Winter Silly Season Transfer Thread 2025/2026

[General]

Hate to be a ball breaker - but is Oscar Bobb actually that good? People seem to be getting very excited, but given we paid similar fees for Sander Berge, Andersen, ESR and others, it seems like quite a risk for a player who, whilst young and has shown promise, still hasn't really performed and is now 22! Compare that to what Sessegnon, or even Kevin have achieved by a similar age, and it doesn't really seem like he'll be the answer to our problems and will take time to settle in and prove himself. I trust Marco is the man to get him to the next levels, but it will take time and Marco isn't committed beyond this season yet.

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/oscar-bobb/leistungsdaten/spieler/661207/plus/0?saison=ges


Compare Bobb's stats to Kevin's

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/kevin/leistungsdaten/spieler/900195/plus/0?saison=ges

And Kevin is the better player, perhaps by a considerable amount (Kevin only just turned 23 in Jan and Bobb is 22).

[hopper]

Reported by BBC as well:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cly5ep60ypro

It's gathering a lot of steam

[IloveFFC]

https://x.com/FabrizioRomano/status/2015791433777561838

[bencher]

Hate to be a ball breaker - but is Oscar Bobb actually that good? People seem to be getting very excited, but given we paid similar fees for Sander Berge, Andersen, ESR and others, it seems like quite a risk for a player who, whilst young and has shown promise, still hasn't really performed and is now 22! Compare that to what Sessegnon, or even Kevin have achieved by a similar age, and it doesn't really seem like he'll be the answer to our problems and will take time to settle in and prove himself. I trust Marco is the man to get him to the next levels, but it will take time and Marco isn't committed beyond this season yet.

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/oscar-bobb/leistungsdaten/spieler/661207/plus/0?saison=ges


Compare Bobb's stats to Kevin's

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/kevin/leistungsdaten/spieler/900195/plus/0?saison=ges

And Kevin is the better player, perhaps by a considerable amount (Kevin only just turned 23 in Jan and Bobb is 22).

The golden rule is, if he signs for someone else our board are useless and he's G-d's gift to football, if he signs for us, he's a dud.

[Rambler]

Happy for him to come. Hope it's not £35mil spent on a position where cover is adequate leaving 0 available for more pressing positions (CM, RB, striker)

[jayffc]

Hate to be a ball breaker - but is Oscar Bobb actually that good? People seem to be getting very excited, but given we paid similar fees for Sander Berge, Andersen, ESR and others, it seems like quite a risk for a player who, whilst young and has shown promise, still hasn't really performed and is now 22! Compare that to what Sessegnon, or even Kevin have achieved by a similar age, and it doesn't really seem like he'll be the answer to our problems and will take time to settle in and prove himself. I trust Marco is the man to get him to the next levels, but it will take time and Marco isn't committed beyond this season yet.

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/oscar-bobb/leistungsdaten/spieler/661207/plus/0?saison=ges


Compare Bobb's stats to Kevin's

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/kevin/leistungsdaten/spieler/900195/plus/0?saison=ges

And Kevin is the better player, perhaps by a considerable amount (Kevin only just turned 23 in Jan and Bobb is 22).

From the eye test yes from the core g/a stats no. He's struggled a bit this year coming back from a serious injury, but when you watch him play it's clear the raw quality he has. But he isn't getting the consistant minutes to develop. Many such cases. If he'd been at a club like Shaktar I'm confident he'd similarly have had much better core stats, as he'd have played more minutes and have been in a weaker league.

He's a player who has all the raw attributes but needs regular minutes and good man management. He'll get that here. Ask man city fans about his break through, many had him in a similar bracket to cole palmer before his injury. Now coming back from that injury, His careers stalled behind amazing players like semenyo and cherki making it even harder to get in the team to find his feet again, but there are many such cases.

Marco isn't commited beyond this year, yet.

But if we sign Bobb, Pepi a possibly a CM spending around 100m ,you'd think it likely he does tbh

[jayffc]

Happy for him to come. Hope it's not £35mil spent on a position where cover is adequate leaving 0 available for more pressing positions (CM, RB, striker)

The cover isn't adequate if we sell Adama. Wed be a winger short.

Were already linked heavily to pepi at a similar price. And plenty of rumours to Sara/Atta and other CMs so nothing suggests its one or the other.

[Hatch007]

@General
If you're underwhelmed with the potential signing of Bobb, what profile of winger would you like to see the club sign and how much do you think the market rate is in the January window for a player with your ideal profile?

[St Eve]

Calm down everybody. Deal close but apparently even though speaking to Bobb we haven't even put a bid on the table.

Is that correct? I read that we had submitted a bid

[SerbianLad]

Happy for him to come. Hope it's not £35mil spent on a position where cover is adequate leaving 0 available for more pressing positions (CM, RB, striker)

CM- I absolutely agree with, but how is RB and ST more pressing than a winger, considering the fact that Marco confirmed Adama is leaving. We have Tete and Castagne at RB, Tete is easily one of the best players in the league in his position and Castagne is a starting fullback for a top national team in Belgium. We have Muniz and Raul as strikers, both of which are more than good enough to be starters and we also have a young talent in JKA. We only play with one striker. Once Adama leaves, we don't have as much depth there, as Marco sometimes plays Iwobi or Wilson in the middle.

[General]

@General
If you're underwhelmed with the potential signing of Bobb, what profile of winger would you like to see the club sign and how much do you think the market rate is in the January window for a player with your ideal profile?

No idea, haven't gone that far tbh - I'm not saying Bobb doesn't have potential, he's played a few times for City's senior team and has shown glimpses.. but £25m-£35m as quoted seems particularly steep for a player who's hardly played.

What I'm saying more is that the world has a huge amount of footballers, clubs in the PL and all top leagues in Europe and wider, find skillful players and don't have as such a significant outlay (if those prices are being correct).

My example is that ESR, Berge, Raul, Adama, Wilson, Andersen, Leno - all were bought for a similar or much lower fee than that potentially commanded for Bobb, yet all without exception had proven much more in the game despite the lower fee.

If you think we got Wilson for £12m, Traore for free, Andersen from a rival and who was Captain of Palace and an international for Denmark for £30m, who we knew could play and produce at PL level..

It seems like a significant risk to bring in a 22 yr old player for up t £35m when he's hardly done anything of note.

My main point lies at the fact that it seems silly to constantly suggest value is associated only with monetary value, we all know it's not.

Robinson - £2.5m, Cairney £3m, Tete £3m.

I get these are potentially top youth prospects in Europe in Kevin and Bobb, but Bobb in particular has a long way to go (Kevin still room for improvement too obviously).. and I'm just wondering if it's a genuine sign of ambition or just throwing cash at obvious solutions and paying a premium.

Antoine Semenyo cost Bournemouth £10m - Guehi joined Palace for £18m, Trossard joined Arsenal for £20m rising to £27m if certain performance related add-ons were included, N'golo Kante cost Leicester City for £5.6m, Cucurella joined Brighton for £15.4m etc, Kerkez signed for Bournemouth for £18m, Huijsen joined Bournemouth for £12.6m before going to Real 12 months later for £50m.

There are better value for money gems out there and it'd be nice to see the club mix it up a little from time to time, that's all.

[demeant0r]

If we get Bobb - do people think that this means Harry will definitely not sign a new contract with us ?

Not necessarily. We have four players whose main position is winger at the moment: Kevin, Chuk, Harry and Adama. Adama is leaving which means we can bring in a right-sided winger, Chuk can player either side comfortably and so can Harry as well as playing AM. This leaves Kevin as a left-only winger and Bobb as a right-only winger.

Harry is also on top form at the moment so no-one is taking his position away from him.

Bobb is a left footed RW who has played a load of games at LW and AM in his early career (and even 20 odd games up top during academy days) . He's not RW only for what it's worth

Ah okay, then that versatility makes the 35m a bit more justified IMO. Then it definitely shouldn't worry Harry since all of our wingers (Transfermarkt is saying Kevin also played RW) are versatile and will get plenty game time.

[Fulham Tup North]

https://x.com/FulhamTransfer/status/2014819312884666567

If true surely we have an incoming

Without dismissing the possibility of a new arrival, I think the return of Chukwueze is enough for us to release Adama.

Spending £30 million on Bobb is likely to see the departure of Harry.

Thirty Million Pounds for a Shilling doesn't make economic sense to me.

Unless an Oscar is worth 600m, in which case 600m Shillings is £30m?
However, an actual 'Oscar' is only worth $1... and if you want to sell it, you must first offer it to the Academy... no-one is paying 600m for anything to an Academy 

[ArcticOctopus]

I get the sense that this is just where the market is at this point. Until PSR starts carrying some teeth (looking at you Man City) prices are just going to be extremely inflated.

[Deeping_white]

https://twitter.com/deanjonessoccer/status/2015811502457192553?

If Wilson stays and we sign Chucky permanently, we might have to update the Wilson, Mitrovic and Neeskens song...

[jayffc]

@General
If you're underwhelmed with the potential signing of Bobb, what profile of winger would you like to see the club sign and how much do you think the market rate is in the January window for a player with your ideal profile?

No idea, haven't gone that far tbh - I'm not saying Bobb doesn't have potential, he's played a few times for City's senior team and has shown glimpses.. but £25m-£35m as quoted seems particularly steep for a player who's hardly played.

What I'm saying more is that the world has a huge amount of footballers, clubs in the PL and all top leagues in Europe and wider, find skillful players and don't have as such a significant outlay (if those prices are being correct).

My example is that ESR, Berge, Raul, Adama, Wilson, Andersen, Leno - all were bought for a similar or much lower fee than that potentially commanded for Bobb, yet all without exception had proven much more in the game despite the lower fee.

If you think we got Wilson for £12m, Traore for free, Andersen from a rival and who was Captain of Palace and an international for Denmark for £30m, who we knew could play and produce at PL level..

It seems like a significant risk to bring in a 22 yr old player for up t £35m when he's hardly done anything of note.

My main point lies at the fact that it seems silly to constantly suggest value is associated only with monetary value, we all know it's not.

Robinson - £2.5m, Cairney £3m, Tete £3m.

I get these are potentially top youth prospects in Europe in Kevin and Bobb, but Bobb in particular has a long way to go (Kevin still room for improvement too obviously).. and I'm just wondering if it's a genuine sign of ambition or just throwing cash at obvious solutions and paying a premium.

Antoine Semenyo cost Bournemouth £10m - Guehi joined Palace for £18m, Trossard joined Arsenal for £20m rising to £27m if certain performance related add-ons were included, N'golo Kante cost Leicester City for £5.6m, Cucurella joined Brighton for £15.4m etc, Kerkez signed for Bournemouth for £18m, Huijsen joined Bournemouth for £12.6m before going to Real 12 months later for £50m.

There are better value for money gems out there and it'd be nice to see the club mix it up a little from time to time, that's all.

Perhaps, but I think you're underestimating how good he looked when he first broke into city's team pre injury. He looked like he could be the next superstar. Then he had a bad injury and fell down the pecking order.

As with various other players in our squad - we HAVE found loads of bargains aswell it's not that we exclusively sign people for 35m these days for the sake of it?

Our main striker was a cheap punt from Brazil, Bassey was an affordable buy from Ajax, Cuenca was a bargain who's every bit good enough to start in the premier league.

We also went the exciting gem "prospect" signing with JKA for potentially 12m, if we take the option, time will tell if it pays off. If it did you'd have people on other forums saying "why can't we find someone like that"

Inflation has gone insane the last few years so rates have become nuts period, but for all the semenyos and trossards there's many more randoms that came in and never achieved anything in the game here.

Bobb - if we can get him back to pre injury form and confidence is a lethal asset...but yes 35m is alot of money, that's the world these days. I'd assume if it's that amount though, that it would be inclusive of significant add-ons including European qualification and round advancements much like other players deals have been.

[Deeping_white]

https://twitter.com/plettigoal/status/2015810357315437045

[Volz]

I'm Norwegian but as you may have noticed (or not, since i don't post much) I never go out of my way to defend Norwegian players. I do watch the international matches through, and from what i have seen Bobb is only surpassed by Nusa and, of course, Haaland for Norway. He has a crazy high ceiling. As Jay says, prizes have inflated horribly. Comparing a winger being bought from City in the January window of 2026 to some relative unknown we bought 4-5 years ago that in years time got to shine is to me a bit nonsensical, with all due respect. So we buy Bobb for 35 now and possibly sell him for a 100 if he reaches his potential. I really don't see the problem.

[jayffc]

https://x.com/NicoSchira/status/2015805680255447490?s=20

5-year deal apparently. Longer than I think we often go for so would be amortized over a longer stretch I suppose

[Deeping_white]

https://x.com/NicoSchira/status/2015805680255447490?s=20

5-year deal apparently. Longer than I think we often go for so would be amortized over a longer stretch I suppose

Isn't it capped at 5 years for amortisation anyway now due to our neighbours doing 7 & 8 year deals?