo. (Also the manager who offloaded him to Bayern is no longer with Madrid).

The ball is still in their court though. If they want to make things difficult for extra money they certainly can. It will be up to Perez and Lopetegui to determine what James' role will be.

If Lopetegui doesn't have a role for him then what's the point? One of the things that i most hate as a footy fan is to see my club bring in someone who it doesn't need or who doesn't fit, and then have problems because of overbooking, politics, etc. If Lopetegui wants him then fine.

There have been reports of Lopetegui speaking with him personally weeks ago, and I think it is safe to assume that RM wouldn't go through the hassle of getting him back if he wasn't in the plan.

vanDEEZ wrote:

The Demon of Carthage wrote:Hala is not being unreasonable here. He's making very good and valid points.

We need to get our priorities straight going into the market. The goalkeeping position is and should be the last of our worries. Why should we waste our time and money to bring in Courtois? Is he prime Casillas or Buffon? No, so let him sit where he is, he's not talented enough for us to go out of our way and sign him.

Let's deal with the glaring, major and urgent issues first. Cristiano must be replaced. We need to bring one or two players to bring in the goals. We must spend big on a goalscorer.

So before we spend a fortune on Courtois and that sideway-dribble king, let's focus on recapturing the firepower we lost upon Ronaldo's sale.

Literally no one has said Courtois is our top priority, and no one is saying Hazard is going to replace Ronaldo's presence/goals. These are just the most likely first deals that are being discussed by the media.

But the fact is there is no direct replacement for Ronaldo, so we have to go a different direction.

Hazard is just a start. I think everyone in this thread can agree that the club will likely be looking at Hazard + a CF, so before you start putting yourself on an island believing you're the only person to realize we just lost about 40 goals per season, read what people are saying.

Literally I never said I'm the only person to realize we just lost about 50 goals per season.Try to spend a few extra seconds to read what I said first before trying to lecture me about how to read.

He would be an unnecessary buy; a panic buy which will cost us a fortune and won't bring us any closer to the number of goals we lost.

You have every right to support the idea of bringing Hazard and Courtois in. I have every right to say that that idea sucks. Both of them aren't that great and won't help us solve the problems we have. Period.

I feel like you have lost sight of what the argument is. This is not about just replacing CR, it's about building something new to replace the BBC.

I understand CR recently left and it's all you have on your mind, but building a new attack as a whole is what the argument should be. You can argue that with Zidane heavily playing Isco, BBC has already broken and i would respect that, but to me, that system had reached his limit last season.

CR is our wide attacker on the left side, he just so happened to be a goat goalscorer. There is no replica for him out there assuming we can't sign Neymar or Mbappe, so it does make sense to sign the best available left winger on the market who is hazard.

The center forward needs to be replaced and getting rid of Benzema all together who is just a mediocre scorer nowadays is a must. Frankly i hope he leaves just so we can sign strikers who actually want to score goals.

and on the other side, at this point, no need to rush the sale of Bale.

It's not about one person replacing CR.  However, there is a 50 goal void that the team needs to fill.  So we need the CF to bang in 30 as opposed to 20...  That's 10 right there.  You need Bale to bang in 10 more than he did last year too.

You may get another 5 out of Isco.

Maybe our midfield gets another 5 as well.

However you look at it, there's going to be a 20 goal deficit imo unless a couple of players have absolutely massive seasons.  

Conclusion = defense.  We need to concede less to make up for the goals as opposed to trying to score as many.

Put it this way how many goals will Hazard guarantee us? His highest goalscoring return has been 16 goals, highest assist return has been 5 assists. Those are mediocre numbers considering everyone are obsessing about him and will cost us a fortune. Salah went and scored 30 something goals in that league in his first season.

If we want average numbers like that we might as well get James back who can guarantee us at least 15 goals and 15 assists a season. Hazard will be a pointless signing. @Nick, you say we haven't got a dribbler like him but we do, we have Isco whose dribbles compared to Hazard are at least vertical and not horizontal. We need goals, we already have a golden team, if Isco plays on the left we won't need Hazard but what we need is speed and someone who can guarantee us at least 25/30 goals in the league.

I don't know if Lope is intending on bringing James back to play RW so that we play exactly like his Spain team. But what is clear, the only ones we are linked with are Hazard and Courtois both of which are pointless signings for us. No CF rumour yet and we are neary half way into the transfer window

Oh and I agree @Sport. We need to concede far far less goals. We can't win every game 4-÷/5-4 it's just not feasible. We need to know how to close a game down after going 1-0 up

So a couple of months ago most of you were saying, we should get rid of BBC. (Some saying  maybe Ronaldo for one more year - but that quickly changed with his post CL comment). That Zidane should be changed for a coach with better tactics and ability to teach the new tactics (and I believe Lopetequi was also mentioned).

Then once Zidane left, most if not all were saying this season would be transitional.
I recall several of you saying, we should not expect much for next season.

So why all the complaints?

It will be transitional in

- they obviously are seeking to get at least two impact players, but that just may take a couple of years to accomplish (Flo didn’t assemble the 4 CL team in just one summer!). I have the impression what we are hearing now is only a small portion of what really is happening, which is likely background assessment on a whole slew of options. We should find out in the next two weeks.

- giving the kids signed last year (not the two undeserved promotions) a 2nd chance under a coach who will give them opportunities to see if they stay or not.

- giving at least one of the hot young prospects an opportunity in training camp to see if they can make the jump now or should they be placed somewhere to further develop.

- and finally, it will be Lopetequi teaching and implementing his tactics.

With all due respect Bill, don't feed me that BS. Why should this be a transitional year? Do you have any idea how talented the current squad is? Our midfield is a rockstar midfield. Our defense is amazing.

The only problem we have is the attack and the gaping void left by Ronaldo that we need to plug pronto. Why should this be a transitional year when 90% of the team is world class?

All we need to do is replace Benzema (or relegate him to the bench) for someone who can guarantee at least 30 goals per season. And just like sports said, we also need to tighten the defense in a way as to not leak so many goals. We have great defenders, all we need is a great system to make them play as they should and not let in so many goals.

So instead of splashing 200m+ on Hazard and Courtois, we should invest that money directly on one or two goalscorers.

They will do that, but it may take another year depending upon who can be bought. It’s not like there is an abundance of opportunities! Rome wasn’t built in a year!

Also bear in mind that we were screaming for a change in tactics! That has to be taught and not all players will fit that, plus it will take time.

There was a whole lot wrong, for most of last season, with that lineup and tactics you are raving about.

i see Isco and Hazard as two very different players. Hazard being a way more dangerous player vertically. he has pace to actually allow your team to play on the counter, whereas with Isco, while he can break the line with his dribbling, he doesnt do it when the pitch his open, he does it when you are in possession phases and occupying the last third.

I am of the opinion that you need your attacker to be fast enough that they force the fullback to think twice about going up. We dont have that. At the end of the day, it depends how you Lopetegui wants to play, but i think from an attacking point of view we would be more versatile and dangerous with someone like Hazard on the left vs Isco.

Isco, i think can play deeper in Lopetegui's midfield and that is what i hope to see. It's my personal taste and eventhough i have reservations about it, what i nocied from Lopetegui is that he likes to use duos in midfield. Even in a 433 scheme with spain or 4231, his midfield duo was Busquets-Koke/Thiago. Iniesta had more vertical freedom.

The signing of Courtois is one we can easily afford. 35 mil quoted in marca today. you pay it, you have your GK situation sorted for like 7-8 years. no brainer. Hazard i would suspect would be in the 120-150 mil range. again, i would do that first, and then figure our if neymar or Mbappe is obtainable to decide if the trigger must be pulled on Bale.

I understand and agree with you that no CF rumour is concerning, but we dont control transfers rumours. What i see from the club is that we are being quiet, because marca is not running up lists of players we are interested in every week. we were linked with Lewandowsky for a while and now nothing. Anyway, i am fairly sure that even if we sign Lewandowsky you guys are going to complain that he is not good enough, is not decisive in big games, etc... There is possibly no way to please you.

There was nothing wrong with our tactics. In fact, our tactics were conservative so it favored defending. The problem was the our entire front line decided to take an extended vacation... as did a couple midfielders and a defender or two... and we didn't actually show any form until January.

The big thing was our front line... we couldn't hit the side of a barn until January. What happened over and over again was that we were forced to take major risks at the end of games to try and win them (when we should have scored much earlier) and we got caught over and over again on counters late.

Ramos and Marcelo going kamikaze to end games cost us dearly in the early part of last season. Casemiro was absolutely awful so he couldn't cover at all.

Lewa would be great. WC talent. He has an awful personality and takes no ownership for failures... but who cares.

I really want Cavani though.

I love how hard cavani works or his goals, until i remember his first touch... UFF

He's a lethal scorer.  His goal totals for club since 2010

33, 33, 38, 25, 31, 25, 49 and 40

You can't get much better than that.  All his with Ibra and Neymar to deal with...

and then you watch his first touch...UFF

that's a killer in big games Sports, you know it. he played last year against us, he was useless.

Nobody makes more runs as a CF than Cavani... nobody. That's the key with possession football. You need that killer on top that can change pace on a dime and can go to goal. Villa and Torres for Spain, as an example. Mueller (on form) and Klose for Germany.

in La Liga, Cavani scores 30 in his sleep imo.