Polarboy

Seen people talking about Tonali's wages and they work out at about 115k a week, if you exclude the performance related bonus'. Given that Bruno is likely about to get a new contract worth 200k, and Trippier is on around 125k, people can't really say he just came for the money when he won't even be our top earner. Granted he's more than doubled his wages at AC, but I'm sure he could have gotten considerably higher wages elsewhere, or indeed insisted that he be our top earner.

Decent thread on Tonali.

Just reading about Chiesa's injury. He ruptured his ACL in January 2022 and made his comeback in October of the same year. They say it takes at least a season to get back into the swing of things from an ACL, so whoever does buy him could be getting him at good time where he's back to being capable of his best levels.

Well yeah, if we are actually in for him I'm sure the medical would be extensive. I could be wrong, but I think a bad ankle injury is actually more worrying for that sort of dribbler player. Someone was talking about Joe Cole recently and they were saying that a bad ankle injury can fuck up your entire career if you're constantly shifting your balance when you play.

Apparently Juve refused to extend Chiesa's 8m euro a year contract which is why it's looking like he's on the move. What you can take from that is that they perhaps don't believe he's worth that new contract, they can't afford to pay it, or a bit of both. His form has seemed to have tailed off a bit since the Euros. I think he had a fairly big knee injury. If we could get a decent price, and Howe could help bring him back to that form, then we'd have a real bargain on our hands. Juve are supposedly looking for around 50m, so if we could get that closer to 40m it would potentially be great business.

I'll be interested to compare Tonali and Rice's numbers come the end of the new season, given that Rice will probably end up costing more or less double Tonali's fee.

I wonder is the sell on clause a percentage, buy back/first refusal option, or both.

As nice as it would be the Hernandez link seems fanciful if you give it any thought. A starter for France and likely worth 60m+. Probably more than 60m+ actually when you see how much elite centre halfs go for.

Chiesa and Hernandez would be fucking ridiculous. Isn't that Italian journo one of the ones who've been on the ball regarding Tonali etc? I'll admit that I haven't watched a lot of Chiesa except for the last Euros where he scored a cracker against Spain. Looking at his stats he could probably score and assist a bit more given his skill, but reading about him he's definitely a Howe player given his extreme versatility being able to play across the front line and even in midfield, added to the fact that he's supposed to be very good out of possession as well in terms of pressing. Hernandez I'm sure people have seen more of. Pretty much the starting left back for one of the most talented French squads of all time. Or at the very least they have the deepest French squad of all time.

Is Szoboszlai on instead? We're going to end up with the top three dead ball specialists in the league playing for us if he does sign between him Tripps and Tonali.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0fwgwg5 A ten minute piece by Italian journo Alessandro Schiavone on Tonali.

I still say Charnley would have had these transfers sewed up well before Ashworth like, and at a much cheaper price. Some chocolate covered rich tea from old Blighty and the Italians would have creamed themselves.

😂

Yeah it will be an amazing deal for West Ham if they can get him back to his Leeds form.

In fairness he is the Mackem Pirlo, so his opinion holds a lot of weight. Edit. Just realised that the tweet is from that parody account 😂 He got me.

That's analogous to a WW2 veteran being proud of his medals that he got by mistake.

Rice can keep Kalvin Philips company on the bench 😂 In all likelihood though I'd imagine West Ham will be looking for Philips as a makeweight along with plenty of money on top. Imagine if you're Philips and you've sat on the Citeh bench for the vast majority of the season in which they won the treble, and now you're looking at maybe being shipped off to the tender mercies of David Moyes.

Supposedly Chelsea were after him as well. Then again they basically have the throw everything at a wall approach to recruitment.

Tonali is captaining the under 21's against France tonight, kick off 19:45. It's free to watch on uefa.tv.

One of the West Ham fanzines are unhappy because we've supposedly messed up their move for Milinkovic-Savic. Milan are reportedly after him to help replace Tonali. I find it at least mildly fanciful that he would have chosen the ammers had it not been for our transfer activity, but that's just me.

Just seen a few tweets from the xenophobic Italian, and his retort was that there's barely any Brits in London, therefore he's not an ungrateful twat for living there, and that Brits breath stinks not because of food but because you don't brush your teeth. Austin Powers and Medieval Britain has done you wrong on the old oral hygiene lads 😂