Worth noting that almost all of our signings last season came completely out of the blue, so I'm not expecting the papers to get much right.
The genuine links they do publish will presumably be players who just want to leverage our interest to try and get other offers, rather than players who really want to come here.
Wouldn't surprise me if Barbet and Ajayi were genuine links but possibly players we'd be more interested in signing if we narrowly missed out on promotion rather than players we think can significantly improve us?
I suppose Hanley out and Barbet in would make pretty decent sense, as the latter is left footed and comes from a team which plays out from the back. That is possibly the most believable link so far. Presumably Barbet is aware of decent interest from somewhere as he's walking away from a contract offer at Brentford.
Especially if bringing one French Brentford player the club might help us to temp another who appears perfect for our system? wink wink.
£15m for Maupey, for example, might not feel too expensive if we were to view Barbet + Maupey as £7.5m each!