Comparisons with last time

It serves no important service, but it's something that we can talk about. We're allowed to see how we generally compare with our past performances.

 

We didn't need to, we spent 3m on Murphy who is better.

I agree that team was better but results suggest not by much. It had a lot more steel and character. Tactically Hughton pisses all over Benitez at home. Absolutely rinses him. The same however can be said for Rafa away.

We have to remember aswell though, like a good boxer Hughton won the championship rounds when it mattered and stretched away from the opposition.

Its not an amazing turnaround. We were in a far worse state when Hughton took control. There had been no real investment in the team, club morale was at an all time low, we had toxic players onboard, it was far more toxic in the stands. That cloud remained throughout the championship season too..

Then you could blame Ashley. This time it was down to a fool of a manager - McClaren. He'd spent a fortune. We then sold 2-3 players for massive money and re-invested heavily. To suggest Hughton had it easier is quite frankly ridiculous. He had a far harder job. Yes we had Carroll come through to develop. But this time we had Mbemba, Mitrovic, Perez, Lascelles, Darlow. It comes down to one thing - money. 57m is an astronomical amount to give a manager in this division.

 

Spot on....

 

If you consider Ross mccormack-11m, Scott Hogan, etc. No it's not a lot at all mate, Ritchie at 10m has been a steal however u look at it. Can't remember last time one of our players had all-round stats akin to that. Don't remember saying he had it easy, and Houghton might have had toxic players, so what was cisse, sissoko and wij? Beacons of professionalism? Christ I'd say Owen was a little more commited to the cause than ****in sissoko! And to add to that, where's Benitez's Smith, Barton, Nolan, Harper etc. What can u say, lascelles, gouff? Our longest serving player is krul and he ****ed off, and dummett is considered an experienced head. Ses it all. Houghton had a far harder job at the start of the season but the way everything clicked into place for him by luck (Carroll lovenkrands ameobi alone) means it is tougher for Benitez to me.

 

Also collocini in form at the back, almost forgot that fop-haired tosser. Went on to shine in Orem until he lost interest. U can't buy tht quality in champ

 

Looking at teams making isolated transfers for large sums (there were a few - costa, McCormack etc) does not compare to 57m. It's a massive amount of money. Do you realise how our outgoing spend compares with the rest of division?

Perhaps this might help:

http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/championship/transfers/wettbewerb/GB2#ath

So outside of the monumental **** that is villa, the closest someone got in spend outgoing was 27m, then 21m, then a lot of 15m or lower. So taking away one failure of a club we spent double the nearest outlay, and quadruple the majority and more. Don't kid yourself mate, we've bought our way out.

 

I'd say up until around Christmas time it felt like we where at a canter. But afterwards we seem to have become so much more cautious in our approach. In fact since the end of January which makes me wonder if Rafa has slightly changed his playing style based on the non event which was the January transfer window.

To be fair the lack of any real quality outside of our best 11 makes me wonder if Rafa actually trusts his players and this he has reverted to a more defensive style. It is clear to see at present we are set up to not lose.

He will argue his role is to get us promoted no questions asked. End of. Right now it looks on track.

 

After the two away wins at Brighton and Huddersfield I felt that we'd finish at a canter.
But without a win since, and we were well second best to Fulham, I wonder how it'll go.
Whilst we didn't score yesterday, the team did seem to play a good second half, which could have got us a win.

I can't help but look at the January window as a failure which may have affected morale. Rafa may feel let down, just as KK did during the YouTube fiasco. So the summer might reveal our next phase, with or without some of our present key personnel.

 

Get ya point, by comparison it's a hell of a lot of money. But people on here talk like the money we gained was irrelevant. Not really, there were positions to replace that had to be replaced once sissoko, wij, cisse and janmaat ****ed off. Some people seem to think we shud have spent a mil replacing each position. 3m for Murphy sed alot and he was definitely one of our last choices. I'd still say it's paid off mind.
Ultimately I think where we disagree is money Vs. mind. To me it is quite hard to buy players with a mindset like Nolan etc. In this day and age that also has the requisite quality. I'd say Murphy or Ritchie are the closest and Ritchie still looks ineffectual some games.

 

I'd definitely agree that side was mentally tougher - they weren't when we went down but the whole toxic atmosphere and Leyton Orient cultivated something. Sometimes that can happen. So they mentally better but then they needed to be as we were in a much tougher situ.

You can't ignore the money coming in, and we did have holes to fill. But whereas others would have had to fill them with cheaper signings we had the luxury of huge incoming funds, a wealthy owner with a desire to be at the top table, and of course parachute payments. That meant we were able to buy our way out. Now of course that has to be done effectively and it is easy enough to **** up. However I know I'd rather be on our situ than any other in the league if I was a manager