Don't think there's been a hastily assembled photoshop-graphic sharted out by the official Twitter yet, but Ranieri did say it was 100% done in his presser earlier.
He said this, which devoid of any punctuation from the journalist in question, I took to be 'It's not close. 100%.' But yes, I suppose could have any number of meanings really.
Here’s the video. I’m not going to re-watch but I think he said “it’s close, not 100%.” https://www.skysports.com/watch/video/12520997/ranieri-relaxed-on-watford-transfers
I mean, he clearly doesn't say that, he says what the Herts Live journo transcribed - 'it's not close, 100%', but with his intonation in the video you're right, he appears to be expressing it not being completely done, rather than it being 100% done rather than just close.
Theoretically possible, but the journo asking the question he is responding to directly uses the word 'close' twice, and even if he is saying 'closed' it doesn't really change the actual meaning behind it - as you said, he's still expressing that he's not aware it's signed sealed delivered quite yet. Only impact it has is on quite how perfect his English is, or not.
Of course he was saying it's not dsigned and sealed. To say "we're nowhere near, 100%" would be non-sensical.
Just regards to the player value value/circumstances debate that was waging on here a few pages back, Traore has 18 months left on his deal, Wolves rejected £15m from Spurs but it’s expected they’ll accept around £20m for him. I’d say that’s pretty cheap, but him being cheap because he’s only got 18 months in his contract hasn’t exactly created a bidding war and driven his price up has it.
Thing is, it’s not cheap for what he brings. Which isn’t much beyond potential 20 minute cameos. He’s never been a regular there and has fleeting moments of setting the world alight only to disappear again for a few months. More known for putting oil on his arms then for anything else. Maybe Conte can bring something out of him that others can’t.
I think you could level similar accusations at Sarr. He has far too many quiet games when he won’t run at players at all for some reason. If Spurs were buying Sarr instead, they’d definitely need him to improve as well for him to be a worthwhile signing.
Conte thinks he can make him a marauding wing-back. Commentators and pundits are then going to tell us for the next 6 months how he done the same for Victor Moses. If anyone can succeed at making Traore consistently useful it probably will be Antonio Conte though.
There’s an argument that would say, for a side under the obvious expectations Conte would have, that wing-back would be very important and his end-product (goals/assists) would be very important. He certainly won’t be signing him to be a work-horse type.
Adama is much, much better than Victor Moses is/was and Conte made him look like a world-beater. I think it’s a great signing for their system.
He's an odd commodity. He seems to be there purely to scare the opposition, and leaves it up to other players to make the most of the chaos left in his wake He's as good as mid table players get, but that's the ceiling of his ability I feel
