No signings yet but speculation mounting
For weeks it was all about West Brom pair Craig Dawson and Jay Rodriguez but things have changed in the last week or so at Burnley although we are still, like Tottenham, searching for our first summer signing.
Will either Dawson or Jay Rod or both be joining us? We’ll know the answer to that question by Thursday tea time, just as the team are preparing for a game in Turkey but it is looking less likely by the day, particularly in the case of Dawson with Burnley quite clearly having turned their attention towards other central defenders.
Much has been said about us being close to a signing last week only for it to go away. That was, I understand, Alfie Mawson from Swansea. The deal was all but done, it was all agreed, but then , all of a sudden he’s off to Fulham and just as I was leaving home for the Aberdeen game his move there on a four year contract was confirmed.
Probably no more than half an hour later and there was a new name in the frame, that of Middlesbrough’s Ben Gibson and in the last day and a half the reports suggest that we’ve had two offers for him rejected and now one accepted although the very anti-Burnley Middlesbrough Gazette are reporting that a move is not cut and dried.
The 25-year-old Gibson is a one club man, loans apart earlier in his career, and is in the privileged position of being the owner’s nephew. Highly rated, he’s approaching the 250 league game milestone in his career but, to date, has enjoyed only one season in the Premier League when, it has to be said, Middlesbrough’s problems were in scoring goals.
If there is a good chance of signing Gibson, then it does look as though two other potential incomings are further down the line, those of Sam Clucas and Joe Hart. The Clucas story has been running for over a year now. We tried to sign him last summer but he opted to move from Hull to Swansea. It’s all changed down in South Wales and he’s become available again, and for what appears to be a cut price figure.
The latest speculation is that Swansea have accepted our offer for Clucas and that was followed by news that we would like to continue to build our collection of England goalkeepers with the signing of Hart.
This one has intrigued me. I know Nick Pope is going to be out for some time following the injury he sustained at Aberdeen and I know Tom Heaton is currently sidelined with what has been described as nothing more than a minor calf injury. I’d assumed Tom would be fit and ready very soon with back up from Anders Lindegaard, who has performed well in the two Europa League games and Adam Legzdins.
It appears Hart, who has spent the last two seasons out on loan having not been favoured by Pep Guardiola, is definitely on his way in a cut price deal. He’s had some stick in the last couple of years or so and he lost his place in the England squad to Pope, but this is a goalkeeper with 75 caps for England who will surely add experience to the squad as well as offering products to those with scalp problems.
It still leaves the one gap of a new striker. Sentiment means many of us would like a return for one of our own Jay Rod, but yesterday’s news can only lead us to believe that we’ve moved on there as well with reports of an offer for Troy Deeney having been turned down by Watford.
The Watford Observer is confident in their reporting of a £9 million offer having been dismissed by Watford for the striker we first tried to sign four years ago.
Time is running out. We’ve only just over five days to go now before the window shuts firmly until January. It does look as though we are finally going to get off the mark although there could be a few twists and turns yet.
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