This was a free swing of the bat. He is up there with the most in demand player sin world football at the moment. We throw some money in there, get a bid accepted and see. If we sign him, beautiful, if we don't then we have done Marseille a service by ensuring they get a good price for a player and therefore started a very good relationship with a club where we alraedy have a vested interest (Mandanda).

The reason I was sceptical about this is not because of the money but the way it was being done. Apart from Cabaye that Pardew had worked with before and we all knew wanted back so that wasn't a hard one for hte press to jump on, none of our signings last year were played out through the press. Our other big signing, Wickham, just one day turned up to sign the contract, no one knew anything about it.

I don't for one minute think that Batshuayi was our number 1 target but would have been a huge boost had he come, I think this was a smokescreen by both clubs, Marseille to get the bidding going which they succeeded with CHelsea paying 40mil and us to give us a bit of time to work on our other targets, well played all round.

Nice dream but will be dredging the 6 million and bargain basement and loan during early August as is the norm To be fair on this one the lure of Chelsea and big bucks was always going to be too good for us (but got to keep dreaming )

He's going Chelsea [Link]

Under 25 and score over 20 goals in a season and your a 35 million pound player, just shows what a joke football gas become, glad we are showing ambition but it's just madness.

[Link]

Off to Chelsea for a medical😭

So much for him " holding out for Champions League football " then - money talks, as ever.

I didn't think there was much chance of getting him even with a fee agreed.

Old, Ungifted and White