🌞Summer Silly Season Transfer thread 2026

[Jim©]

Why does it feel we're scraping the barrel with this guy for me? What am I missing that everyone's so excited about. He's not worth 30m euros surely, we got ESR, Berge, close to that for Andersen

It's hard to make a call on a player when I (guess) that you've never ever seen him play?
Seems a lot, I agree, but then there's some crazy figures around for transfers this summer. £117m for Morgan Rogers?!?!
 

[Jim©]

So people are STILL reposting bloody great long threads after being implored not to! Please, please, please just stop it.

I wonder if the MODS can change the settings so that huge reposts, that tend to make the site unreadable on a phone, have word/length limits.
If people use a desktop, it's way easier to reply to the text that you want to, rather than the whole thing, by highlighting what you want to reply to and a new button comes up beneath saying "quote selected text.
By using that it would cut the pages down by a lot.

[SimonDaviesEnjoyer]

Player we're linked with and so many seem to excited about just scored an own goal for Trabzonspor in their latest friendly. Why does it feel we're scraping the barrel with this guy for me?

That's actually really good news, we're desperate for goalscorers.

[spikey norman]

We are being linked with Red Star Belgrade's Vasilije Kostov who is a rising star in Serbian football

[sunburywhite]

Perhaps he was protesting about not being sold

[Count Flapula]

https://x.com/i/status/2081490641142317258

Noise around Garcia and Franco is growing and expected to leave "in the coming days" on permanent and Liam deals respectively

Wether both or either end up here we'll see but obviously we've been heavily linked


Full story

https://as.com/futbol/primera/mourinho-quiere-dar-una-vuelta-mas-a-la-plantilla-f202607-n/

Excited about the prospect of signing young Spanish internationals like Garcia but absolutely no interest in taking Franco on loan without even an option - in fact i'm vehemently against it. We should not be in the business of actively choosing to develop other teams' players and block playing pathways / stunt development (and value) of our own players (assets).

We're not a League One club scraping an existence any way we can, so don't act like one.

If we can secure an option for Franco then by all means, otherwise move on please Fulham.

[Pavel Dempsey]

Player we're linked with and so many seem to excited about just scored an own goal for Trabzonspor in their latest friendly. Why does it feel we're scraping the barrel with this guy for me? What am I missing that everyone's so excited about. He's not worth 30m euros surely, we got ESR, Berge, close to that for Andersen (£25m plus £5m add-ons apparently).


https://www.espn.co.uk/football/match/_/gameId/401898690/trabzonspor-eintracht-frankfurt

Trabzon fans literally say he is one of their best defenders ever.

[AustrianGeezer]

We are being linked with Red Star Belgrade's Vasilije Kostov who is a rising star in Serbian football

Speaking of serbian, has anyone seen serbian lad?

[Bronaldinho]

Player we're linked with and so many seem to excited about just scored an own goal for Trabzonspor in their latest friendly. Why does it feel we're scraping the barrel with this guy for me? What am I missing that everyone's so excited about. He's not worth 30m euros surely, we got ESR, Berge, close to that for Andersen (£25m plus £5m add-ons apparently).


https://www.espn.co.uk/football/match/_/gameId/401898690/trabzonspor-eintracht-frankfurt

Trabzon fans literally say he is one of their best defenders ever.

Nwaiwu was excellent last year. Solidified the Trabzon back line. Quick, physical, and can ever play out well. He's like Joa with pace.

[General]

Player we're linked with and so many seem to excited about just scored an own goal for Trabzonspor in their latest friendly. Why does it feel we're scraping the barrel with this guy for me? What am I missing that everyone's so excited about. He's not worth 30m euros surely, we got ESR, Berge, close to that for Andersen (£25m plus £5m add-ons apparently).


https://www.espn.co.uk/football/match/_/gameId/401898690/trabzonspor-eintracht-frankfurt

Trabzon fans literally say he is one of their best defenders ever.

Well, he scored and own-goal and they shipped three in total against Frankfurt. Surely isn't worth 30m euros. I appreciate he may have potential, but he's largely young and unproven still. Surely he should be worth 15-20m euros max.

[Sting of the North]

Player we're linked with and so many seem to excited about just scored an own goal for Trabzonspor in their latest friendly. Why does it feel we're scraping the barrel with this guy for me? What am I missing that everyone's so excited about. He's not worth 30m euros surely, we got ESR, Berge, close to that for Andersen (£25m plus £5m add-ons apparently).


https://www.espn.co.uk/football/match/_/gameId/401898690/trabzonspor-eintracht-frankfurt

Trabzon fans literally say he is one of their best defenders ever.

Well, he scored and own-goal and they shipped three in total against Frankfurt. Surely isn't worth 30m euros. I appreciate he may have potential, but he's largely young and unproven still. Surely he should be worth 15-20m euros max.

So you are basing your valuation on a friendly? Or at least still maintaining that it should have anything other than an absolute minimal anlmost non-existing  impact on his valuation. That is absolutely wild, in my opinion.

[jayffc]

Player we're linked with and so many seem to excited about just scored an own goal for Trabzonspor in their latest friendly. Why does it feel we're scraping the barrel with this guy for me? What am I missing that everyone's so excited about. He's not worth 30m euros surely, we got ESR, Berge, close to that for Andersen (£25m plus £5m add-ons apparently).


https://www.espn.co.uk/football/match/_/gameId/401898690/trabzonspor-eintracht-frankfurt

Trabzon fans literally say he is one of their best defenders ever.

Well, he scored and own-goal and they shipped three in total against Frankfurt. Surely isn't worth 30m euros. I appreciate he may have potential, but he's largely young and unproven still. Surely he should be worth 15-20m euros max.

why would we let a performance in one half of a meaningless friendly dictate our understanding of his general performance level or value? They were already 2-0 down at half time - which is when he came on.

He was subbed on at half-time, in a game he clearly doesn't ideally want to be playing in as he's pushing for a move here, And had an unfortunate shot deflected off his lunge as he went for the block that went into the goal. So?

Whilst I agree the price is significant, and a risk.... more important when assessing his level is to look at his performance in actual competitive games last year...Where he, by all reports,  completely turned around Trabzonspors defence and played a big part in them finishing 3rd - so why would we not focus on that over half a match of football designed for people to gain fitness, in which he had one unfortunate moment?

Doesn't seem like scraping the barrell at all to me...that implies we're just picking any old bargain bucket target - we could buy any number of Centre Backs for this money...but clearly the club have identified that he is their first choice and has the skillset the club wants specifically. From what I've seen, he's a huge physical presence, and has good recovery pace and a threat from corners as well as being decent enough on the ball. My one concern is his hollywood tackle style that could put him at VAR risk but that's all coachable.

Plenty chance it doesn't work out for him like any signing, but his ceiling appears very high and as others have mentioned their fans are insanely high on him - and they are probably a better point of reference for assessing his potential then a match report from a friendly game.

[Angus Telford]

Player we're linked with and so many seem to excited about just scored an own goal for Trabzonspor in their latest friendly. Why does it feel we're scraping the barrel with this guy for me? What am I missing that everyone's so excited about. He's not worth 30m euros surely, we got ESR, Berge, close to that for Andersen (£25m plus £5m add-ons apparently).


https://www.espn.co.uk/football/match/_/gameId/401898690/trabzonspor-eintracht-frankfurt

Trabzon fans literally say he is one of their best defenders ever.

After 20 games?

[jayffc]

Player we're linked with and so many seem to excited about just scored an own goal for Trabzonspor in their latest friendly. Why does it feel we're scraping the barrel with this guy for me? What am I missing that everyone's so excited about. He's not worth 30m euros surely, we got ESR, Berge, close to that for Andersen (£25m plus £5m add-ons apparently).


https://www.espn.co.uk/football/match/_/gameId/401898690/trabzonspor-eintracht-frankfurt

Trabzon fans literally say he is one of their best defenders ever.

After 20 games?

Yes.

Small sample size of course, and a risk certainly that this level he hit might be a fluke...
but that is still what some of them are saying yes. It's been almost universal praise from what I've seen with many even still bemoaning his sale at this price, saying they want to keep him because they want to push for winning a title this year and they shouldn't sell, having already made their money on Christ  Inao Oulai etc.

Wether he lives up to that we shall see. As I say, agree that risk is there, it's alot of money for sure. But hey, we're going for young potential and he's certainly an athlete with the raw abilities there.

[bencher]

Player we're linked with and so many seem to excited about just scored an own goal for Trabzonspor in their latest friendly. Why does it feel we're scraping the barrel with this guy for me? What am I missing that everyone's so excited about. He's not worth 30m euros surely, we got ESR, Berge, close to that for Andersen (£25m plus £5m add-ons apparently).


https://www.espn.co.uk/football/match/_/gameId/401898690/trabzonspor-eintracht-frankfurt

Trabzon fans literally say he is one of their best defenders ever.

After 20 games?

It's one of the following possibilities:
1. Recency bias - quite likely
2. He's really that good - a bit less likely
3. They've previously had not very good defenders - quite unlikely
4. 20 games is a big enough sample to judge quality - quite likely

Most probably, it's a mixture of 1 2 and 4.

How long did it take us to rate Brede Hangeland, for example? From memory, he looked mustard basically straight away.

[Bronaldinho]

The fees are just not what we were used to.

Bayern just signed a player from a Gambian Football Academy for €3m rising to €4m.

Middlesbrough signed a forward for 10 rising to 20m after a loan spell at Oxford.

It's insane how fast fees have inflated, but it's the new norm.

[jayffc]

Player we're linked with and so many seem to excited about just scored an own goal for Trabzonspor in their latest friendly. Why does it feel we're scraping the barrel with this guy for me? What am I missing that everyone's so excited about. He's not worth 30m euros surely, we got ESR, Berge, close to that for Andersen (£25m plus £5m add-ons apparently).


https://www.espn.co.uk/football/match/_/gameId/401898690/trabzonspor-eintracht-frankfurt

Trabzon fans literally say he is one of their best defenders ever.

After 20 games?

It's one of the following possibilities:
1. Recency bias - quite likely
2. He's really that good - a bit less likely
3. They've previously had not very good defenders - quite unlikely
4. 20 games is a big enough sample to judge quality - quite likely

Most probably, it's a mixture of 1 2 and 4.

How long did it take us to rate Brede Hangeland, for example? From memory, he looked mustard basically straight away.

TBF - I'd say it's probably also a touch of 3 tbh. Not that they haven't had any good defenders but not had many ones we might recognise as world-class.
(Although one of our best ever CBs is probably Haangeland who likely doesn't register as being Elite in terms of worldwide recognition either)

their club legend CBs aren't exactly massive names outside of Turkey Their more recent title winning side in 2021 had mostly names we wouldn't be that familiar with and same goes for their golden era in the 70s-80s when they were winning all the time.

But regardless, he does look impressive on the surface of it

[jayffc]

The fees are just not what we were used to.

Bayern just signed a player from a Gambian Football Academy for €3m rising to €4m.

Middlesbrough signed a forward for 10 rising to 20m after a loan spell at Oxford.

It's insane how fast fees have inflated, but it's the new norm.

A league 1 side paid us 15m rising to 20m+ for our third string youth striker who hadn't even scored a premier league goal for us.

It is all a bit mental.

[Coastwalker]

Walham Green in for Danny Welbeck 35 from Brighton.

[JimmyConway]

Chelsea in for Danny Wellbeck what a good signing that would be even at his age. Thought he was superb against us last season and had that fraction offside goal chalked off. Type of signing I would not mind at Fulham ala Jiminez but unlikely he leaves Brighton for us whereas Chelsea different ball game. Must spell the end for Delap there?