Everton trying to nip in for Hannibal

This could be an excellent signing. Very talented player. Could help us exert a lot more control in midfield.

His contract was due to expire in June but has just been renewed. So possibly no option to buy but you never know…

Decent young player but I'd be surprised if he wanted to come to us as he wouldn't get playing time ahead of Onana, Gueye or Garner.

That said, Onana may well be sold in the next 18 months and Gueye is getting on; if we could loan with a purchase option (around £8-12m), then it might make sense to ease him into the team over next year or so.

In the short term he'd be injury cover which would be fine for us but maybe not appealing to him.

As long as he brings his mates B A, Face and Murdoch.

They're very creative in attacks.

If we do hijack Seville, I pity the fool.

I hope we do sign him, I love it when a plan comes together.

Come on, Hannibal, you know it makes sense.

Unlike Man Utd, we are not just a bunch of individuals. We are a Team! Boom boom! 💥

Kieran #3,

Don't we have enough 'attackers' who fire off hundreds of shots without ever hitting the target?

This lad is highly rated so I doubt we'd get an option. We just need someone who can do a job and add something until the end of the season.

I'm not sure he fits the bill as he's possibly behind most of our starters but no doubt injuries and suspensions will start to bite so he may get more game time than he would at Man Utd.

I wouldn't be disappointed but I think we need more experience for the fight we're going into.

Gueye is 35 in September, so I'd be surprised if he's seen as first-choice 11 next season if we are still in the Premier League.

With Onana likely to leave as well at some point, a try-before-you-buy loan would be smart business.

There will be some that say "Don't buy Man Utd rejects", but Garner has looked good at our place, to be fair.

Ian, Gueye might well leave the club before he turns 35. His contract is up in June.

Although we have an option to extend for a further year, I hope we don't.

I'll eat my own liver with a nice chianti if he chooses us over Sevilla!

Love the reference, Mark (10), but we don't want cannibals in our club...

Unlike the Red Shite. Bizarre what that Uruguayan vampire got away with. Should've been handed a life ban.

A downside for Sevilla might be lack of first-team experience?

In 3 years, he's played more times for Tunisia than he has for Man Utd

Jonathan, Mejbri had a full season on loan at Birmingham and he's still very young. He's got decent first-team experience for his age.

Classy player. I'm hoping Chermiti (Tunisian Portuguese) can persuade Mejbri to join him for cous cous nights and archaeology documentaries.

Do you think he could bring some elephants as well? They might help if we run out of buses to park...

There's been one in the room for years…

Robert 9,

I'd expect us to take another year given the volume of games he's played.

I will be surprised if we don't offer Gueye another year… unless of course we can't afford him.

We generally look a much better team and win more matches when he is involved.

With Gueye, it will probably come down to wage demands and fitness. He's not what he was and he's very limited on the ball. But I can't deny he can still be quite effective.

He could be the midfield General we need… 🙄

Silence from the club at the moment.

But if we don't get Hannibal, we will be like lambs to the slaughter in the second half of the season...

Sorry... I'll get my coat!

Would be an opportunity not to miss and this break may have come at the right time if they want to do business but surely a striker is a must also.

If I was a young player looking for 'minutes', then I'd be very reluctant to join a Sean Dyche team as everyone knows he rarely makes changes to his starting 11 and subs are not really his thing either.

He'd end up on the bench and would probably get even less time on the pitch than Danjuma.

Has anyone heard anything about McNeil's injury?

Lee,

I think there is an alternative view that, if you are good enough, Dyche will give you a chance. Look at Branthwaite and Garner (appreciate he is 22 now) and in the past McNeil who must have been pretty young coming through at Burnley.

I do agree to some extent about his substitutions but, to be fair, it is not very often we are comfortable in a game with 10 minutes to go and he can afford to throw on a youngster to see how they shape up.

Lee and John. This one again.

Saw my brother in law yesterday who's a Claret ST holder. He did say the use of subs was the most frustrating part of the Dyche 10 years. Along with the lack of game time for new signings.

Even though it looks like Burnley are going down, he says he wouldn't want Dyche back, as you move on.

I tend to agree with Lee on Dyche's reluctance to make changes or give youngsters a chance. Let's be honest, if Marcel Brands hadn't taken Branthwaite to PSV where he was successful, he may well have been sold on or still be in the U21 set-up.

Remember that Dyche preferred Keane to Branthwaite and it was only after a couple of mistakes by Keane that Branthwaite got a chance.

Also, he was quite happy to let Tom Cannon go, without giving him many chances, and, since Dobbin scored a couple of weeks back, he has had no minutes on the pitch.

Now Chermiti might be one for the future but I think he has had 7 minutes of football under Dyche this season.

As for substitutions other than through injury mostly his substitutions are in the last 10 minutes of a game.

I think the most appalling lack of the use of substitutes was last week at Palace. Calvert-Lewin had been sent off and McNeil was injured behind the goal and Dyche decides to have a conversation with his coaches as to who he should bring on, leaving us to play with 9 men.

Not near the deadline yet, plenty of time, no need to Punic.

I think so as well, Brian.

I get frustrated with Dyche's ability to make changes sooner, but then, when I look at the bench, there aren't many options. It's the delay in change of tactics that frustrates me more.

Despite a thin squad, we have a lot of talented footballers but too often (not all of the time), we insist on lumping long diagonals to the isolated Calvert-Lewin, who can't do anything with them most of the time.

Is he going to bring one of his elephants with him? We could park one of them in the goalmouth.

Would prefer a roamin midfielder

Derek # 23, hugely underrated gag.

Danny # 27, do we really have a "lot" of talented footballers? That's a bit of a stretch in my view.

Compared with the teams Moyes built, we have nothing like the talent of Baines, Arteta, Pienaar, Mirallas and Saha for example. I'd say we're more functional and effective than talented, sadly.

This is perfect, we can sell Onana to balance the books (£50-60 million will cover the 777 money) and get a loanee...

If, and it's a big if, there's any truth in this, could it be that McNeil is gonna be out for a while?

Must say the silence on his condition is a worry because the 24-48 hours Dyche talked about has well passed.

Very good, Derek #26.

Well, that's Hannibal cup-tied.

I hope we Cannae make this deal, because he could be a lot of Alp in our midfield -- he can cause opposing defenses a good deal of Trebia on his day. And I don't think United will Tagus for a loan fee.

Well, as Hannibal himself said "The Lord Alps them that Alps themselves..."

Mike G, (Hamilcar) Barca enabled his existence, you would have thought Barca would be in for him. :-)

Seriously would be a good acquisition, if we can convince him we are better than Sevilla (or even an orange) as long as he doesn't turn out to be a lemon, and mixes well with Ginger!

No one else noticed Sevilla under 777 happen to be one of our feeder clubs? We aren't competing. Cokehead is presiding over a shell game deciding where he should land.

Robert,

Pickford, Patterson (some will dispute), Mykolenko, Branthwaite, Tarkowski (the rock), McNeil, Onana (needs consistency), Calvert-Lewin.

And the majority of those are young. Keep them together and this could be a good team.

It already is. But for the points deduction, we would be comfortable in mid-table and with a few results, potentially looking at Europe.

Danny, yep, and let's not forget Garner.

Yes Mike. Good call out. Garner has been excellent.

Danny & Mike, completely agree we have the makings of a good side. My point is more that we are light on genuine talent.

In my mind, only Pickford, Branthwaite and Onana have genuine talent (and Onana only displays this intermittently). Others like Garner, Tarkowski and Mykolenko are very good players but they are not "talents" (ie, high standard of technical ability) like Baines, Arteta and Pienaar (and even Osman).

To develop our style of play we need more of these technical players with talent — Mejbri definitely being in that category.

Mind you, players like Drenthe had genuine talent so you do need plenty more than that!

The other thing with Hannibal is Swan will lecter him if he steps out of line! :-)

Why isn't he going to Afcon? He's got almost 30 caps for Tunisia, surely he'd be in the squad.

I notice Seville have now secured the loan signing of Lucien Agoume from Inter. He's a talented young midfielder- a bit different to Mejbri - but may mean they are leaving the race for Mejbri.

Must have been difficult for Hannibal to decide to spend the winter in Seville (not really winter) rather than Walton (Baltic).