(The tape recorder clicks on. I’ve got a spreadsheet open with roughly forty rows on it, half of them colour-coded in ways only I understand, and a mug of coffee that’s gone cold twice already this morning.)
Act I: The Ones I’m Keeping, Whether They Like It or Not
Luca Ranieri wants to go. I’m not letting him. He’s homegrown, he’s a genuinely useful rotation option at left-back, and I have precisely zero interest in trading a player I know and trust for a transfer request I don’t feel like honouring twice in one year. He can sulk about it in the treatment room if he likes.
Albert Guðmundsson very nearly went the other way entirely — his deal runs out next summer, and cashing in on a 30-year-old winger with one year left is exactly the kind of sensible business I’m supposed to be doing. Except every single time that man actually manages to stay fit long enough to play, he’s transformative. Hat-tricks, assists, moments of pure quality out of nowhere. I can’t bring myself to sell someone who keeps rescuing matches purely because his fitness record makes the finance department nervous. He stays.
Act II: The £37 Million Question
Amir Richardson is currently sat on two separate offers worth £37 million apiece. I like him. He’s a good professional, does a job, never causes trouble. He’s also a rotation midfielder on £95,000 a week, and £37 million reinvested properly does a great deal more for this squad than one more body in the engine room. This is the sort of decision that sounds cold on paper and feels worse in person. I haven’t made it yet.
Act III: A Superstar, Rent-Free (Mostly)
The most interesting bit of business this summer costs us nothing in fees at all. Trent Alexander-Arnold is coming in on loan — I’ll be covering £215,000 a week of his wages, which is eye-watering on its own, but there’s no transfer fee attached and, crucially, no obligation. If it doesn’t work out, he goes back at the end of the season and I’ve lost nothing but the wage bill. For a player of his calibre, that’s about as low-risk a gamble as this level of football allows.
Act IV: The Search for a Leader, and a Winger Nobody Quite Needs Anymore
What I actually need is a top centre-back with sharper mental attributes than Roger Ibañez — leadership, composure, the sort of presence that organises a back line rather than just occupying a slot in one. [redacted] looks like exactly that profile, though he wants proper money for it. Given we lost out on Scalvini to Iain of all people, I might just have to swallow the wage demands and take [redacted] for a season and see where it goes.
Elsewhere, Valentín Carboni is emerging as the most likely candidate to make way. We’re stacked at attacking midfield and out wide, Zaccagni is arriving to add more competition in exactly those areas, and Carboni’s output dipped last season while his attributes have stalled rather than progressed. It feels backwards, dropping a 23-year-old to make room for a player well into his thirties, but the numbers on the pitch say what they say. He joins Janelt, Richardson, Ibañez, Lucca and Jimmy-Jay Morgan on the list of players we’re actively assessing exits for — which, looking at it all laid out in one spreadsheet, is rather a lot of departures for a squad that just finished third.
Not everything this summer is about who’s leaving. Pietro Comuzzo and Nicolò Fagioli have both been tied down to new contracts, largely to kill off any wandering eyes before they turn into actual bids — both of them are exactly the kind of player you lock in quietly rather than wait to defend in the papers. There’s some interest circling Samu Omorodion too, though I’ll believe that one when I see an actual offer land. Given his medical file this season, I suspect most clubs are still doing their homework on him.
Next time: whoever we actually manage to bring in, and whoever we finally let go.