Flinkers

You can do that at any age but players under 24, who have been offered a contract by their current club and rejected it, will have compensation determined by the PFCC.

The Bosman rule can be used when moving between PL clubs. Theoretically Sanchez and O-C can sign precontract terms with us (or anyone else) in January.

Where's Drogba when you need him?!

Anyone know what's going on with players like Pasalic and van Ginkel? They must be training with the loan group, and van Ginkel's strongly rumoured to be off to PSV again, but maybe the club's thinking one/both of them (along with Baker) could be candidates for the back up spots...

One of the reasons why most teams don't buy British..! ...yes, I know he's from Iceland and Swansea is in Wales!

To be honest, although Christensen is a top prospect for us, he's still really only 4th or 5th in line. Anyone that thinks he'll go straight into the starting line up will be disappointed (and that includes him). Yes, he's played in a decent league the last two seasons but IIRC 11 of 18 teams had a negative goal difference last year, including Borussia Mönchengladbach! I think we'll lose him within the next year, most likely in January. Not due to a lack of talent but because we can't offer the platform to grow that he still needs while giving him the game time he'll want.

Who, along with Nicolas Süle, has also made the switch to Bayern this summer. He's also 27 so Goretzka's got 5 years on him.

I don't watch a lot of Schalke, but from what I have seen he's certainly got the ability to play for a better team. That's also shown by his performances in the Confederations Cup where he was the stand out player in the next group of promising German talent. Certainly a better midfielder than Can, probably on a par with Weigl, but Goretzka's the more aggressive and most well rounded of the three. You're right, he's got a year left on his contract and he's said he'll see it out. He's still a bit raw for us and wouldn't get the game time he wants/needs to develop with us. Another season as guaranteed starter at Schalke and the same level of development and he'll probably be at Bayern next summer.

Just my opinion - I think a cash bid of €90m would be very tempting to Bayern.

I just don't see it - for half the price maybe. He's fast and he scores goals because of it, but IMO he's got pretty poor technique and misses an awful lot of fairly easy chances. Plus, if he can't run off the shoulder, due to his size/weight ratio he's pretty much useless when in a physical confrontation (a scenario much more likely to occur in the Premier League). Add another 10m and I think we'd have a decent chance at getting Lewandowski.

I guess it's just me that thinks Aubameyang is not the right player for us.

I think he could have done OK here, but to me he's a better fit when playing in the middle of the park and within the width of the penalty box. Our AMs tend to play wider than that. Bayern make most of the their transfers in a similar way to us. They have a technical director who make recommendations to the Board and then another department enters into transfer and contractual negotiations. I wouldn't be surprised if they've been in negotiations with Madrid since the end of last season. What they seem to do well is set their price point at a realistic level. They've also got bags of money so don't need to pinch pennies too hard. I think that's where we possibly fall down - we open too low and risk offending the selling club.

Different rules and prices on the continent. Rümmenigge confirmed they're in discussions with Juventus but no agreement has been reached. Douglas Costa has said he wants to leave. Wouldn't mind if we stuck our hand up there. Renato Sanches also looks like he'll be leaving (probably on loan) and as a rotation option he'd be a decent shout.

The Antonio Rüdiger I remember from Stuttgart was a decent one on one defender with good pace. He was OK in the air and comfortable on the ball but prone to the odd calamitous mistake. His positioning was average and he was slow to recognize a developing threat. I have no idea how he's developed in his 2 years in Rome but we've been after him since before he moved there, so someone at the club sees something in him. Still, he's here now and I look forward to seeing how he gets on.

Point of order - Sanchez left Barcelona in 2014, Pep in 2012. Pep signed him from Udinese but it was Luis Enrique who sold him to make room / raise money for Suarez.