[Danny]

Never quite sure where to start a thread so 'other' always seems best.

Just wanted to get general opinion from the board as to your feelings on our summer recruits so far - do you guys think we're in the right direction?

Personally I know little of Musacchio, but as Han says, a vital cog in Spain's second best defence last season has to be a decent recruit.

Kessie seems like the powerful box to box dynamic midfielder we've lacked in a long time - while Jack sort of fills that role, he's much more of an attacking midfielder really, so Kessie is a great piece of business.

Rodriguez is a great signing - comes from a great stable, a good age, and a massive upgrade over the garbage of De Sciglio.

Then there's Silva. Meh, I'm not blown away by his record, or his attitude. He's only young, true, but we've spent a lot of money on a player who appears combustible and who doesn't have a good scoring record in a weaker league than Serie A. I defer judgement on this one but it's not a signing I'm enthralled by.

Last but not least Borini. A sh*t signing, plain and simple. Not even good enough to be a squad player, I have no idea what he's doing here.

But I can pick it up with Calhanoglu - we appear close to this one, and from what I know of him, which is not a lot in truth, he's a top class attacking midfielder who would be such an upgrade to what we have.

Overall? I'm cautiously pleased. We've signed a lot of very good players and one or two I'm a little wary of. I wanted this done in 2011, but it's better late than never. Unfortunately rather than, as it would have been in 2011, adding fine players to a world class squad, we're rebuilding really from scratch.

But for me, it appears to be closer to going to Milan as we should be rather than in a poor direction.

7/10.

13/7/17 update:

We've now got Conti, Biglia and Bonucci. A RB, a CM, and a world class CB.

Suddenly we have a top four team. We now have a top four team. Yes. I am not going to declare a Scudetto challenge but we're much closer to one than we were a few days ago. This is now looking like a Milan level team.

This post has been edited by Danny: Jul 13 2017, 10:37 PM

[Jack Sparrow]

Yeah. So 7.5 from me. I think I generally like the idea that we're building from the back. I would have liked to see more progress on getting rid of the extra players though. But I imagine - Montella would like to run a few training sessions before deciding for himself who he wants to keep on, and who he wants to move on.

Hakan is a good signing, seeing as we already have Suso and Jack. Hopefully these two continue to be consistent for us going forward. Still missing one top striker and one proven mid, who could make all the difference between 4th and finishing in automatic CL qualification spots.

[han2503]

Yeah. So 7.5 from me. I think I generally like the idea that we're building from the back. I would have liked to see more progress on getting rid of the extra players though. But I imagine - Montella would like to run a few training sessions before deciding for himself who he wants to keep on, and who he wants to move on.

Hakan is a good signing, seeing as we already have Suso and Jack. Hopefully these two continue to be consistent for us going forward. Still missing one top striker and one proven mid, who could make all the difference between 4th and finishing in automatic CL qualification spots.

4th will be an automatic CL qualifying spot as well come next season

As for the players who'll be leaving, I'm sure we'll see a lot more exits in the coming few weeks

[Jack Sparrow]

4th will be an automatic CL qualifying spot as well come next season

As for the players who'll be leaving, I'm sure we'll see a lot more exits in the coming few weeks

Really? I think 4th means you have to play the pre-qualification before making it to the round of 32? Like we did in 2007?

And with it being a world cup year - I think we should just look to lighten our workload as much as we can.

[X-Offender]

Really? I think 4th means you have to play the pre-qualification before making it to the round of 32? Like we did in 2007?

And with it being a world cup year - I think we should just look to lighten our workload as much as we can.

No, starting from next season the first four spots in Italy, Spain, England and I think Germany will qualify directly to the CL group stages. News rules from UEFA. You must have missed it.

As for this mercato, I think we should really appreciate the fact that in about a month we've signed 7 players (counting Conti as well who seems like a done deal at this point).

Musacchio, Kessie, Rodriguez, Silva, Calhanoglu and Conti are all very good signings. No-one is a world beater, but we cannot afford world beaters right now. Next season, as we make it to the CL, we can strengthen our roster even more with a couple of world class signings.

[Danny]

No, starting from next season the first four spots in Italy, Spain, England and I think Germany will qualify directly to the CL group stages. News rules from UEFA. You must have missed it.

As for this mercato, I think we should really appreciate the fact that in about a month we've signed 7 players (counting Conti as well who seems like a done deal at this point).

Musacchio, Kessie, Rodriguez, Silva, Calhanoglu and Conti are all very good signings. No-one is a world beater, but we cannot afford world beaters right now. Next season, as we make it to the CL, we can strengthen our roster even more with a couple of world class signings.

It's actually the level I was looking for. I didn't expect us to make 6 50M signings. Not gonna happen. But what I wanted was to build a team filled with high quality players from modest to high quality teams. A foundation of very good players who would reassert us in the UCL spots and then build from there and increase the ambition.

We do just need that one marquee signature though, to send out a message.

[han2503]

It's actually the level I was looking for. I didn't expect us to make 6 50M signings. Not gonna happen. But what I wanted was to build a team filled with high quality players from modest to high quality teams. A foundation of very good players who would reassert us in the UCL spots and then build from there and increase the ambition.

We do just need that one marquee signature though, to send out a message.

But, do you guys think that these 7 signings (counting Conti as well even though it's taking forever) are enough to guarantee us top 4? I still think we're gambling a bit, and we need that one difference maker who can come in and be an instant game changer for us

Atm we're banking a lot on things going as perfect as possible to get that CL position, if things go wrong with injuries/fixtures/team chemistry we could lose out and it will be a massive hit to the new owner's plans

[Jack Sparrow]

But, do you guys think that these 7 signings (counting Conti as well even though it's taking forever) are enough to guarantee us top 4? I still think we're gambling a bit, and we need that one difference maker who can come in and be an instant game changer for us

Atm we're banking a lot on things going as perfect as possible to get that CL position, if things go wrong with injuries/fixtures/team chemistry we could lose out and it will be a massive hit to the new owner's plans

I think you're right partly. We have to realise that unlike us, the other teams are yet to make moves in the transfer market. We don't yet know what they'll stock up on. We have to take for granted that Inter will build to challenge for CL. They can't afford not to.

So if the teams stay as they are and if the new signings play to potential then I would say we have a serious chance to make it to 4th. Of course injuries etc. are risks. But we do have a relatively young squad so we should hopefully not have injured players lay down for too long.