Conte has no chance to sign Alex Sandro.
@AbouCuellar, stay real. Di Maria was and is a great player, but you can’t ask to switch tactic again to sign a 29 years old with an huge wage demand, who started the decline of his career and failed in England because of many factors.
Only under Wenger is switching between a 4-3-3 and a 3-4-3 an unrealistic proposition. Which I recognised in my first post. The other things you mention are not hurdles. A player of his quality would absolutely succeed under a non-van Gaal management and he would be the hundredth South American to do so, including our very own, in the premier, the personal stuff could easily be dealt with/assuaged.
I don’t think Di Maria had any interest in returning to England again. And I also happen to believe he’s on the decline too.
I remember watching him live for PSG once, he was incredible at his peak.
Why do you think that?
Arsenal found the right balance with the 3-4-2-1, can play with the 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-1-1 or 4-4-2.
You can’t guarantee the right balance with Xhaka, Ramsey, Di Maria, Ozil, Sànchez and Lacazette on the pitch. Who defend? Who close the lines? Tell me the name of one manager who could play with this tactic and these men of the pitch.
If you are making a play for the title, if you have Alexis, Özil, Lacazette to surround him with, if you are the biggest club in London with a good reputation for playing positive football, you can make a very convincing play to a player on the outs whose alternative options will probably be Inter Milan and China.
We found the right balance until it stops working. When we hit our inevitable dry spell when we’re lacking a key player or going through a tough stretch in the calendar, we won’t be talking about how we have found the right balance any more. We’ve said the same thing every time we’ve finished the season on a high in recent seasons-- in 14-15 it was we found the right balance with Coquelin and Cazorla pivot. In 15-16 we found the right balance with the emergence of Iwobi and with Welbeck as CF. Last season in the first half “we found the right balance” with Alexis at CF and Iwobi and Walcott flanking him. And on and on it goes, back to 12-13 when we found the right balance with Arteta and Ramsey, Cazorla and Rosicky, etc. etc. We can do this for practically any year since we’ve been actually good.
That is admittedly a very attacking team but both Sánchez and Di María are extremely industrious players, and that team is far more press-resistant (likely to hold on to the ball) than any Arsenal team we’ve seen in a while. Di María wouldn’t have to play every game, mind.
Not worth that money, but he would a great signing for Everton. How much have Everton spent so far?
Özil, Di Maria and Sanchez would be a hell of a trio and it would make this season fun as hell to watch. I’d do it for that alone, but in the back of my mind we would have our clear best 3 players all hitting ages of their career where they would begin to decline. Probably get 2 seasons of them being elite.
Maybe we should be looking to spunk a big fee on someone in the 24-26 age bracket. I still wouldn’t say no to it though.
I’m going to be that guy, but for current players, Chelsea are the biggest club in London. To say we are relies very heavily on history, let’s not be Liverpool fans about this.
I think Newcastle are up there and they were in the Championship last season.
There is going to come a point where it’s unsustainable at these levels.
How PSG can elude the FFP:
Grzegorz Krychowiak wouldn’t be a bad coup if he could find the form he had at Seville.
Lol! Basically sell most of your team to buy Neymar. Insane.
Exactly. The first part of 2015/16, funnily enough when Messi was out injured, Neymar shone. If I remember rightly they were top of La Liga going into the clasico when everyone expected them to be behind. But he really started to tail off midway through the season, and was pretty much invisible against Atletico in the CL and the second clasico. It was Suarez and Messi that saw them over the line.
He’s certainly very talented, and Barça won’t be able to replace him. But aside from the PSG game, the CL in 2014/15, and the first half of 2015/16 season, he hasn’t lived up to the billing consistently. When thinking of spectacular seasons Ronaldo, Rivaldo, and Ronaldinho all had at Barça Neymar hasn’t compared equally.
Fuckkkkk. What a signing for R.Madrid.
They are going to have some team next season, they are miles ahead of most clubs right now. It’s not much of a surprise that they went in for Mbappe though, they’ve made some good sales recently to fund it.
If true then Mbappe is earning Monaco a Hanson profit… 
My god that money…
Though it’s been a very likely move since they sold Morata.
How much did the emirates cost?