That's been reported over here, 2 years left on his deal, Arsenal think they might be able to get a big fee for him.

Reports now we're in advanced discussions with Southampton for Lavia - their defensive mid they signed from Man City for £14m last year and Chelsea bid £40m for on deadline day (ie: only a month after Southampton signed him)

If we're already losing Xhaka I'd be nervous of losing Partey, and particularly if we consider a young lad like Lavia his direct replacement. As poor as Partey was in the last handful of games he was a huge reason we were challenging for the title, his role is incredibly specialised and not many players in world football can do it as well as he can

Prayers are working at the moment, Gaz.

I thought you guys would walk it when I posted that but then 3 top order wickets went down. Evenly balanced now. Shame Mo's spinning finger is buggrd so I still make you favourites. We need a shift from Jimmy. Should be some cloud cover so you never know.

2nd bid for Rice has gone in - £75m up front and £15m in add ons. Ornstein expects it to be turned down by West Ham.

If we are to believe that Rice wants us and no one else, and West Ham have given him their word he can leave there comes a point in these negotiations where if the player really wants the move he has to lean on his current club a bit

Best example was Cesc. He would only go to Barca so there was no 'market' at all. They made a piss-take of a bid which we were later forced to accept when Cesc effectively went on strike. Eventually, he went for about half what he was really worth.

That's a thought too. Although I see Balogun as someone who has the size and strength which we need up front. A point man for our crosses too.

Or we stop dicking about and pay the money. He's allegedly our number1 target so let's not have another mudryk situation.

Cracking game.

Fantastic. Looks like the Aussies are going to get it done. Fair play if they do.

What a game.

Congratulations Gaz and all our antipodean friends.

Big surprise waking up at 5am to find us winning. Got up for a pee during the night and checked the scores , first time raining and second time we were a few down and I went back to sleep thinking we would get about 220. Looks like it could be a good series.

If we look at the latest rumours on central midfield, we could.

Lose Xhaka and Partey for £45m
gain Rice and Lavia for £140m

We'll reduce the age of the midfield drastically, Rice is top quality but Lavia is still potential only, I'll happily be corrected but I don't think he's anywhere near ready yet to hold CM for a team like ours who were title condenders last year and surely want to be again this year.

CM last year was light on numbers and we were lucky that Xhaka and Partey stayed injury free. The replacements lack pace, power and athleticism. Lose them both and you're looking at 2 played in at their level which is tough to find.

Timber has a release clause that becomes active in 2 weeks, no report on what the fee is. We've apparently bid £30m for him.

I'm trying to work out if that would be more or less than the release clause. If it is more I can see the logic of trying to get a free run at him now before anyone can buy him at the release clause price - and tempt his club to sell him for more now than they have no say over in 2 weeks.

If it is less than the release clause there would be little logic in Ajax not just waiting 2 weeks to see what comes in

West Ham want Fulham’s Palhinha to replace Rice and Fulham want £90m!

You all rave about Rice but can someone tell me why he is regarded as so good and worth silly money. I never watch England games so it must be something he brings in those games. For Westham I never thought he was very good when we have played them over the years and the few Westham games I have seen this year I have hardly noticed him. They were near to relegation for most of the season so defensively I cant see his qualities.

If we pay 100mill for him he had better produce Viera performances every game he plays. It is a ridiculous amount of money to live up to.

That brings me to the next issue. Our squad was too thin last year. Then why would we sell Partey and only replace with Rice. Don't we need 2 quality players for most positions if we are to challenge. All we are doing is replacing a good defensive player with another.

Then onto our weakness in not having a plan B in games or for some opponents. Harvetz is hardly a different type of player from what we have . Obviously it is a big push from Arteta for him but he is just Jesus II to me. I am not saying we should not buy him but we should not spend all our money on him.

I would have thought we need more players than the 2 mentioned here and the Ajax back. And they need to be quality for both CL and EPL.

I've watched Rice a few times. Gets around and covers the ground. Decent passer but I can't see 100 million. That said Arteta really likes him and I trust his judgement.

I think we need to reevaluate what players cost. Maguire was £80m, Anthony £90m, Mudryk £80m. Rice for £100m is hefty but not far off in line with other recent transfers. If there was an 100% identical player to Rice who wasn't English and wasn't already in the premier league then you could easily knock £25m off the price. Those two things come at a premium.

Also, for a stats based approach I think Rice tops the interceptions list of all prem players, he's right at the top for tackles, passes, progressive passes - and in recent years he's shown he can drive forward with the ball. He's tall, defensively astute, great stamina, intelligent and can play in multiple positions, he's only 24 and is captain of his team and very well established in his national team who are one of the top 6 nations in the world (I think)- he's done all that for West Ham. That does come at a price

The bayer Leverkusen Havertz had a 1 in 2 goal ratio from an attacking midfield position. At Chelsea he's more like a 1 in 4 goal-scorer.
It is a very interesting signing, and for us to push to £60m for him means Arteta must really see something. 6ft 4, versatile, strong, good touch, 2 footed - needs to work on his finishing I'd say.

I wanted pace, power and athleticism. (Height also good too). Rice, Havertz, Timber go quite close in those categories

Yeah the Declan Rice stuff has become boring and irritating hasn’t it. Starting to feel like we are a few days away from a tweet from David Ornstein stating “city/united swoop in to agree deal for Rice” or something like that. You are dealing with spivs but based on the figures being bounded about I can understand why West Ham are reluctant. 75+15 in add ons isn’t enough, just look at the grealish and Bellingham transfers. If we were selling star boy and got offered that I don’t think we would pick the phone up.

On Havertz I don’t understand what the thought process is at all. If he’s being signed to provide cover for Jesus it’s peculiar as you’re signing a false 9 type to provide cover for a player who is very false 9y and drops very deep often.

For the money which is 65 million you’d have thought it’s a signing for the first team which leads you to assume it’s a xhaka replacement but I don’t really see him as a player who would be willing to do enough midfield dogwork to fill that role. (However Ødegaard kind of adapted)

Our fans seem to be overreacting and not pleased which is daft but that’s major money to spend on a player who doesn’t seem to have an obvious place in the first 11

This can't be true about Eboue, could it?

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ymRiRko3Wxo

Slowly warming to the idea.

Arteta and Edu clearly put a lot of value on prem ready players (although some wags may say Havertz is yet to prove he’s prem ready!)
It looks like most of our budget will go in to midfield so a versatile attacker makes sense.
Fans will always want another or a different player. We’ll only truly know what Arteta has planned when we see him in the team. You’d think he’s a Xhaka replacement of sorts. But he can play in Ødegaard, Saka or Jesus’ position.
As well as Prem ready players Arteta clearly likes flexible players. Look how well City did by moving the pieces of their actually quite small first team squad around

10 of Havertz’s 32 chelsea goals were headers….

Lots of noise around Partey to Saudi teams. They are willing to pay 40m euros for him. Which is pretty big money for a 30 year old with a chequered injury history and some ahem, personal issues still not fully resolved.
The risk is that at his best he really was one of the best in that lone defensive midfield position which for my money is the hardest position to play at an elite club. The responsibility on and off the ball is huge and the talent and technique to be able to play one touch under pressure and drive the ball progressively forward is huge.

I’m confident that if Partey and Xhaka both leave we’d see at least 2 incoming.

In a dream world we blow everyone out of the water and our midfield shake up is
OUT: Xhaka and Partey for £50m
IN: Rice, Caicedo, Havertz for £250m

If we sell a few fringe players to fund a right sided CB as well that is a 9/10 summer with 10/10 only achieved through the Kronkes going over and above for another forward

Other than full back, we definitely need options and strengthening in midfield. If Partey and Xhaka are out, a Rice, Ødegaard and Caecido midfield is mouth watering. Havertz is multi-purpose and that's always a good thing. We've lost some games not being able to get the ball through the middle often enough.

Sandro Tonali from Milan to Newcastle for 70m euros. Very good player, orchestrator from deep midfield. Allows Bruno Guimaraes to move further forward and influence games more.

Newcastle will win the title eventually, my guess is within 5 or 6 years. Two clubs so far with similar type of financing, Chelsea and City, did the same. And they'll eventually win the CL within a decade to a dozen years.

2nd to 4th is going to be extremely competitive next season. Liverpool only really needs to solve its away form. They had a very good home record. They solve the away form and they are back to challenging. The only good thing for the rest of us regarding City is that there are more clubs with quality who can take points off them. Yes, they will take points off us and we'll all take points off each other but I don't think we're going to see City getting near 100 points.

They are the favorite going into each season but the money the EPL is generating is allowing more clubs to make big purchases. It's also allowing them to strengthen their scouting network where they can find hidden gems in Europe like Leicester did before, Brighton has been doing as well as other clubs.

Havertz nearly done, reports that Timber is very close. 2 bids in for Rice and a 3rd coming.
Whatever you think of the players or the fees we’re clearly getting our business done early so you’d think these players are the clubs first choice.
It’s crucial to get business done early, get a full pre season, go on tour, learn the shape and tactics and be ready to go from the first minute of the first game!

City have lost Gundogan and gained Kovacic it seems, decent replacement but it makes them slightly weaker for me

Arsenal want £40m for Tierney, Newcastle only want to pay £30m. I think if Tierney was at any other club than a top prem club Newcastle would just pay the fee we want

I completely agree with this. For that money, he has to be in the first 11 and quite honestly, I don’t think that strengthens us. If Tottenham were bidding that for Havertz, we’d be chuckling. Also, he might be tall but he’s nowhere close to being a powerful, athletic player. Loads of technical ability but he will need to seriously improve on his Chelsea performances.

Havertz...I dont really know much about him to be honest, but I did read he was at one point considered one of the hottest young talents in Europe. His talent isnt in doubt but one of the reservations seems to be he's not a reliable goalscorer. Bit like Jesus then. There's a good video on arseblog which outlines what he may bring to the team such as being great off the ball, and also very good tactically. Given how well we've progressed under Arteta I'm really interested to seeing how he plays for Arsenal.

One thing that seems to have been forgotten on the Havertz thing is that for the fee agreed we definitely could have got mason mount ahead of United if we wanted him at that price. Surely a less risky xhaka replacement. So arteta can’t rate mount but if Havertz signed as a striker (please bear in mind he cost 20million more than Jesus!) then for that money you have a range of possible strikers you could pursue for that fee or much less that seem far more logical. Watkins, mitrovic, Toney, Dušan Vlahović.

Like I said I’ll reserve judgement until we see where he starts pre season but if it’s up front many will be shaking their head I think

Yes, I look to the positives of players we are signing or sign. New signings are fun, they bring hope. We’ve been burnt but we’ve also had tremendous success with signing a few fans would have made. For every good one, like the teenage prodigy who lost his way at Juve and went on to be our top scorer of all time there are bad ones like a certain fox in the box who turned out to be anything but.
Arteta has a clear idea what he wants, I said before who would have thought we’d have played last season with White at RB, Xhaka as an advanced midfielder and Zinchenko as an inverted full back. Arteta has a plan for him.
Off the ball defensively he’s great, he presses well and understands tactical shape. Off the ball attacking wise he’s brilliant, he makes tonnes of runs and ghosts in to great attacking positions - Chelsea didn’t make the most of him but imagine him ghosting in to the positions Xhaka took up last year with his 7 goals and 9 assists….

Also remember the two other teams that were heavily interested in Havertz this summer, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich. Ok pinch of salt in how interested they were but there are some players who are genuinely talented and when you surround them with great players in a great system they really show what they can do.

Strikers are in short supply right now. From your list Watkins would cost an absolute packet and is quite similar to what we already have. Mitrovic is a hot head and 30+, Fulham would charge a fortune and Arsenal fans would go mad if we signed him. Toney I do like but he can’t play until February. Vlahovic, went for £70m Juve will want their money back as a minimum especially if they see a cash rich prem club want him. Good record at Fiorentina but not at Juve, worse than our current strikers and has a bit of a trampoline first touch.
Most teams need a plan B, City are fortunate that Plan A and B are the same guy who can do most things. How can you sign a Vlahovic for £70m+ and make him a plan B?
Besides goalscoring wasn’t the issue last year, we got 88 of them. Keeping them out at the other end was the problem which is why I think most of the budget going in central mid and defence depth is right.

Seen the rumour going round that neves who was at wolves will be loaned back to Newcastle for the next 2 seasons from his Saudi club?

Basically just a tactic to get round FFP. If that happens high level competition in football is lost.

Reading that following Ruben Neves moving to Saudi club for £47m Newcastle (Saudi owned of course) are exploring an option of taking Neves on loan this season.

Very depressing if that kind of deal happens

That should absolutely be investigated as anti-competitive. It’s exactly the same ownership is it not? PIF? Just playing Championship manager. And cheating at that!

Stuart Pearce's comments on Arsenal signing Dennis Bergkamp back in 1995.

Thats hilarious.

I dont enjoy the Poker aspect of the transfer market. I just read a 'report' that Man U are now interested in Rice. Are they really? Would it change anything?