How Much Better Can We Get? - The Transfers, Rumors & Lies Thread

Agreed, the players that want to come to Madrid do so

I think we will be fine, at this point i trust the ones making the decisions, Eder looked good in the Copa, it would be great to have a new CB but not having one is not the end of the world for us, most thought going into the season without a worthy 9 last season was a terrible strategy too.......

i won't be panicking, also, the transfer window is still open and i'm the furthest away from believing in social media messages that are not from the club, Yoro may or may not be the best young CB out there but he certainly won't be the only young CB with some quality available, i trust our scouting team, they normally do a decent job

 

We need a CB. Tchouameni is not a center back and should only play there if there was an injury crisis. I think Marin sale was not the wisest decision, and should have only been finalized once Yoro was signed.

 

I know you are proud of Joselu. Thankfully he contributed admirably for 1 season as a loan band-aid before the club decided to upgrade and we got enough goals from everyone else.

But that doesn't mean every decision the club makes is the correct one. The front office deserves our trust obviously with the amount of success they have delivered.

However, you're telling me you're happy with Militao, Rudiger, Vallejo and a torn acl Alaba to go into a season with potentially the most games ever played in the history of the sport with a new CL format and Club World Cup?

Not panicking just yet as the window is open for another month and a half, but I find it hard to agree with the strategy if we stay with the CB group as is.

 

It’s predictable that we won’t go for a CB. Tchoumeni will be the 3rd/4th option.

We have a logjam of attacking/mf players, and everyone is going to need minutes. Slotting Tchoumeni there from time to time resolves that problem.

I don’t agree with that approach but this philosophy isn’t new for us.

 

So, Yoro or relegation, we currently have 4 CB's, 3 of which are proven at the highest level, Yoro is better than all of them?, who's watched Yoro for 90 mins, especially vs top class opposition seeing as the French league is the supposed "farmers" league when fans feel like diminishing it, is he the saviour, Yoro or no one? meh.

 

Hes a left footed Militao. Complete CB but not worldclass positional sense, so would be better partnered with a sweeper like Rudiger than a chaser like Militao. I actually like Pacho more. Cheaper and much more in the Rudiger mold. Not as good aerially as Hincapie but a better marker. I can see him as Rudiger's heir.

 

Tchouameni was the emergency 5th CB going into the season last year. We lost 2 players to season-long injuries. As it stands now, he becomes the 3rd option when the season starts. That's not the same approach, that's an indication that we want to convert him practically full time. What happens if we lose 1 or 2 players to injuries this year?

 

I'll ignore the CB issue and look at this from a different perspective.

We're entering the post-Kroos midfield era. Sad to think about but the time has arrived. We tried to get the Next Gen midfield up and going last year, it's how we lined up the first two or three games of the season, and it wasn't the prettiest thing in the world but growing pains were to be expected. Eventually Kroos got back in the lineup, played exceptionally well, and I don't think we saw Jude-Cama-Tchou-Fede again the rest of the season.

Kroos is gone now, and the expectations are that Tchou is going to be tasked with more ball playing duties. Expected to do more of the distribution than before. Obviously not to Kroos levels but that's to be expected. For me, that means Tchou needs a lot of minutes being able to focus on playing his position, his preferred role, the one that best enables him to do that. He's not playing the role of distributor from CB, of course he can play long balls from there if he wants, we know Rudi also can play long balls (though he did more of this with Chelsea than he does now), but it's not a priority there and besides angles and shapes are completely different. If we're going to expect Tchou to grow into that role, he needs to be given the chance to focus on playing that position. Playing him at CB in a pinch is one thing, having a situation where he's going to be regularly expected to play at CB is quite another. I feel like that could do just as much harm to his development as progress...positional flexibility is a nice thing to have (except for when it enables managers to play you at your less-preferred position, lol) but if it limits his growth as a #6 then I don't find that to be a good trade-off.

 

You're right, Yoro is shit. We should probably have Mbappe play CB.

 

See, with Hincapié I've been wondering more about him potentially as a post-Mendy LB given that he's played LCB under Xabi. It's been a little while now since I saw Leverkusen so my memory is a little foggy, obviously he wasn't the most forward of players with Grimaldo playing out wide on that flank although I thought there were some games that he did play wingback too.

I've said a few times that, given our general glut of left-sided attacking talent, we don't need LB to be a terribly offensive position. Having Mendy's defensive prowess there brings good balance. So if Hincapié wasn't much of an attack-minded fullback, that's fine with me. Still more I want to see this season, hopefully with more regular starting chances than he had last year. He kinda broke into the lineup as the season went along but overall he didn't play as many minutes as you might expect.

 

We spend like that when it comes to everyone besides Florentino's "goals".

It is just who we are and we have had quite a bit success in this even if at time we don't get our guy.

We got Rudigier, Alaba, Camavinga, Jude, Tchouameni, etc.. all with a version of this method. Even Mbappe ended up here for free with a version of this method.

In the end the pull of the club... meaning THE CLUB has to be bigger for the player than the club's desire to get the player and the player has to sacrifice and be stubborn about get to THE CLUB.

If Yoro was he would have to wait a year (because apparently we weren't willing to pay €60M, which is absolutely foolishness btw) and his willingness would have helped us force Lille to lower their demands.

He wasn't and we aren't willing to do something stupid.

 

Agreed. It makes no sense as we paid MF prices for his transfer. I’m optimistic that we will find a Joselu type deal for a CB.

 

However, you're telling me you're happy with Militao, Rudiger, Vallejo and a torn acl Alaba to go into a season with potentially the most games ever played in the history of the sport with a new CL format and Club World Cup?
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I would not be happy but i wouldn't register it as a disaster before we play any football, my view is it would be great to have a new CB, but Yoro cannot be the only quality young CB out there, the window is not yet closed, i trust our recruiting team, and right now i trust the club, also i trust Toni, David and Eder, before any young CB that might turn up as i know already what they can do for us,

I don't generally believe social media posts that are not from the club, so i'm not buying into the idea that we will not be recruiting any CB until it is officially deemed so, we also have many young CB's that already play for us and no one really knows if it's possible for any of them to step up if needed, many variables at this point, it's a forum so we can all discuss, i am just saying what i think like all others

 

What happens if we don't and Carlo plays Rudigier and Militao most of the time till Alaba returns and plays when they don't?

We don't have to look at the worst scenarios.

Last season in the summer everyone was saying we needed a bigger better striker and we wouldn't score goals and laughed at the addition of only Joselu....

Then we won the CL and La Liga.

 

Agree, there's something to be said about Tchou playing as much as possible in his preferred role, as a defensive / deep-lying midfielder, particularly now that Kroos has left.

To be honest, I'm not convinced by the reports that we won't buy a new CB. This could be an intentional message put out by the club, in order to prevent us looking desperate in the pursuit of a CB. Madrid always likes to have the upper hand in most transfer negotiations, and given that we still have 6 weeks of the transfer window left, I wouldn't rule out an incoming CB, even if it's a Joselu type of deal.

 

Agreed. He needs time at the role we signed him for. I still think he’s a fantastic player despite what some think about him.

Compatibility is an odd thing. Some players don’t play as well with some others for some reason. I’m optimistic that with Kroos gone, he can show some of his strengths.

 

From Yoro’s perspective, he’ll get paid more at United, gets to start for them immediately unlike starting as the fourth choice CB with us, is at a large club with a large media pull. You can understand the angles.

If he wants to play with, and learn from the best, he knows where it’s at, but his pockets in the short term won’t fill up as quickly. Simple.

 

How long until Alaba is expected to be ready? That part is not clear to me.

Personally I’m not writing off Alaba or diminishing Militao. If they’re all fully fit a Rudiger-Alaba-Militao rotation is satisfactory even if less than ideal.

I guess where I stand re Yoro is that €60m+ with a year left on his deal is foolishness as @YOUNGSTARS87 says.

But I would’ve expected us to come up closer to 35-45m if we were serious about the player. Not really fair to an 18yo to ask him to hold out a year at substantial risk if we’re not willing to play ball ourselves.

Can’t get em all. There’s probably more to the story and I trust the club on this.

 

Thank you for your view, i don't share it, have you watched 90mins of Yoro in the "farmers" league? i bet you haven't but you trust the club in going after him, so, trust the club sometimes but not others....
And no i don't recall how many times David wanted to blame others for mistakes, all players make mistakes even the ones you like, however, i do know before he got injured that he was part of the best defensive start this team has had in years so, there's that.....

 

Nacho has been our 4th centerback for a long time and has played 2,500-3,000 minutes every season for a decade with the exception of 19/20.

Without going into worst case scenario's, at the least we are going to need a 3rd centerback to play those minutes and more. I'm personally not comfortable expecting that out of Alaba immediately upon his return whenever that may be.

Any realistic scenario as the squad stands right now would demand Tchouameni to play at least 1,500 minutes there if not more. That's a conservative estimate.

 

What? Yoro snubbed us? Snubbed Don Flo Corleone? I thought that was impossible!

And for that shithole irrelevant club? I thought NOBODY wanted to join them!

I need a safe space immediately. I can't breathe!

 

Man Utd offered 62me and 8me in add-ons.

Lille wanted us to match that.

Absolutely bonkers for someone in his last year of his contract. I’m glad the club didn’t cave in and do the business.