Johnstone is much better than Turner or Vlach.
That's the kind of data I needed. Johnstone > Turner | Shakadimos
Don't get your hopes up. This is the same data source that insisted that Vlach was definitely better than Turner. Hopefully soon we will have the choice of Johnstone on the treatment table, Turner, Vlach, or the others that we already know are useless.
I still miss the lunatic.
Rob Dorsett says that Johnstone doesn't particularly want to leave but does want regular football in the run up to the Euros, and we can probably get him for 12-15M but we have to sell Mangala first to fund it.
Plettenberg says there is a 15-20M option to buy.
Mangala deal agreed between clubs and just finalising personals, according to Romano. I'm not as broken up about this as some - he's a tidy player but nothing special, and we have better players ahead of him.
I thought he was tidy but a good deal to get £ in.
Why would you think that? We've signed a few young players in the 18-20 age range the last 3 years and they've largely been pretty good - Murillo, Danilo, Omobamidele, even Aguilera is starting to look pretty promising. I really don't understand this complete obsession with Mendes that fans seem to have, or the belief that somehow he's foisting shit onto us that won't be any good. Is it some kind of deep seated and unresolved Carvalho trauma?
Am I missing folks? With him gone midfield is from Sangare, Yates, Danilo, Dominguez, Kouyate and MGW.
I agree the money we are getting is good given our issues, but I think he is pretty high up the above list.
I think I probably like all of those players bar Kouyate more than I do Mangala, or at least have higher hopes for them.
MGW isn't a positional competitor. Eliminating those I don't fancy that leaves three (for two places). On current form I make him ahead of all three. Two of them can be better. One is a fundamental c(l)og. He brings slightly different, but would be in my current first choice eleven.
Would be interesting to really know if him being unsettled is real, or part of the dark back channel briefings that the club appears to use to manage perception of events.
I also wonder if the Mangala deal is as seen as potentially helpful currency for the lawyers in arguing against the FFP breach, i.e. 'look, we're taking this seriously and here's another £15m of profit on a player departure we would have turned down'.
I know nowhere near enough about the process or our defence to understand if it would make an iota or difference, however.
Whether it helps our current case or not, we definitely need to be complaint for 21-24 and as far under the threshold as reasonable.
I don't believe that the commission will take into account any behaviour in the current accounting period. That will only become pertinent in a potential referral for any subsequent breach.
Kouyate out of contract in June, so unlikely to be here after the summer
(as are Hennessey, Arter(!), Aurier, Boly, Felipe and Aina, plus the loanees (Origi, Montiel, Tavares)).
Of the current crop, I'd have Mangala and Yates behind MGW, with Domingues as back-up. Sangare may make that position his own in the future, but a long way off for now.
Danilo, like Murillo, is living off past glories (just as Turner can do no right, they can do no wrong).My guess is that without a settled place in the side, a move that guarantees him starting for the rest of the season is pretty attractive to help his chances of being selected for the Euros.
