Alone in the Park - it's the Prem 2020-21 thread

Perhaps Skipp + £3 million could be the 2021 version of Josh Onomah + £3 million

Not fuckin likely, skipp is super

didn't think varane had that good a Euros, but if utd end up with him and Sancho that's not a bad summer.

Spurs to get Gollini on a loan/ buy arrangement like Lo Celso apparently.

Will be very interesting to see how long Lloris stays as first choice, if it happens.

Never heard of him but i vote 0 days

(lloris actually had a strong season imo but a bit is a bit)

the big story this morning

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-57899127

no names of course, but there is only one 31-year-old who plays for a Manchester-based PL club

Yes but it's an Everton player apparently (and just as easy to work out)

an Everton player, living in greater manchester?

So used to play for a Manchester club? OK, got you.

Everton have confirmed that a member of their squad is the subject of inquiries from authorities.

No details have been revealed regarding the player in question or the charges involved.

— Goal News (@GoalNews) July 20, 2021

Apparently this broke on the Everton forums last week.

chatter says gylfi

The other one fits the bill better.

The other one played for Everton on Saturday

Welcome to Goodison, Rafa!

chatter says [show hidden text]

― I have no couch and I must stream (NotEnough), Tuesday, 20 July 2021 12:01 (thirty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Innocent until proven

I know next to nothing about Bryan Gil but Spurs are obviously keen if they’ve offered €25m plus Lamela.

Looks disconcerting like an Indie-pop Gary Neville.

https://i.postimg.cc/wv4SVF5v/F4873-E18-6-E8-C-4000-9-EC9-50-C36-ABB06-BE.webp

it's Alex Turner in the I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor video, "don't believe the hype" etc.

That’s absolutely correct.

I heard a rumour that the new Spurs manager would be signing more bald-headed and bearded players if he had more of a say on club transfers

Bryan Gil a potential star in the making. Not going to go down well in Sevilla that he's being let go. Spurs landing a very, very exciting talent if reports hold true. Still raw and with lots to polish but he's easily top 5 most exciting young talents in Spain.

— David Cartlidge (@davidjaca) July 20, 2021

Truly believe there is only Pedri and Ansu ahead of Bryan Gil as it stands in terms of players in Spain who are young and of potential. He really is *that* good.

— David Cartlidge (@davidjaca) July 20, 2021

Nice to see some Everton content in the Spurs thread. It’s been a while.

Oh.

Ah well.

Wholesome Everton content:

Got a lot of time for Asmir Begovic’s wife announcing his signing by riding round on a horse in an Everton shirt pic.twitter.com/WMMXf6MoFp

— The Toffee Blues (@TheToffeeBlues) July 20, 2021

how old is that horse?

Neil Warnock carrying around signed pictures of himself in a bumbag is sensational. https://t.co/CLJfblnpP3

— Andy Ha (@AndyHa_) July 21, 2021

Reports Kane is set for City but also

✍️ We are delighted to announce that Heung-Min Son has signed a new four-year contract with the Club, which will run until 2025.

— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) July 23, 2021

£160m seems a good price, if accurate.

courtesy of the Sun's showbiz reporter apparently

Harry Kane told of his joy at his pending #ManCity move while best man at his brother’s wedding. Elder sibling Charlie is the England captain’s agent and the good news was shared with family and friends at last Sunday’s nuptials.

[@clemmiemoodie / Exclusive] https://t.co/vKGpxbD4RO

— City Xtra (@City_Xtra) July 22, 2021

£160m seems a good price, if accurate.

Looking forward to us buying the next Soldado, Paulinho and Chiriches

No one player, tbh

I believe less and less in harnessing an entire team to a talent clearly capable and hungry for success far beyond what we can achieve, sell high buy well and move on

That said the showbiz reporter of the sun is not a here we go level source tbf

When Man City won their appeal at CAS last summer to have their 2-year CL ban overturned, like most people I thought that would be the end of their FFP tribulations.

A shortish thread.

1/n

— Nick Harris (@sportingintel) July 24, 2021

Ripple or wave?

Gracias, agent @sergio_regui 😎

Welcome to Spurs, @11BryanGil! pic.twitter.com/S9782r48eI

— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) July 26, 2021

Looks like Varane to Utd is more or less wrapped up

Add a midfielder and that's a pretty decent summer

Breaking: Manchester City make £100million offer for Aston Villa captain Jack Grealish https://t.co/RmJaa5Ey0D

— John Percy (@JPercyTelegraph) July 30, 2021

Oof, Percy usually knows what he's talking about, gotta think that's it

The transfer has felt inevitable for some time but this will still break my heart a bit

Yeah there's a lot of rage on Villa Twitter at the moment but it seems more sadly inevitable now. Easy for me to say but I think Grealish has been as loyal as any player would be in the moneyball era

Not enough money imo

he'll obviously be good for them...but does he really suit Pep's system?

Messi aside, I can really think of a player like him who's thrived for a Guardiola team. Take someone like Bernardo Silva, who was a genuinely thrilling dribbler at Monaco but got turned into more of a hard-working cog once he moved to City

Pretty sure Grealish has the work ethic for that tbh, tho I doubted the necessity of him + Kane at one point. Centre Forward is the more pressing necessity for City obv

He’ll be amazing for them imo, he’s just too good not to be. the theoretical stuff about whether he’s well suited for a Guardiola team will fade into the background when he actually starts playing.

it’s always a bit of a mug’s game trying to argue over whether a particular player is “better” than another, you’re usually comparing apples and oranges and there’s too much room for semantic misunderstandings, wilful or accidental.

But I don’t really recall seeing anyone other than a few of the absolute elite able to do what he can do with a football, he may not be “better” but he is different and he is extraordinary and tbh there is a twisted part of me that kind of wants him to make the move and go to that level and show the idiot doubters what he’s capable of

Anyway don’t mind me I’ll just be over here weeping into my pillow

Also darragh otm re: price but truthfully he is priceless to Villa and if there is any truth to the rumours that £100m was the figure he and the board shook hands on last summer then fair enough really

Scumbag villa fans being negative about Grealish on social media can do one frankly, whether he stays or goes he is an eternal Villa icon and I hope he wins the trophies he’s after

Otm

Yeah.

I’m currently quite invested in Villa doing well (mostly because of the minuscule run-off of the Ollie Watkins add-ons that my lot get if he keeps doing the business and he needs Villa to be doing well, not a player to shine in a mis-firing team IMO) and as a result hope this works out for the best.

Sometimes a player as stand-out as Grealish can unbalance a team but that doesn’t seem to be the case with Grealish in the Villa team (does it?). I wonder why.

Possibly because he predates the rest of our 11 and has obviously been the future of the club since he broke into the team at age 19 or whatever it was. this team has been built around him and presumably at least to some extent the question when scouting talent has been “how would this player gel with Jack?”

With that said, and acknowledging that his sale would be a tremendous setback (lol such an inadequate way to describe the heart being ripped out of the club) I would still have pretty high hopes for villa over the next few years. For the money involved I don’t think we could’ve done much better than Buendia as a replacement for Grealish’s creativity and if the owners continue to be as willing as they have been to throw their financial weight around then the trajectory continues to look pretty good, certainly compared to a team like idk Everton, who are having a dreadful summer

Partly why I think villa fans being babies about city buying success need to check themselves, even more so than keeping Grealish the key to Villa’s future success lies in our owners continuing to stump up for sensible but exciting signings every summer

My main take is that I'm incredibly bored of City

Well yeah there is that of course. Does seem greedy to be signing Grealish when you’ve already got Foden, Sterling, Mahrez, Silva, Torres etc but what are you gonna do

I do sympathise to an extent with the Villa fans bemoaning this as the absolute death knell for any team outside the top tier really challenging for those positions ever again but that ship sailed a long time ago