Summer Transfer Window 2025

Gibbs-White perchance?

Just realised Jota played 10 minutes against brentford, so if we loan him out, Sporting won't be able to sign him in January. That's a bit shit when he was supposedly hoping to push for a world cup place.

So if he goes on loan somewhere, it probably needs to be for the full year right? Somewhere hopefully he can get in the spotlight.

I agree that's the likely cause, but I don't agree that the choice is anything like as binary as you present it here. There are a lot of options between "all-out-defence-plus-extreme-pace-counter" and "tippy-tappy same as the rest" - indeed there were times during games even last season when we weren't playing the 30% possession 'anti-football' that fans of other clubs claimed. Nothing like.

More of a point, I think we have already seen the peak effectiveness of last season's default tactic - and (though I don't like the phrase "found out" and agree that fatigue played a large part in the tail-off in the Spring) the final few home games of last season plus Sunday's performance definitely illustrated that. It doesn't mean that we have to abandon it altogether; I wouldn't be astonished to see us employ a version of it away at Betis (or Arsenal for that matter) in the coming weeks. But it does mean that we need to evolve; to have a way of keeping the ball better, thus taking some pressure off the back 5, for example - or to have something up our sleeve that gives us a way to defeat teams that come to the CG and say "OK, you have the ball; show us what you can do with it, because we're quite comfy thanks".

As for "making coin through player development", we might all wish it otherwise, but for a club of our size & financial resources (particularly off-field stuff) we have zero choice. Making coin through player development is not the dirty phrase that you seem to think; it's our lifeblood. If we don't make money via selling a player or two each Summer, then we rapidly get into big trouble (see Leicester) - and much the best way to achieve that is to sell on a player at a profit (preferably a big profit) - which in turn means we have to take a punt sometimes.

I'd love it if we were still in a world where a (Viv, not Elliot!) Anderson or Woodcock stayed at their home-town club for several years (& even they moved on eventually), but those days are long, long gone. I am with you in somewhat mourning that fact, but it's still a fact - and it ain't changing any time soon.

For both reasons (evolving our tactical options to cope with higher-level competition AND developing players to 'make coin') we need to identify and sign promising young players with high potential for development. I would argue that Savona, McAtee, Hutchinson, Bakwa, Cunha, Cuiabano & Kalimuendo all represent that sort of signing to varying degrees. But the fact that they have room for development does not mean that they're no good now.

I am struggling to find much negative to say about our recruitment in the last few weeks. If Nuno doesn't like it much, then that's a problem - and a problem rather of his own making, I'm afraid.

Teams' approaches to playing us are partly going to be determined by what they want/expect from the games. As we rose up the league last season, we went from a team that half the league would have targetted to beat home and away to a team that most of the league would take a point at ours and few at the bottom would take a point at theirs.

It's not about getting found out, it's whether the way our opponents approached those games played to our strengths or our weaknesses.

I think it was after Brighton that I pointed out that our next run of home games actually suited us because Arsenal, Man City and Man United would all attack us and allow us to play how we wanted (7 points from those three). Whereas the next three - Everton, Brentford, Leicester would be teams that would be happy to just stop us from playing (1 point from those three).

We've had more than 50% possession in all three games this season. Partly that's because we've made a decision that we want to play more with the ball but also it's because our opponents are scared of what will happen if they play on the front foot and dominate possession. Our adaption is neccessary because there aren't going to be many games where we are going to be able to play the way we (mostly) played last season - Arsenal will be an exception.

Shocking news.

www.theguardian.com/football/2025/sep/02/marc-guehi-angy-with-crystal-palaces-decision-to-block-move-to-liverpool

I sympathise. But he'll get his move next season with a juicy signing fee and wages (injury permitting). I think he'll get over it.

Absolutely. We had a great plan, we implemented it brilliantly, as a result (and alongside remarkable fortune with injuries) we massively overperformed and people thought that was just normal rather than exceptional for the resources we had, so decided if anything maybe we underperformed after all.

Parish landed himself in a situation where he either had a pissed off (possibly resigned) manager and £35m or a pissed off captain with a declining value. I'm sure it's Marinakis's fault somehow.

Presumably because if Forest hadn't evilly manipulated UEFA into relegating them to the Conference then Guehi would have been happy to stay, so as long as we buy the primary Parrish narrative they are once again the victims of big bad Nottingham Forest and particularly that nasty Mr Marinakis.

They're prats for leaving it to this point. Parish accepted a late bid ... but had nobody lined up as a replacement? Guehi going there has been on the cards for weeks. They should have got someone in. Demonstrating yet again that Parish is totally incompetent.

Whilst I do think Parrish is a slippery fucker, who will deny all accountability for anything, he’s not incompetent in this case. It seems Glasner was going to quit if they didn’t have a replacement and the Igor transfer was hijacked by West Ham. If Glasner did quit, Parrish would be in big trouble, especially with the Holmesdale ultras who would sing nasty songs and even make a shit tifo.

They've known for months that Guehi was going, leaving everything until the last minute is utterly stupid. We knew we'd have to sell someone we didn't want to, we got it done early and got on with signing replacements. This is absolutely on Parrish.

Now what happens when Guehi does his cruciate as they crash out of the Conference?

Even more bed sheet tifos and extra-nasty songs?

The issue for Palace (and a few others) is that they perceive that the prices they will be quoted for players they want to buy will go up if they have a load of money burning a hole in their pockets. Hence all the brinkmanship. I’m not sure it’s an effective tactic.

I do feel sorry for Guehi, mainly because I have him in my fantasy side in expectation of him being sold to Liverpool. His defensive numbers will not look quite as good at Palace so he needs to score a few more thunderbastards.