2023 Summer transfers

Good knowledge.

Wilfred Ndidi does not excite me.

He's got talent and he's still fairly young, but the Leicester fans don't seem to rate him much.

Ndidi doesn’t.

Maybe: ghanasoccernet.com/ex-nigeria-star-amiesimaka-blames-nff-for-country-u17-age-cheating

Reading Foxestalk and it has me very nervous.

If you look here, it’s pretty clear why we would want him: fbref.com/en/players/6b47c5db/Wilfred-Ndidi

(9 and 10 on the similar players list are interesting.) Also if you look season-by-season, the supposed drop off isn’t there - he’s consistently been high for defensive stats.

Pfft. Those Foxtalk posts are only what we’d be saying about MGW or Danilo if someone was sniffing around. We only say nice things when someone wants to by Shelvey and Dennis.

Possibly depends on whether or not we sell Brennan. If he goes, we invest in Sangare or similar. If he stays, it’s the cheaper option in Ndidi. Maybe as backup for Santos.

Leicester fans are the least knowledgeable wankstains in football.

The thought of any player leaving their shitty club for their hated ‘rivals’ would only ever lead to the conclusion they are shit.

Why do we always do this? (I’m looking at you, Russ). We’re “linked with” a player and immediately go onto the fans’ forums of the team he’s supposedly leaving, and then act all worried when they aren’t positive about the player.

Clubs in our position very, very rarely lure prized possessions away - by all accounts we have been trying to get Ibrahim Sangare for 3 windows and, though presumably there must have been at least some encouragement since we haven’t yet given up, he still ain’t here. Since he is a lynchpin at PSV, a team who are still in with a good shout of playing in this season’s Champions League (assuming they win their home leg vs Rangers), that’s not surprising.

So, while I applaud Mr Marinakis’ ambition in seeking to sign top quality, it’s likely that - for now at least - we will fail more often than we succeed when aiming high.

So we go to players lower down the list, which is presumably where Ndidi comes in. The stats seem to show that he would be a significant upgrade on what we have, whatever a few disgruntled Borgmongs might say.

Fans rarely say nice things about players who are leaving. Young homegrown starlet who has outgrown them when they need the money (e.g. Brennan), yes; faithful old lag who has started to decline below current level but could still offer things lower down (e.g. Jack Colback, Steve Cook), yes. Most other players, no… especially when they might be signing for a local rival.

I have no idea whether we are really in for Ndidi or not - the Marinakis regime have generally been very good at keeping things quiet, and the supposed source for this is Talksport…. If we do, then the evidence is that he will be a significant step up from Remo Freuler, and we have to trust that our scouting/analysis people aren’t total muppets (& that Leicester Webmongs possibly are).

How many Spurs fans - indeed, fans of any English club who’d seen him play - would have said positive things about Serge Aurier? He was seen pretty much as a bad joke… but he has largely been excellent for us. Who had their socks blown off by the signing of Willy Boly? We were told by Wolves fans that he was past it, but he’s been good (sometimes, as at the weekend, more than good).

Different manager, different system, change of environment, different team mates… there are a squillion reasons why a superficially poor transfer can turn out well, or vice Verda.

But for duck’s sake stop plunging yourself into gloom based on the biased opinions of sone bitter Lestoh folk.

If he comes, we can judge Ndidi on his performances for us. Full stop.

God I hate the final few days of the transfer window, when fans whip themselves into an orgy of rumour and bollocks at the slightest opportunity.

Wolves fan I spoke to loved Boly and couldn't understand why he wasn't in their shit team and why they would sell him for only 2M.

By way of further conjecture, Bayern Munich and Tuchel also want Ndidi on loan so it is said. If that's true he must be doing something right. I suspect the real issue is fitness and whether he can ever get back to the levels he was at 2 years ago, a bit like it may be with Hudson-Odoi. It may not be a bad strategy to try and get highly talented players at undervalue who have those question marks about them, if they are young enough and the medical view supports a conclusion that they might get back to peak fitness. Everyone we sign gets injured anyway, even the fit ones
If we were signing Ndidi and CHO in 2021 we would probably be looking at (significantly?)north of 100M for the pair in fees alone.

Both CHO and Ndidi were excellent prior to getting injured. Then came back into struggling and unsettled sides. I don’t think CHO did much at Leverkusen but I’m not an avid Bundesliga observer. For Ndidi, loan with obligation to buy seems like the best deal if we can’t figure out whether he’s not been able to find form in a crap side post-injury or he’s genuinely not the player he was 2 years ago. Or both. I had not seen a Bayern Munich rumour.….”it is said” doesn’t cut it for me. If there’s a genuine source, please go ahead

Loan with OPTION to buy would be best in that case wouldn't it?

The question is, if they don't work out, do we have enough to stay up comfortably sans Brennan? With the state of Luton, SheffU, Wolves, Everton...maybe we do?