Latest posts of: Velvet78

Manchester City are getting close to happy ending about Gvardiol transfer. As far as I know they have reached agreement on terms with the player already. The harder part is to convince Leipzig to the amount they have in their mind. However Leipzig don't intend to sell him below 100 million euros now. In the meantime Manchester City's latest offer has been recorded as 90 million euros.

I assume they would agree upon a fee shortly in this case. Guardiola has been wishing to see him in his team for a long time. He will make the defense line incredibly strong surely.

Quote from: alegotardo on June 25, 2023, 12:21:26 AM

Quote from: Velvet78 on June 24, 2023, 11:07:32 PM

Speaking of the pitstop, this is perhaps good for the RedBull team, in the last GP Sergio Pérez and Max Verstappen were the fastest of the day.

Pérez's pit stop was fastest at 2.23 seconds, just one-and-a-half tenths slower than the 2023 record set at the Spanish Grand Prix, where Red Bull changed Pérez's four tires in just 2.07 seconds.

In any case, the Austrian team opened up an advantage in the dispute for the "DHL Fastest Pitstop Award" (DHL Fastest Pit Stop award), since Ferrari, the 2nd place, did not do so well at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. The team of Verstappen and Pérez was 43 points ahead of their Maranello rivals. The difference between the two teams after eight races is 73 points. Alpine is in 3rd place, 132 points behind Red Bull.

How much will this influence the next Austrian GP?

Red Bull are really great at fast pit stops. They are currently the best team at doing it indeed and this is helping them have more comfortable races as well. I assume this wouldn't change in next Austrian GP either. Actually if I'm not mistaken one of Verstappen's pits was a little problematic in the Canada GP but this isn't an incident that is seen often at Red Bull.

I will be expecting a Verstappen domination but I'm not very sure about a team domination for Red Bull. Perez's recent performances haven't been impressive at all. Who knows what he can do here.

Edson Alvarez wouldn't cost Dortmund much indeed. If he shows a really high level of performance with Dortmund shirt then Dortmund can sell him for a quite profitable amount later on. This is what Dortmund always do with such players in the end. I wonder if they can find a young talent similar to Bellingham again this summer.

Because I'm sure Dortmund scouts are working actively on finding new talents. Their source of income is the sales of this kind of players for huge amounts you know. Otherwise not becoming the Bundesliga champion would have been a much bigger problem for this team.

Quote from: asriloni on June 25, 2023, 06:17:28 AM

The only best thing for him to consider play for saudi club. It's better rather than trying to force himself for something that he can'd to that again in european football. There's no club interested to sign him after real madrid already confirmed to terminate his contract this month.

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/37788897/eden-hazard-leave-real-madrid-month-contract-terminated

The future of hazard is still uncertain. I don't see another choice for him other than going tot he saudi pro league.
He will be able to continue his career even though he will not become a big player again at least he can still use his skill there.

I haven't heard any rumours related to Hazard recently. Actually he might even go back to the Premier League but it wouldn't be one of top teams there. We might see him playing for an average level team. Teams such as Aston Villa have been interested in bringing such players recently. Maybe Hazard might be their next target in the near future.

If he can't find himself a proper European team to go to this summer then he can seriously think of going outside Europe. He can make a lot of more money for sure. As he has got a serious injury period at Real Madrid we don't even know how good he would be able to play.

Quote from: Patrol69 on June 25, 2023, 07:21:44 AM

While other teams are busy buying players in the transfer market and building their squads, PSG club is getting one after another away news. Several important players of the team have already left PSG, there is a possibility of Neymar leaving PSG. In other words, the PSG team is now almost disbanded. They are now looking for a good manager. Former Barcelona coach Luis Enrique may be on their list. If Luis Enrique is on their list, PSG should sign him very quickly. And by appointing him, PSG team is well organized again. Because if they fail to organize the team well now, they will have to suffer the consequences for the whole season.

About Neymar there is still no official offer for him. He has been rumoured to leave PSG for a long time but we will see. I'm feeling confident about one thing especially that he would get an offer from Saudi Arabian teams. They are like aiming to sign all the European stars who has a potential to leave their teams this summer.

However I don't think Neymar would like to go there just yet. He isn't still that old and he can still make a solid contribution to the team he plays for in Europe. Maybe MLS might be the second option for him just as Messi did.

Kane is soon becoming 30 years old and I don't know how many teams would like to pay an amount over 100 million euros for his transfer fee. He is actually worth this in my opinion. Because he is still playing incredible and one of the best scorers in the world. I feel confident about him to play this strong for at least a few more years as well.

But not every team think the same as me of course. These days there is only rumours linking him with PSG. This transfer might really happen actually as Messi has left the team. As Mbappe can play in winger position too Kane would be at the centre.

After talking about Milan's being in need of a better and more reliable centre-forward I have seen that they are interested in Lukaku seriously. They are even about to make an official offer to Chelsea to sign him permanently. The offer is said to be like 40 million euros. I know how much Chelsea made a loss by selling him and buying him back for a huge amount of money.

But there is really not much of a choice left for Chelsea. They don't plan to have Lukaku in their squad anymore so this is a good opportunity to get rid of him. He needs to be convinced to make this move. I don't know if he can improve his performance at Milan but at least he can stay in Italy just as he wants.

Quote from: OcTradism on June 23, 2023, 10:17:22 AM

Quote from: Velvet78 on June 23, 2023, 08:38:23 AM

In the last season, Bayern planed to use Mane as a replacement for Lewandowski but after a first few good matches, Mane got injury and never played well for Bayern in rest of season. Then they luckily got Choupo-Moting good performance but it is not enough for them to compete in Champions League. In addition in Bundesliga, they lost control and only won it with slippery performance in the last match from Dortmund as well as excellent strike from Musiala in last minutes of the season.

They are not in rush, maybe because they still believe in Mane come back but who are sure about that and Choupo-Moting might not be able to replace his performance as good as in the past season.

They have already experienced how things go when they use Mane as a striker or Choupo-Moting there. Mane just need to play in his natural position to give his best performance for them. Choupo-Moting's scoring effort was really not bad at all but not as consistent as they needed especially in the Champions League.

There is no other reasonable option for them to go for a new striker if they want to be really competitive for the Champions League title. They must be aware of this since the day they sold Lewandowski to Barcelona.

Quote from: shinratensei_ on June 24, 2023, 01:00:27 PM

Quote from: Velvet78 on June 24, 2023, 06:36:46 AM

They were leaving caused by barcelona is only looking for young player to stay in the club, busquets was old enough to play in european competition.
It's the time for him to give a chance for young talented player to take his position. Barcelnoa was able getting gundogan to replace him. Busquets has become a captain in barcelona and will gundogan also become a captain in barcelona?
That's very interesting to wait.

Quote from: Velvet78 on June 24, 2023, 06:36:46 AM

But these departures are good ones for Barcelona actually. Because they really needed to get rid of some old players to play according to Xavi's system better. Barcelona were born again with young players and they will need time to become much more successful.

Old players are still needed. Even though busquets were leaving from the club, bug gundogan was coming to replace him. Young talented squads are good but it's still lack of experienced player.
That's why gundogan has been needed to fill busquet's position. Barcelona needs a fully experienced player like him. He can also become a captain for the club.
He will able to give more experience to the young player.

When it comes to the captain question who knows maybe Gundogan can really get it from Busquets. Because he has already been the captain at Manchester City. He is very experienced with that role but let's see. Maybe Xavi thought of someone else to give it to before this transfer. Besides Gundogan is going to be new around here as well.

Old players can still contribute well to the team with their experience yeah. Gundogan isn't even that old actually. He is younger than Busquets and his performance has still been really decent.

We are getting close to entering another race week in Formula 1. Austria track is one of the shortest tracks among the ones in the calendar. Therefore the number of laps would be quite high and I guess there would be a strategy of two pit stops for most of the teams. This would be another race that hard tyres would be preferred quite much.

Here in this race I will be expecting a very big dominance by Verstappen. This is Red Bull's home Grand Prix so Verstappen would bring the win home by a dominant performance. There is no Leclerc who can compete with him and win the race now as he did in the previous season.

Federico Chiesa is likely to leave Juventus and Italy at the same time. Because Liverpool are trying to sign him on a permanent deal and there are two other teams monitoring him like PSG and Bayern Munich as well. The asking price is said to be like 60 million euros for him. Considering his market value which is 40 million euros the amount Juventus want for him is quite bigger than that.

But Chiesa is a really skilled player. He isn't only a left winger. He can play as right winger or second striker as well when there is a need. He is only 25 now so he must be open to improve his game as well. I don't know whether Juventus is the right place to do this right now.

Quote from: Uruhara on June 23, 2023, 11:26:17 PM

Rudi Garcia will obviously bear a heavy burden. Because last season Napoli managed to win the title in Serie A. So Napoli fans will certainly want the same thing in the next season. Everyone will be curious about every step that will be taken by the new Napoli coach, Rudi Garcia.

Rudi Garcia has a big responsibility indeed. It won't be easy for Napoli to retain their title as it wasn't for the other champions in the recent seasons as well. However there is a good thing that can help Rudi Garcia in his job. Spalletti and him have used the same formation mostly. I mean Spalletti's formation with Napoli and Garcia's with Roma in the past.

This can be a good point to start for Garcia because he won't need to make a big change in that. But other than that his job is still difficult of course. They are on the verge of losing some important players this summer. In this case their places will need to be filled with new ones and who knows how the team performance will be.

I don't know about Mount to be sold from now on. Because Chelsea have made a change in their management and brought Pochettino to the job. I wonder what he thinks about Mount now. Maybe he can win Mount back to the team and Mount can again start to play really decently like his old performances. This isn't impossible and he is still very young.

Mount was actually eager to stay at Chelsea already. He just wanted a fair contract from the team. But it looks like Chelsea still don't have such intention. If Pochettino also can't revert things here I don't know how Mount's future will be. They will need to accept Manchester United's offer somewhere reasonable.

Some Barcelona players continue to leave the team one by one. Busquets is also leaving now. Therefore Barcelona did the right thing by signing Gundogan. Their characteristics aren't the same though. Because Gundogan is more like an attacking oriented player. Maybe Barcelona would bring a defensive midfielder as well in the coming days.

But these departures are good ones for Barcelona actually. Because they really needed to get rid of some old players to play according to Xavi's system better. Barcelona were born again with young players and they will need time to become much more successful.

Quote from: Joca97 on June 23, 2023, 07:21:51 PM

Quote from: CryptocurencyKing on June 23, 2023, 06:40:35 PM

Arsenal and Manchester City both have full agreements with West Ham. I think the ball is now in Declan's Rice court. But since this Declan Rice transfer meltdown of yesterday;

-Edu has posted himself flexing.

-Relaible news outlets are still saying that Arsenal are Rice's favourite.

-The rumoured Manchester City's bid has remained a rumour.

Maybe Arsenal will be getting this player after all, but then its Arsenal.

Arsenal leaded the race for a long time for Declan Rice but now Man City just swooped in and made things complicated. West Ham now can ask for more cash and i think they will do that. Maybe Man City is just messing with Arsenal but now the player can go either way and if i was Rice i would go to City and win trophies

This is really making things more difficult for Arsenal. Manchester City were actually watching this situation from a distance. They weren't planning to make an official offer for Rice as long as the player doesn't show any intention to go there. However it looks like they have changed their mind then.

Manchester City's intervening should be affecting Rice's decision seriously. I don't know how often he would be in the starting eleven there. But I feel sure that he would play for a longer time at Arsenal. But on the other hand the situation of winning many titles with Manchester City can outweigh that.

Galatasaray did a great work but the continuation of it is really important for not only the supporters but also the team. The way to keep this level is to maintain your best players in the team before anything else. Because if they can't do anything about them to leave and don't replace their space with solid players then next season might turn into nightmare.

They are a part of the Champions League qualification round as well so they need to act according to that. Meanwhile if Fenerbahce and Besiktas get prepared better for next season maybe we would see a different champion this time. But it is really a tough task to perform for all these teams.

Luis Enrique is a successful manager before anything else. He even has experience about winning the Champions League title. PSG need a manager just like him to reach their main target of course. However his game plan is quite different than PSG's. Therefore I wonder what kind of a team we would watch in case he signs for PSG officially.

PSG players are used to play really fast unlike Enrique's game plan. Enrique should make some changes in his style if he wants to make use of Mbappe's talent at the highest level. Mbappe is playing very effectively thanks to fast attacks as he can win most of one-on-ones against defenders. Otherwise I don't know how good they can do.

It was interesting to see that there weren't many candidates to sign Tielemans recently. Aston Villa must have been quite comfortable about signing a contract with him on a free transfer. Arsenal had a serious interest in him some time ago. This was a big opportunity to sign him but it looks like they have lost their interest.

It was going to be a free transfer in the end and Tielemans can still do a decent job. Leicester's look was really bad this season maybe but I don't think Tielemans has lost so much in his skills either. But I hope he doesn't turn into Coutinho after signing for Aston Villa. But with Emery's management I want to believe Tielemans will do a pretty good work.

Bayern Munich are still not rushing anything about a centre-forward transfer. I haven't seen a big rumour linking any striker to them these days. They are focused on other positions more currently. But they must be aware of the importance of signing a solid striker this summer on one hand. Because there wouldn't be a big change by only keeping Choupo-Moting and having Mane in the position sometimes.

They have seen this clearly by this season. I wonder whether Tuchel has someone in his mind to recommend to the board. If I were in their place I would have prioritized the striker transfer. There are really nice options in the market but acting faster than other top teams would be better.

Quote from: Nheer on June 22, 2023, 12:09:42 PM

Quote from: Velvet78 on June 22, 2023, 07:59:44 AM

It looks like Manchester United have also joined the race for Declan Rice. Their deal is likely to be like money + Maguire or McTominay. Maybe not Maguire but McTominay might be favourable by West Ham side. Because Rice is also a defensive midfielder like McTominay so they might find it okay to think about it.

But of course the money part must be convincing for West Ham. Because Arsenal look ready to pay even 100 million euros for Rice now. As far as I have heard West Ham have been demanding around this amount. His market value is already 90 million euros and he is a young and solid player. I'm not surprised with this demand as a result.

Arsenal should understand that when you need a player's services, you simply have to be prepared to pay the team's asking price when they are keen on that price. Instead, they delayed concluding this Declan Rice's agreement, which produced all of this drama for themselves. Similar to how Arsenal lost Mudryk to Chelsea, when you hesitate to pay the asking price, another team may enter the fray in an attempt to sign the player. When they offer a better price and the offer is sufficiently persuasive, the team and player will quickly choose the better offer. They should have paid the 100m West ham was asking for when they were alone in the race but now that Manchester United have joined the race it may become difficult to secure this player. Arsenal needs to be more serious when buying a player.

I agree that Manchester United should show how serious they are. There is only Casemiro who actively plays in the defensive midfield position as a natural defensive midfielder. It is important for them to strengthen the midfield even more by this signing. Because there is no other player who can play as solid as Casemiro in that position currently.

Arsenal finished this season ahead of Manchester United maybe but this is still not enough for them to secure Rice signing. They are both going to the Champions League technically. Manchester United can win this race if they make a reasonable offer.