Hi Ginger Public! Sure, I talk a lot but that is not recommending all those players or all for the first team. A lot of what I say is "I believe this player isn't goid enough or just not for that amount". Other times I recommend cheap young players from Central or Eastern Euope who cost very little to be loaned out and maybe make the first team in 1-2 years. And they've almist always had value increase, so it would have at least been a million financial win. Look at Chelsea, they make a lot of money selling olayers who have just been on loan.

My actual recommendations were:
Depay in 2018 for 15 million when being considered a Man United flop by most, but I was more interesred in his level for that certain age. And he went fo Lyon of France who wasn't playing Champions League football and had finished 5th the previous season and on a salary of 55.000. While we paid in that window or the next one a similar amount for Schlupp and a similar salary, with also 80.000 for Townsend, 100.000 for Sakho, 120.000 for Tekkers, 60.000 for Wickham. You don't think Depay woukd have refused 5th place in France to stay in the top league in the world if we offered him a similar salary?

Batshuayi for Benteke exchange also in 2018

Nils Petersen of Germany as center forward that same year

Andone or Niasse for 3rd choice center forward in a small deal (6 million)

Tadic when he left Southampton (afterwards becoming best assister in Netherlands and UCL semi-finalist, making Top 30 Ballon d'Or nominees) or the younger Harry Wilson as left foot right winger

Hernani of Porto or Jony of Spain (later most assists in Spain after Messi in 1 season) as low sum transfer backup

Ola John as no-cost player backup

Quincy Promes or Tello considered by me as best possible left wing players the next year, especially with talk of Zaha leaving more pregnant

El Shaarawy when he was available for just 12 million from Rome would have replaced the aging Nils Petersen

Tammy Abraham (when available for 15 million) would have replaced Andone or Niasse

Lewis Holtby as central midfielder to replace Cabaye

Danny da Costa from Eintracht and AWB to compete at right back (said this a long time ago)

Ribery when Bayern Munich sold him and we would have had to let Depay move on, cause he would have been impossible to keep at the level he would have achieved (same he did in Lyon).

Cahill as center back (this actually happened)

Alban Lafont as goalkeeper (I admit I'm rather poor at gks and did mot know about Guaita, who had been a great signing)

And for the investments I named: Kulusevski for even 10 million (cause I just saw how good he was at just 18-19 years old, you can read that I wrote about it the "Potential transfers from the Euro U21" thread), Bongonda for 1 million in 2018, Eliasson for 2 million (before he became the second assist provider in the Championship this season, but it's ok because he finishes his contract in the summer and bosses could still bring him in and he would even accept to be loaned out a little more years in the Championship if he knew there was a PL club waiting for him, I know it), Moussa Kone for 3 million, Almoez Alli Abdula for 2 million, Avdijaj for free, Gustafson 1 million, Jefferson Savarino for free, Alberth Elis for free, Ruben Vargas for 2 million, Despodov for 2.5 million, Leya Iseka for 5 million, Dan Crowley for 0.7 million, Joe Aribo free, Tom Dele-Bashiru free, Almamy Toure for 0.7 million, Rolando Aarons 2 million, Imoh Ezekiel free, Stepinski 2.5 million, Trauco 1 million, Arzamendia 0.7 million), Felix Passlack (1 million).

In total: 34.5 million

Now let's see how much the club could have brought in after these players developed. For example, Kulusevski belonged to Atalanta and he didn't make a single Serie A start for them. They just loaned him to Parma who was stupid enough not to insert a buy-option, but just took him on a season-long long because he was a promising youth. He played soo well for Parma that the Italian giants became crazy for him. Juventus and Inter threw massive amounts of money that Atalanta wasn't even thinking about before the start of this season (I heard they would have rejected offers of 6 million from England, but would have surely accepted 10 million for a youth player with no first team appearances). But all of a sudden, they got offers from the big Serie A in the order of dozens of millions. They sold Kulusevski for 40 million just because he had been on loan at Parma 4 months.

So, Kulusevski, value gone up to 40 million
Bongonda up to 7 million (he was bought by a small Belgian team in the transfer window I spoke about him for 1 million and sold this window to Genk for 7 million, this is what I mean)
Eliasson up to 10 million after being the 2nd best assister in the Championship this season at 22 years old
Moussa Kone, doing very well in the German 2.Bundesliga for his age, up to 7 million
Almoez Alli Abdulla- up to 7 million after the Asian Cup
Avdijaj is still struggling to become important, but I'm still waiting on him, I'll put 0 for now
Gustafson up to 2 million
Joe Aribo up to 10 million
Jefferson Savarino and ALberth Elis would be worth at least 5 million each if sent on loan for playing time in the Championship
Ruben Vargas up to 10 million
Despodov up to 7 million
Leya Iseka still at 5 million, waiting for him
Dan Crowley up to 2 million
Almamy Toure up to 5 million
Stepinski up to 5 million
Rolando Aarons still at 2 million
Miguel Trauco up to 5 million

Total income if sold in this transfer window: 134.5 million

I will not say more about Benrahma to derail this thread, just this: Newcastle is negociating with Roma youbgster Cengiz Under a fee under 23 million. A player with top speed, very hard working, left footed, has so many assists and goals in top league and European Cup competitions, national team experience and costs as much as a good player but from the English 2nd league.

I know what a Scouting Report is LOL. This is an example (attachment)- Crystal Palace target and my fellow countryman Florinel Coman, one of top 10 scorers in Europe last season among the U22 players.

[Link]

The others are Haaland, Jadon Sancho, Edouard, Rashford, Mbappe, so I can see why Palace would want this report. Even if, I know, the difference in leagues is to be taken into consideration.

I have dozens of those around. But I'm not going to post them on holmesdale every time I write about 1 player ))

One can, but I prefer to keep it better ordained. You can do something like this and list a whole bunch of attributes:

[Link]

Quote about 15 year old wonderkid from Borussia Dortmund:

Style of play

– advanced striker

– player with good body mass ratio, physical strength, power, stamina and natural fitness who feels comfortable in contact situations

– powerful and determined striker with good technique on the ball, mobility, first touch, acceleration skills, fast direction shifts, short-dribbling, and good short-mid through passing ability

– superb off the ball intelligence to recognise spaces where to receive/run into

– very composed finisher capable on both feet

– likes to score with low driven shots

– always alert to capitalize on some opposite defensive mistakes

– great sense of positioning while receiving through balls

– excellent balance, footwork, and changes of pace

– likes to start his runs from deep and attack space

– very skillful at beating his markers and evading pressure

– known for his tricky off-the-ball movements in and around the opposite’ box

– extremely dangerous on the counter thanks to his pace and acceleration

– likes to press and hassle the opposition’s centre-backs effectively

– decent ambidexterity using his right weaker foot

– all-action and energetic

But imo, this is more guesswork than actually saying something useful. "Always alert", "superb intelligence"- these seem very subjective by whoever wrote it. How does one define excellent balance?? And most players are "extremely dangerous on the counter thanks to his pace and acceleration", cause....that's why you write a report on them.

I am a fan of this style from [Link] cause it's a good template, talks about link-up with teamates, transition from attack to defense and from defense to attack and positioning at set-pieces, both defensively and offensively.

But if I were to do this, I need to get paid, cause my life is important too.

Edited by mattteo (16 Sep 2020 6.24pm)