(The tape recorder clicks on. I’ve got the full squad list pulled up on one screen, the books on another, and a Norwegian midfielder’s contract sitting half-signed on a third. It’s a good morning, for once.)
Act I: The Squad, As It Stands
Stepping back and looking at the group as a whole, this is not the squad I inherited. Mamardashvili anchors things in goal as a genuine star, backed up now by Scherpen and a promising young Martinelli. The back line is stacked in a way it simply wasn’t a year ago — Comuzzo and Hincapié forming the spine, Ibañez and Ramírez adding depth, and Kayode out on the right looking less like a full-back and more like an asset the market has already decided is worth a small fortune, his valuation having ballooned well past what we paid for him. Trent Alexander-Arnold slots in as an option through the middle as much as out wide, which gives the whole shape a flexibility we didn’t have before.
Midfield is arguably the deepest area of the squad — Koné, Fagioli, Elliott and Mandragora all genuine first-team quality, with Miretti and young Faty adding rotation underneath them. Faty in particular is one to watch: still raw, still two seasons away from being trusted with regular minutes, but the ceiling on that one is real. Further forward it’s an embarrassment of riches — Doak, Pafundi, Endrick and Guðmundsson all capable of starting, Esposito and Omorodion leading the line, and a 17-year-old named Cleidir Fonseca quietly filed away as a breakthrough prospect nobody’s really talking about yet. On paper, at least, this is a squad built to compete on every front we’re now competing on.
Act II: The Books Are Healthy For Once
I won’t bore anyone with figures, but the shape of the finances this summer is the story: we went from a genuinely alarming red just a few weeks ago — a real, official warning about failing Champions League financial fair play — to a squarely positive position with the FFP situation now fully green and signed off by the board. Selling well and buying carefully at the same time will do that. There’s a proper transfer war chest sitting there for anything else we need to do before the window shuts, wages are under control relative to income, and for the first time in a while I’m not opening the finances screen bracing for bad news.
Act III: One More In — Aursnes
And with that war chest, one final piece of business: Fredrik Aursnes arrives from Benfica. Thirty-two years old, Norwegian, a proper journeyman in the best sense of the word — Hareid to Hødd to Molde to Feyenoord to Benfica, 42 caps for his country, and a reputation as an absolute engine in central midfield. Versatile too: central midfielder, carrilero, ball-winner, deep-lying playmaker, take your pick. His scouting file describes him as “tireless,” which after everything this squad has been through with injuries this year sounds less like a compliment and more like a job requirement.
There’s a lovely bit of football trivia buried in the paperwork — small solidarity payments owed to Hareid, Hødd and Molde, three tiny Norwegian clubs getting a modest cut of a Serie A transfer fee because that’s where he actually learned to play. It’s the kind of detail that reminds you football is, underneath all the noise, still a very long chain of people who taught someone the game.
The one genuinely funny wrinkle: he arrives carrying a UEFA Champions League ban, presumably picked up somewhere earlier in his career, which means the one competition we’re actually building toward is the one he can’t play in yet. Welcome to Fiorentina, Fredrik. You’ll fit right in.
Next time: whatever’s left when the transfer window finally, mercifully, closes.