Seems the Saudi league is transferring elite players nearing retirement but they could become younger.
Imo this won't be a long-term thing because of the cultural differences and way of life over there, can't imagine that a lot of Western players will want to live there for more than 2-3years.
Yeah but they shower them with all the Dubai, Qatari, Saudi luxuries, we have seen at WC golden jeeps or Underwater appartments shet. I think they probably going with 29+ year olds, an age where you can enjoy such things. We have talked about where the wealth comes from and oil money still as solid as it was 30 years ago.
I feel people are being harsh on Lukaku and it's easy to use him as a scapegoat. Inter's strikers are good strikers but they all bottled it yesterday. Dzeko was absent in front of goal. Lautaro wasted two lovely chances when he could have squared the ball to a strike partner. Lukaku got a header on frame but should've done better directionally with it. I think Dimarco's header was even worse than Lukaku's because all Dimarco had to do was head it down, just wait for the ball and head it down or jump up and head it down. Just straight down. Instead he heads it over. Inter will regret that match for a while. City were who Inter thought they were and Inter let them off the hook (to use Arizona Cardinals former coach Dennis Green's old speech) That win was there for them. Wasted chances. I think they took a little too long to replace Calhanoglu with Mkhitaryan and should've been more bold about trying to find their strikers in space a bit more especially after DiMarco and Dumfries left the field. Then the aforementioned wasted opportunities. Just terrible. Well City have won it in a second final for them. I Imagine PSG are up next. Hooray for the team owners. Blah.
Wonder if he'll get second thoughts now that Mbappé is on his way out. If not, like I wrote before, I'll happily take the €60-80M.
If we can get rid of him without too much of a loss, that's ok. Same with Upa. Biggest mistake was letting Alaba go and spending all that money on these guys. De Ligt good though.
CF Bayern crew, what's the deal with the Cancelo- Bayern loan? So I recently read about why Pep wanted him gone and I believe he literally just came out again and said Cancelo MUST go. It doesn't matter where. Apparently he is a terrible teammate. If Pep is coming out in the press and essentially saying it, not trying to make it look pretty or anything, yeah it's bad. Throwing a ball at Pep in training. Laying on the floor during a team meeting while others were sitting. And then his attitude when Ake took his place. Yikes. Did the Bayern coaching and management staff not know all this when they took him on loan? Or they just didn't care? I hope they arent trying to sign him to a permanent deal because that sounds like the last team Bayern need to be doing. Were there no other decent fullbacks available in the Bundesliga to get on loan?
Cancelo got cranky like a little kid when he wouldn't start, that was kinda weird. Bayern wanted him for quite some time because you have to admit that noone on our squad can hit crosses like that, left or right. Pretty sure the bosses didn't know about his shenanigans (or the degree). But the loan deal hasn't been extended and we haven't heard his name for quite some time now, so it looks like Bayern moved on and won't bring him back. Maybe if Shity demands a really low price, he might become a topic again, but as of now I guess we're good with Davies, Mazraoui (who appears to be just the same as Cancelo), Guerreiro and Stanisic. Wouldn't be too surprised if Cancelo ends up with Barca.
Plettenberg on Twitter said Cancelo didn't want to stay with us and also isolated himself from teammates, so we didn't even try to renegotiate with City.
Apparently the Kyle Walker negotiations are pretty advanced, although I don't understand the necessity really and would prefer Mazraoui getting more playtime.
The way Mazraoui publicly whined about not getting enough minutes causes some serious doubts in me. If someone (Juventus?) actually offered something around €25M, I'd let him walk. Speaking of the devil... not sold on a 33-year old who never played abroad and probably wouldn't learn German. Walker should be a nice addition for depth, but nothing more. Haven't heard a lot noise around Pavard lately... maybe the clubs are not as interested as he thought, salary-wise? Hernández, meanwhile, is as good as gone, according to Le Parisien.
I'm not very emotionally attached to any of the players on the Bayern team, other than Müller. I like Neuer still, and Coman and Musiala. Davies and de Ligt seem alright. I wouldn't really shed a tear for anyone else, they all seem kind of interchangeable to me. Mostly mercenaries.
