MTO, I hope Ceballos makes it as a good player, but he won't end up at Madrid no matter how he finishes the season. He is looking for a club that will play him in a role that he is comfortable with as he wants to be on both seleccion for Euros next summer and Olympics. And seleccion is were he has consistently played well as their style of play is what he plays well and is comfortable with. The clubs showing interest, not surprisingly are in la liga, both Betis and Valencia. The question for the club is do they cash in now in a income starved year with a sale or do they wait and agree to another loan deal.

btw, I'm waiting to hear about sales of other loanees that won't ever make it such as Mayoral and Vallejo. This should be the year to shed not needed assets.

As far as players on first team, only James and Mariano are possibilities IMO. We all would like something done about Bale but as Nick has posted earlier the chances of him gone in near future are slim and none.

question: Are they any players on loan that should be retained (i.e a reasonable hope they can make it to 1st team at some point, other than Odegaard?

The only one I can think of is maybe Lunin (although from what I've seen at Oviedo (a team near bottom of segunda A), it's only a long range possibility.

james has been a total waste of 80 plus million euros, he definitely fits the bill as a bust. i'd have rather we had just paid di maria what he was asking for. hope we never use the world cup euphoria as the yardstick of measurement to sign players. cos i bet that's what convinced the higher ups to make that move

I hope we have indeed, he has been a bigger flop than Bale. Now he is crying in the medias about being sad because he doesn't play etc... He should ask his agent to find him a new club not named Atletico otherwise he will spend another year sitting on the bench.

titosantill wrote:james has been a total waste of 80 plus million euros, he definitely fits the bill as a bust. i'd have rather we had just paid di maria what he was asking for. hope we never use the world cup euphoria as the yardstick of measurement to sign players. cos i bet that's what convinced the higher ups to make that move

Ozil and Khedira were good buys

AS has never been a reliable source so there's a very good chance their article is BS and none of it holds any truth to it. But I still think it's worth sharing here. If Marca publishes a similar claim then we can start taking it seriously, I guess.

Anyway, according to AS, the board of directors will meet this afternoon to approve the club's accounts for last season and set the budget for this season, which they claim is a little over €600 million.

[Source]

The budget will be announced in a few hours. Marca didn't say how much but they stated that it'll be cut by 200m:

Marca wrote:The budget that will be announced in the next few hours will be cut by 200 million euros, as announced by MARCA. Real Madrid are not going to make the mistake of launching offensives for top players without first looking at the numbers. They are not going to ruin what has been done in the last nine months.

[Source]

What has been done in the last 9 months? Covid? Oh, please do not ruin that

DoC, any budget forecasted now is subject to revision once Covid recovery is reliably predicable (in terms of finances) and a much awaited (likely post covid) stadium sponsorship deal.

This club is much more conservative re covid financial impact than most other clubs and businesses. And generally speaking Media and most fans have no idea about Covid financial impact.

I also think there is an impact on player performances (generally speaking) playing with empty stadiums.

Empty stadiums affect all teams, and we were poor when our stadium was filled with people as well.

In other news, Pogba is once again telling the media that he wants a move to Real Madrid. He thinks the France NT is more like a family than the Man United squad. Great announcement for team morale, class act.

Thimmy wrote:Empty stadiums affect all teams, and we were poor when our stadium was filled with people as well.

In other news, Pogba is once again telling the media that he wants a move to Real Madrid. He thinks the France NT is more like a family than the Man United squad. Great announcement for team morale, class act.

Hey Thimmy, has your tongue got stuck in your cheek again!

According to Marca and (originally) Bild, Zidane is interested in Salzburg's midfielder Szoboszlai. They claim he phoned him a few days ago to try and convince to sign for Madrid. Apparently, he sees him as the ideal replacement for Isco who will most likely leave at the end of the season.

I have no idea how good this guy is, I haven't watched Salzburg at all this season, so I would really appreciate any feedback about him.

Isco is planning to leave in January!

But not to worry, Sports is again peddling Pogba saying he will come next summer for cheap?

That's the mystery surrounding Pogba. It doesn't matter how bad he sucks, you'll always have someone championing him.

I was glad when I heard that United had triggered the clause to extend his contract until 2022. Let's hope that either he will have signed for another club or Zidane has left the club by then cause I really can't stand the idea of having that overrated piece of crap at Madrid. Not to mention his unbelievably annoying agent.

Zidane+Pogba to PSG - Tuchel to Man United - Mbappe+new manager to Real Madrid.

I'm not counting on it actually happening, but it's not too farfetched a scenario.

The Demon of Carthage wrote:According to Marca and (originally) Bild, Zidane is interested in Salzburg's midfielder Szoboszlai. They claim he phoned him a few days ago to try and convince to sign for Madrid. Apparently, he sees him as the ideal replacement for Isco who will most likely leave at the end of the season.

I have no idea how good this guy is, I haven't watched Salzburg at all this season, so I would really appreciate any feedback about him.

He looked very bright on the few occasions that I watched him in 2019. He had really good chemistry with Haaland, and I got the impression that he didn't receive as much credit as he deserved for impacting team results. He's relatively tall, hard-working, and technically proficient. I haven't seen him enough to tell you whether he seems like the real deal or not, but apparently he's become even better since then.

He seems to be more direct than Isco, and he's without a shred of doubt, more hard-working. They're different types of players. Szoboszlai probably matches what we need, to a greater extent than what Isco does. Then again, there's also a chance that playing for us might make him less direct in his style of play than what he currently is. It's easier said than done, to take the initiative to force the ball forward, when everyone around you are comfortable with passing it backways and sideways

Thimmy wrote:He looked very bright on the few occasions that I watched him in 2019. He had really good chemistry with Haaland, and I got the impression that he didn't receive as much credit as he deserved for impacting team results. He's relatively tall, hard-working, and technically proficient. I haven't seen him enough to tell you whether he seems like the real deal or not, but apparently he's become even better since then.

He seems to be more direct than Isco, and he's without a shred of doubt, more hard-working. They're different types of players. Szoboszlai probably matches what we need, to a greater extent than what Isco does. Then again, there's also a chance that playing for us might make him less direct in his style of play than what he currently is. It's easier said than done, to take the initiative to force the ball forward, when everyone around you are comfortable with passing it backways and sideways

You had me at "He had really good chemistry with Haaland"

I hope we get him then. Isco is clearly no longer motivated and he looks like the shadow of his former self. At this point, there's really no need for him to stay and I completely respect his decision to leave.

Wish him all the best. Will never forget his amazing contributions to the 3-peat.

I’ve got more bad news for you DoC.

Not inly do we have Sports pushing Pogba again, it turns out Haaland’s agent is none other than the same Raiola!

And he has already begun his nonsense. He has told Laporte (who is trying to regain Barca presidency) that he can have Haaland for only 60M provided he agrees on an addition 20M for the fat pig!

Absolutely shameless. He’s 10 times worse than Mendes.

Flo has his work cut out for himself. Mbappe is reported open to negotiating for a renewal with PsG plus Having to deal with Raiola for Haaland. Plus there is sure to be heavy competition for both. I just hope it’s only the one client of fat pig that we are interested in.

Yes, he must be one heck of an agent to have all those important clients. Still, that doesn't make me dislike him any less. But I figured, Haaland is too good of a talent to pass up on, even with Raiola as his agent.

I'm willing to sit at the negotiation table with him over Haaland, but not Pogba. uh oh.

Yeah, I’d much rather see Zidane leave than watch us attempt to build the team around Pogba. Just the thought of it gives me a headache.

As for Raiola, he seems to be popular among top players due to his contact network, and being so proficient at securing moves to a player’s favored destination, that he can throw in a huge manager’s fee in the process and still get his way. I suppose being a talented agent is similar to being a talented lawyer.

Szobozlai or whatever is he an attacking midfielder? I would argue that we would need at least 1 AM in the squad, but should we consider Odegaard an AM?RW?CM? Having 2 AM's in the squad is just going to give us the same issues we had with James and Isco

I would argue that Rodrigo, Asensio are also primarily AM and not sure if Hazard is an AM or a lW! Plus Kubo is also of the same mould.

I still think our midfield next season will be Casemiro, Kroos, Valverde, Odegaard, Camavinga

I actually would like that transfer just for the irony of Neymar leaving Barcelona.

Thimmy wrote:

The Demon of Carthage wrote:According to Marca and (originally) Bild, Zidane is interested in Salzburg's midfielder Szoboszlai. They claim he phoned him a few days ago to try and convince to sign for Madrid. Apparently, he sees him as the ideal replacement for Isco who will most likely leave at the end of the season.

I have no idea how good this guy is, I haven't watched Salzburg at all this season, so I would really appreciate any feedback about him.

He looked very bright on the few occasions that I watched him in 2019. He had really good chemistry with Haaland, and I got the impression that he didn't receive as much credit as he deserved for impacting team results. He's relatively tall, hard-working, and technically proficient. I haven't seen him enough to tell you whether he seems like the real deal or not, but apparently he's become even better since then.

He seems to be more direct than Isco, and he's without a shred of doubt, more hard-working. They're different types of players. Szoboszlai probably matches what we need, to a greater extent than what Isco does. Then again, there's also a chance that playing for us might make him less direct in his style of play than what he currently is. It's easier said than done, to take the initiative to force the ball forward, when everyone around you are comfortable with passing it backways and sideways

The kid looks good on highlights.

It's the type of players the team needs.

High footballing IQ but can attack and beat players.

The team is sorely missing someone who scares defenders. Teams are too comfortable when they face Real.