The "January" Transfer Window 20/21 season

[Leeds1000]

It may well be Harrison's decision? He may want to see how we do in the Prem before committing long term? I don't want to be overly pessimistic about next season so soon, but with this current squad minus Ben White, we sink without a trace. With Ben White it may give us a chance of survival. Would i personally spend £30m on White. Well that depends on our overall budget, but £15m sounds a more realistic price.

I may even be tempted to inquire about Pontus coming back if Brentford miss out. You won't find a better header of the ball than Pontus for £5m anywhere. We are going to need to tighten up on set-pieces at both end of the pitch next season. Its just a shame Pontus doesn't like Bielsa's methods.

I think we will be scouring the continents again for young upcoming talent. Angus kinnear's talk of a top 6 finish in a few years if fantasy land stuff. Unless he knows of investment potential. Remember you need billions not million to compete with the top 6 these days. Leicester was a one off fluke and they have spent a fortune.

[SG90]

It may well be Harrison's decision? He may want to see how we do in the Prem before committing long term? I don't want to be overly pessimistic about next season so soon, but with this current squad minus Ben White, we sink without a trace. With Ben White it may give us a chance of survival. Would i personally spend £30m on White. Well that depends on our overall budget, but £15m sounds a more realistic price.

I may even be tempted to inquire about Pontus coming back if Brentford miss out. You won't find a better header of the ball than Pontus for £5m anywhere. We are going to need to tighten up on set-pieces at both end of the pitch next season. Its just a shame Pontus doesn't like Bielsa's methods.

I think we will be scouring the continents again for young upcoming talent. Angus kinnear's talk of a top 6 finish in a few years if fantasy land stuff. Unless he knows of investment potential. Remember you need billions not million to compete with the top 6 these days. Leicester was a one off fluke and they have spent a fortune.

Agreed. It's nice to have ambition, but realistically you need a lot of cash for top 6 now. Everyone goes on about Wolves, but they've got billionaire owners who are richer than Man City's and Jorge Mendes signing up the Portuguese national team.

[billie1]

no one mentioned JKA yet. Are we now obliged to sign him?

According to a number of rags , this is heading for the courts to decide . I still don’t really understand the nuances of the “ deal “ , and as others have already pointed out on here before , if JKA doesn’t want to sign , then he can hardly be made to ? Or can he ?

[SG90]

I wonder if any big European clubs would consider loaning us players cause of Bielsa? Brahim Diaz, Oscar Rodriguez, Odegaard, Riqui Puig etc

[CHAPELALLMAN]

Talk of 40m for White is madness. Regardless of what he might cost in 3-4 years. A 65m defender is no good if we are back in the Championship and he wants to be sold anyway, this time also probably without KP etc.

I've seen it suggested anywhere from 20-80m as our transfer budget.

We simply cannot go up and blow our entire budget by maintaining the current squad and just sign the players we already have and expect not to be in a relegation scrap for most of next season. We are already 16m deep on Costa, if we have to pay the JKA 20m, we are in serious trouble already.....

In reality we are competing with about 11 teams next season, the remainder are no chance of relegation. Of which, all of them apart from the Blades have been in the EPL for an extended period of time and their squads dwarf ours financially. Even the Blades have some likely European football revenue coming in and will have consolidated their finances with another year in the top flight.

A relegation rival in Brighton has a 40m player on loan, they don't particularly need and are likely to cash in to further finance an already fairly expensive squad (at least compared to ours). That is what we are competing with next season.....

Unlike Brentford, we don't have someone like Benrahma or Watkins that may finance this entire campaign. Our version would of been White, but he's not our player..... The only other player with that sort of collateral is KP and we certainly aren't selling him given his loyalty in finally getting here.

Yes, we are a huge club, but it means f**k all sometimes, money talks and some of these clubs despite their smaller stature have been on the EPL money tree for long enough to render to size of the respective clubs irrelevant.


I can't stress how important the next 12 or so weeks are for the future of the club. All of these decisions are so critical.

I think this is spot on. My worry is that we spend the whole budget merely maintaining a team which would probably struggle to survive in the PL unless it undergoes fairly major surgery. No way are Harrison, Bamford and Costa going to score the goals to keep us up.

I was mortified that we agreed to pay 16m for Costa - why do we commit to spending such huge sums on players who haven't yet proven themselves in terms of Biielsa's methods ? When we sign them Orta seems to go entirely on moments in the past when they might have showed promise, or otherwise performed well for just one season with another club. We made exactly the same mistake again with JKA - both deals should have been more like Harrison's.

[CHAPELALLMAN]

Anyone who thinks MB hasn't been thinking long and hard about who he wants to bring on for next year is daft.

That man thinks about everything and misses nothing. He was thinking about who he'd need in the PL when he first signed on two years ago.

I have no idea, and don't care to speculate, about who he might have in mind. I'm just sure he has an idea right now of what his team will look like when the 2020-21 PL season begins.

Bielsa has done a fabulous job thus far, but I don't subscribe to the view that he's infallible No doubt Norwich fans thought the same about Daniel Farke a year ago.

Don't forget that Bielsa must have had a major say in the signing of Augustin in January - was that down to him ' thinking about who he will need in the PL when he first signed on two years ago ' ?

[Cjay]

In his interview Radz wouldn't say where he was just that he is in Europe to meet a potential new signing.

Given Orta is DOF its interesting Radz is doing.this personally.

Could it be a statement signing that the owner feels is so vital that he wants to do it himself? Orta must go in having a budget whereas Radz if he wanted could make changes to the budget himself during the meeting if he felt it was warranted?

Messi incoming then

[SG90]

Bielsa has done a fabulous job thus far, but I don't subscribe to the view that he's infallible No doubt Norwich fans thought the same about Daniel Farke a year ago.

Don't forget that Bielsa must have had a major say in the signing of Augustin in January - was that down to him ' thinking about who he will need in the PL when he first signed on two years ago ' ?

Bielsa has managed at the World Cup, Champions League, Europa, La Liga, Ligue 1 though, Farke had only managed in the Championship and German lower leagues. He is vastly more experienced when it comes to knowing about top division football.

[John in Louisiana]

Bielsa has done a fabulous job thus far, but I don't subscribe to the view that he's infallible No doubt Norwich fans thought the same about Daniel Farke a year ago.

Don't forget that Bielsa must have had a major say in the signing of Augustin in January - was that down to him ' thinking about who he will need in the PL when he first signed on two years ago ' ?

I think JKA makes my point. Poveda, too.

I don't believe Bielsa had any intention of relying on either of them to get us up this year. I think he wanted them in for training and evaluation. Poveda has shown he's willing to do what Bielsa asks of him and is propspering. He will be part of our side moving forward.

JKA, on the other hand..... All the talent, but not enough of the detrmination, apparently.

[weasel]

I think JKA makes my point. Poveda, too.

I don't believe Bielsa had any intention of relying on either of them to get us up this year. I think he wanted them in for training and evaluation. Poveda has shown he's willing to do what Bielsa asks of him and is propspering. He will be part of our side moving forward.

JKA, on the other hand..... All the talent, but not enough of the detrmination, apparently.

We also didn't have injuries to open the doors for these players. Bamford missed just the 1 game through injury this season. If PB had been injured (prior to JKA's injury) it may be that JKA would have started (it may have been Tyler Roberts instead). Similarly Poveda would have found himself behind Harrison, Costa and Alioski (Pablo too if Bielsa played him wide). As such there wasn't an opening for him until Sunday where Costa was out injured and Harrison was rested.

[mav]

to me we need, a left back, 2 centre backs and a striker.

Stick in the main with what we have and we will hold our own in the prem.

[Peter in Blackpool]

According to a number of rags , this is heading for the courts to decide . I still don’t really understand the nuances of the “ deal “ , and as others have already pointed out on here before , if JKA doesn’t want to sign , then he can hardly be made to ? Or can he ?

No. no player can be made to sign...if he refused then we would surely be off the hook.

So we offer him 50 quid a week to play in our third team.

[The Subhuman]

The last time we made the same leap

v Bournemouth - Day; Sterland, Beglin; Jones, Fairclough, Haddock; Strachan, Kamara, Chapman, Davison (Shutt, Batty), Speed.

v Everton - Lukic; Sterland, G. Snodin; Batty, Fairclough, Whyte; Strachan, Varadi (Kamara), Chapman, McAllister, Speed (Haddock).


We'd added Gary Mac, Lukic and Chris Whyte over the summer - Sold Vinny, Baird and Hendry - Total spend of around 1 - 1.5M.

And finished 4th after a long absence

Think we'd be looking to do something comparable

[andrewjohnsmith]

The last time we made the same leap

v Bournemouth - Day; Sterland, Beglin; Jones, Fairclough, Haddock; Strachan, Kamara, Chapman, Davison (Shutt, Batty), Speed.

v Everton - Lukic; Sterland, G. Snodin; Batty, Fairclough, Whyte; Strachan, Varadi (Kamara), Chapman, McAllister, Speed (Haddock).


We'd added Gary Mac, Lukic and Chris Whyte over the summer - Sold Vinny, Baird and Hendry - Total spend of around 1 - 1.5M.

And finished 4th after a long absence

Think we'd be looking to do something comparable

What's crazy is that you could get good players without blowing the bank. We knew McAllister was a great player and I think we only paid 1 million for him, with what seemed like no competition. Others like Dorigo, Wallace didn't cost a great deal.

[andrewjohnsmith]

Don't forget that Bielsa must have had a major say in the signing of Augustin in January - was that down to him ' thinking about who he will need in the PL when he first signed on two years ago ' ?

A quote from Phil Hay:

In January, after a planned move for Southampton’s Che Adams fell through, they began offering Bielsa other strikers. Leeds had lost Arsenal loanee Eddie Nketiah to an early recall because of his lack of game time and they were under pressure to find a replacement. Bielsa said no to Sheffield United’s Billy Sharp and Glenn Murray of Brighton, two strikers who have proved themselves at Championship level. Leeds reckoned either signing was possible but were also flagging up RB Leipzig’s Jean-Kevin Augustin as an option and Bielsa told them to go after him instead.

[CHAPELALLMAN]

A quote from Phil Hay:

In January, after a planned move for Southampton’s Che Adams fell through, they began offering Bielsa other strikers. Leeds had lost Arsenal loanee Eddie Nketiah to an early recall because of his lack of game time and they were under pressure to find a replacement. Bielsa said no to Sheffield United’s Billy Sharp and Glenn Murray of Brighton, two strikers who have proved themselves at Championship level. Leeds reckoned either signing was possible but were also flagging up RB Leipzig’s Jean-Kevin Augustin as an option and Bielsa told them to go after him instead.

Thanks for confirming. This is why I refuse to buy into the ' Bielsa is infallible, and he knows exactly what he is doing ' narrative. The fact is that he and Orta between them have got the club into a terrible mess over a striker who it turns out we never needed or wanted anyway once he came over here. He may yet turn out to be our record club signing after Rio Ferdinand judging by what Leipzig are saying today.

[CHAPELALLMAN]

I think JKA makes my point. Poveda, too.

I don't believe Bielsa had any intention of relying on either of them to get us up this year. I think he wanted them in for training and evaluation. Poveda has shown he's willing to do what Bielsa asks of him and is propspering. He will be part of our side moving forward.

JKA, on the other hand..... All the talent, but not enough of the detrmination, apparently.

But if you want a player in ' for training and evaluation ' why on earth do you also commit to buying him for 19m before he has even arrived at the club ( which would be a club record ) ? Based on Phil Hay's comments at the time, the decision to go for JKA was ultimately Bielsa's. He's done many wonderful things for LUFC , but his stubborn insistence on starting Bamford every game has unfortunately caused major problems for the club.

Without Bielsa's Bamford obsession this issue would never have arisen in the first place. Losing Nketiah clearly started a major panic, which led to Orta floundering around in the January window, and in turn resulted in him presenting Bielsa with various potential signings for a new striker which it turns out we never needed anyway. We would have been better off putting Edmondson on the bench and then giving him the odd chance when Bamford was having a bad day. We wasted 4m on the JKA fiasco, and if we have to pay 19m for him plus his wages until we can get rid of him then it will turn out to be the most expensive mistake in the club's history !

[NorfolkWhite]

Rumour we're looking at Angus Gunn to replace Casilla, that would be a great signing - he is destined to be a top drawer keeper.

[WestgateRun]

If we go into the Premier League campaign without a backup striker to Bamford we are in for a long hard season.
Norwich walked the Championship last year, scored lots of goals but couldn't survive in the Premier League. Even with Pukki starting the season well.

[rrfierce]

Rumour we're looking at Angus Gunn to replace Casilla, that would be a great signing - he is destined to be a top drawer keeper.

Didn't he let 9 goals in not so long ago ?