Polarboy

I think it's entirely possible that Leicester have made these negotiations public so it at least looks like they fought hard to keep Maddison, and were tough negotiators, but will ultimately sell us Maddison. I posted a quote from a football correspondent called Jacque Talbot, who appears to be legit, the other day saying exactly that.

A marginally more positive take from Mark Douglas.

Am I right in thinking that it's a bit odd for Hope to be running stories about Chelsea trying to buy a Brighton player. I mean he is the Northern football writer for the Daily Mail. Perhaps he knows that if Chelsea get Cucurella they're unlikely to go for Fofana, thereby leaving us clear to get Maddison with them not getting the 80m for Fofana.

Craig Hope is also running with the Cucurella story of Chelsea beating Man City with a 50m bid. It seems highly implausible that Chelsea will pay 50 for him and then another 80m Fofana. If they do it makes a total mockery of FFP.

I've defended 90minutes before and cited their early breaking of the Ekitike saga, but I've revised that opinion to them being clickbait wind up merchants 😂 They don't mention Dubravka in the article, so perhaps they did reject the bid, but we've said alright how about we throw in Dubravka.

Fofana's only signed a contract recently, so Leicester have a lot more negotiating power on him. And surely even Chelsea would have to think twice about spending 80m on one player when they've already spent 85m this window on Sterling and Koulibaly. Of course it could be wishful thinking on my part, but there is a least some logic to the aforementioned.

Yeah but it's not as if keepers get injured all that often, so we'd cope until January at least, if it's too late to bring in a promising understudy to Pope. And again if Dubravka isn't happy playing second fiddle to Pope then there isn't much point keeping him.

Looking like Werner will go to Leipzig, so I'd imagine we'll up our interest in Cornet, who of course can also play wide and centre forward, although obviously he less potential quality, and isn't as natural a centre forward as an in form Werner.

If Dubravka's going to be unhappy being number 2 then we may as well use him as a make weight. Fair play to the guy on twitter who raised this as a possibility last night. Not exactly the hardest math of course, we want Maddison, we don't want to pay over a certain amount, and Schmeichel is away to France.

Gordon is a very good young player with plenty of potential in fairness. People in the game seem to think he's the next big thing. He's a bit like Paddy Pimblett; an annoying scouser with an even more annoying head on him, but not lacking in talent.

Quote from a Leicester City fan in response to our bid for Maddison 😂 "I get the impression Newcastle United seem to be trying to unsettle #LCFC before the season starts. Are they panicking?"

Romano's usually pretty accurate like. Seems like Werner is slipping away back to Leipzig, and Chelsea do supposedly want one of their players, so they could easily do business. Cornet would be very useful in terms of cover out wide and at centre forward, so I won't be that heartbroken if we get him instead of Werner.

A sauce on twitter has said that Leicester still owe us 8m from the Perez deal. Probably nonsense like.

It would be highly amusing if we got Maddison for around the 40m after Rogers' comments. I would assume they'd want it to be undisclosed if that were the case, but a transfer this high profile I doubt they'd be able to keep a lid on it.

In fairness 50m for a player with two years left on his contract, who's possibly indicated the he's not overly excited about signing an extension, and with Leicester in need of cash, that's a more than fair offer.

I did say 9 times out of 10, or as it's more commonly referred to, the Savage exception. Fab is reporting it now as well.

The thing about players you hate is that 9 time out of 10 it's largely because they're very good players.

Rumours that Leicester are in for Houssem Aouar off Lyon who some are assuming would be replacement for Maddison. Only a rumour at this stage though.

That's what we've done with Botman, so you could be spot on there.

What does in excess of 45m mean though, 47.5m, 50m?

Even the current top clubs like Liverpool, Citeh and Chelsea use staggered payments, and we're nowhere near them in terms of advertising revenue from which we can supplement our transfer kitty. It's going to take years to build the commercial end of things, but hopefully Darren Eales will work his magic.

Just seen it pointed out that Rogers definitively said Fofana isn't for sale, as opposed to his more noncommittal answer on Maddison.

Chicken nonce trying to piss in everybody's cornflakes as per with the last line. Unfortunately he could be correct.

He just tweeted this So it looks like Chelsea do actually want Cucurella plus a centre back, so Fofana could be someone they go after. Having said that it's hard to judge who'd be more likely to blink first between Leicester and Leipzig for their star centre backs.