(The not-so-temporary quite-official) Gooner Thread (Part 2)

Interesting time for him. On the one hand he's got the opportunity to play for one of England's truly great clubs and probably increase his wage massively, on the other, he'd be leaving a team that has just won the Premiership, also has CL next season and by all accounts, appears to have a team culture second to none. Can understand why he'd have second thoughts regardless of who came knocking. He's also Perma-first choice at LCFC. 

EDIT >>> appeared on Twitter 6 mins ago...if you trust Twitter. 

Those pics have already been shown to be fakes - it's Xhaka's photoshoot with the head photo-shopped.

As much as I'm keen on him to come to us now, it would be a heart-warming victory for sentiment were he to stay with Leicester. 

I figured it would be a fake...a pretty good fake mind. Not as good as this masterpiece though...

Now that everyone knows about the release clause he's probably waiting to see whether better offers come from other big clubs.

Apparently Mahrez' release clause is "suprisingly low". 

Perhaps this could be stalled because we're trying to nab both at once... now that would be awesome, albeit very very harsh on Leicester.

Also rumours that we're chasing Henrikh Mkhitaryan quite seriously now, some saying we're in talks with Dortmund already.

Who knows what to believe.

Aubameyang has pulled out of Gabon internationals to stay behind and talk deals.

The quote from the Gabon coach

I'm personally not fussed either way with Vardy, would like to see someone more long term like Aubameyang, Lukaku, or Morata in the mix.

According to the Sun and the Mirror..

John Cross saying Vardy has decided to stay at Leicester. Promised us a decision on Monday but didn't make contact. Rather we get the answer either way now than have to wait until after the Euros leaving all our eggs in this basket.

Next...

Euro's will do one thing for the transfer window...push prices through the roof. 

For European players maybe, plenty of other places to buy from - Gabon for instance.

The two dortmund guys being chased awuobameiyannjg and mikrighithahtganayan (spelling may not be correct) are not at the euros or copa america so are probably ripe for the picking in the next few weeks

Almost all other targets will surely now not be signed until after the comps

Last year re-signed until 2020. Will be expensive if he does leave (if he goes to the EPL, British/club record transfer fee?)

60m?

EDIT: Di Maria to United seems to be the record at 59.7m pounds:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensi...

The list that keeps on giving though can you believe...

City paid $32m for Mangala? or $26m for Milner? or $49m for Sterling?

Liverpool paid $35m for Carroll? 

I've seen 65m quoted - will Arsenal stump up that kind of cash? Maybe even 65,000,001

Is he three times better than Vardy?

He can't be, he's not English. 

Yes: faster, younger, sexier.

I LOL'd... as a neutral, that Suarez deal was fudgeing funny at the time. 

So Vardy is now going to let us know after the Euros. City apparently about to sign Aubameyang while we have a guy from Leicester telling us he'll let us know in 5 weeks. Hopefully we have a plan B and move onto other targets rather than sit around twiddling our thumbs waiting with all our eggs in this basket only to eventually be told no on deadline day.

Guess he's waiting to see what other offers come in while hoping to raise his profile and boost his price further at the Euros. Think he's taking a big risk though with a good offer already on the table. Say he does his ACL or something at the Euros.

Let's not forget we haven't had a striker crack 20 goals since RvP in 2011/2012. You then have to go back to the Togolese Tool bagging 24 in 2007/2008.

This isn't some no name mug.

You'll find I've posted all those things in previous posts about him over the last few days. Maybe it's different in football but generally "I'll let you know in 5 weeks" doesn't usually fill you with hope of getting the answer you want. So I just hope we're still pursuing other options and not leaving our business in limbo until he gives us an answer. In the mean time Aubameyang to City sounds close and Chelsea are moving in on Morata. There may not be many other options left by the time he decides.

Arseblog reckons the issue is contract length - we're offering more money but only 3 years, whereas Leicester are offering 4.

Personally I wouldn't budge on that - contracting a guy until he's 33 when his game is built around pace, is not smart.

I'm with you AJC - if he didn't take this deal then I think we should move onto other targets. Personally I'd take the deal off the table until after the euros, and then offer it to him again if we haven't managed to sign one of our other targets. 

Also Libertynz, re: the Suarez bid, that was completely normal process, nothing funny about it. When a guy has a release clause in his contract, you offer one dollar more to trigger it, and then the club must give you rights to talk to him. Apparently that is what happens every time someone triggers a release clause. I think the difference here is that the americans in charge of Liverpool had never had that happen, so they saw a bid one dollar higher and thought it was some kind of joke. Although it seemed comical from the outside, there was nothing abnormal about it. Arsenal triggered the clause just like any other transfer like this across Europe, but Liverpool took the unprecedented step of choosing not to honour their agreed contract, and allow him to speak with us. Either Arsenal or Suarez could have taken court proceedings against them, and probably would have won given they broke their contracted agreement, but ultimately it would've been pointless to do that - it can take a year to get to court in these situations (from what I read), and be very expensive, so not worth it for either Arsenal or Suarez. And Suarez then signed a new deal anyway. 

To be honest I'm surprised that Liverpool came out of that without any damage, they really got away with one there. I'm also surprised it didn't prompt much talk about release clauses and how they can apparently be ignored by the club that has agreed and signed up to it. 

Oh I agree we need a plan b, I just wouldn't shut the guy down as 'some guy from Leicester'.

If those two targets end up where the rumours have them & United end up with Zlatan on a free, you still have Benzema, Higuian, Lacazette, Greizmann, Cavani, Batshuyai, Lukaku, Dybala, Icardi in the mixer.

You also have Chelsea, City, United, Real, and Barcelona not in the market for these guys, and to a lesser extent you wouldn't expect Bayern having a crack.

Meaning we're probably the most prestigous and well funded club to have a crack at the above targets.

Good points about strikers brumbys - a lot of the big clubs won't actually be in the market for them. Although I did read that City are going all out for Aubameyang. 

I wonder if we'd look at Reus or Draxler again? We seem to have been chasing those two for a few years now, and Wenger has been quoted at different times saying that Draxler has all the qualities of a striker, despite currently being a winger. Similar to Griezmann in that respect. 

I'd have to find it but I'm sure Suarez was quoted as saying Gerrard talked him out of talking to Arsenal. He told him to sign a new LFC contract and that he'd have his pick of Real or Barca the next season. Suarez's goal was always to end up in Spain from early in his pro-career in Uruguay so Stevie G knew what buttons to push. Agree that it was strange we basically just said GO AWAY GOONERS but everyone seemed to just let it go very quickly. 

Reus would be amazing. Imagine Reus & Sanchz wide of <insert shiny new striker here> with Ozil & Cazorla feeding them while Xaka flattens anyone who disposses them.

Yes that happened - but that was after we had triggered the clause, and after Suarez had publicly complained that his contract was not being honoured. Suarez was not a happy chappy initially, he was keen to come (at least he was at the time when we triggered the clause - may well have ended up staying after talking to Gerrard etc, as you say). 

Your owner Henry confirmed this himself - he said that they just said no, even though they technically weren't allowed to. It was in an interview in the US, will be online somewhere. 

Reason why it went away quietly is because Suarez was given a shiny big contract, some kind of promise that they wouldn't burn him next time his release clause is triggered, and Arsenal never kicked up a fuss. 

Ignoring my club for a second, I actually thought this was really awesome. The owners just said enough's enough, we don't want you going anywhere, for any price. Having been burned by Arsenal players regularly leaving, I admired the approach.

Problem is they shouldn't have given him a release clause then - that was pretty dishonest really. And Henry's smoking comment, deriding Arsenal, was pretty stupid and uncalled for. All we did was trigger the clause that they put in his contract, in the exact way that you are supposed to in those situations. Just showed a lack of understanding of footballing contracts to be fair, I suppose he would have been used to the way american sports contract their athletes, which is quite a bit different. 

The other signing we need to talk about is a CB. We have an aging pair of Kosc & Per, with a yet-to-be-solid Gabriel still in the mixer, and a yet-to-make it Chambers lurking too. I think an instant first teamer is needed, and a season on loan for Chambers before putting Per out to pasture end of next season.

Agree Brumbys. Kosc will have a few years left probably, but Per isn't too far from done. 

Strong rumours that Chambers is going on a year-long loan to Watford. 

We've been linked with the Napoli CB quite a bit. 

I definitely think we'll make a purchase there this window. 

Randomly came across this

Also

Dial square... i thought we were woolwich? isn't that what the rail road labourer is always going on about? ;)

Interesting that the red kit came from Forest.

LOL @ Togolese Tool!!