So, do you honestly think we will sign another player? I’m not talking the Udinese lad by the way, who’s being loaned back. I just can’t see us signing anybody else now and have thought this for a while that Spence is our final signing. Just wondering why people are so convinced we are definitely bringing 1 or 2 more in? Have I missed something?
Good and honest question, I like those.
I personally believe we will. Maybe even more than 1.
Most of the reasons are already outlined here, but I'd make my own recap of the reasons why we are not finished from buying side as well.
1) It was always communicated that
150 mil would be made available + money from sales of players. Right now we have
used up 122 mil if we include Udogie deal as well. But we have got 38 mil back from sales. With Winks, Lo Celso, Regulion, Ndombele, Tanganga all expected to leave (and possibly some from trio Sarr, Gil, Royal as well), I'd
assume we will earn back ~60 mil (some will be loans most likely). That would mean our
net outlay would be ~24 mil. You can play around with estimations - if we earn further 50 mil, net outlay would be 34 mil for example. We will not smash the 150 mil net with one window, but I think it is very reasonable to assume we will use up more than 1/5th of the money.
2) There have been VERY concrete and "stubborn" rumors about us still being on the market. Specially for a midfielder/creative player. With Maddisson and Zaniolo links have not been seriously denied either. So I think there is room to believe we are working on something. Also Ali Gold also indicated that we would be seriously interested in strengtening even more than one position.
3) Looking at the recent movements - we shipped out Rodon with option to buy and we also seem to be moving on Tanganga. That would mean two out and one in for CB position that everyone agreed, would need more depth. This would not make sense really. While it is possible that Conte considers Royal as backup for RCB and Romero for CCB (so we'd have Davies+Lenglet; Dier+Romero; Sanchez+Royal as options) it would still look bit quesitonable.
So I really do believe, that we are very much interested in CM+CB or at least one of the two. But we have got to the point where outgoings are also important to create space into the team. It could just be that recently focus has been on outgoings + Udogie deal. There is still lot of time left to wrap number of things up. Both in and out.