They brought in a keeper because we have no available keeper behind Forster that we would want to play regularly in the EPL or in the Cup Final. We were only an injury to Forster away from disaster.
I don't get this. How does that mean we weren't in for him? We got gazumped (and what he was asking for ultimately did us no favours. Palace pushed it to that point). If that's the reality, maybe we did the right thing.
That's not really a big issue though. Even four or five places. I'm just trying to understand what people mean by "it'll cost us." Anywhere from 9th to 16th means not a great season, so to me it's about dealing with what we have this season and making sure we get it right in the summer, if indeed we have got it wrong now (I think we have, it only time will confirm that).
That's fine, thanks. As I said to Schad just trying to understand. Personally this season and the way it's gone, I don't think that's a big "cost" in the bigger picture as long as we adjust and are ready come start of next season.
But if you feel that you badly need to fill a position, setting as your primary target a player who you will only get if their price is driven down significantly carries quite a bit of risk. You should probably have other irons in the fire. Those other irons probably shouldn't be a chronically injured player whose team is trying to offload his wages.
But given the emphasis the club places on financial stability, we're currently looking at a pretty substantial drop in revenue in relative terms. Four or five places, especially once you include other associated revenue, would pay at least half the cost for a pretty good CB, and the difference between last year's performance and this year's could be 25m.
Romeu has improved from last season to this Cedric has improved from last season to this JWP has improved Maya has improved Ryan is still as good VVD has improved ( from great to greater) Clasie has maybe improved a little Long isn't as good Tadic seems more inconsistent Redmond looks like he needs to be more consistent Boufal looks like he'll more than kick on Sims has broken through McQueen has broken through All that's happened is that we've slipped down a bit and not got the results overall. I've said for four seasons that the **** would hit the fan the first year we slipped back in our progress. It's happened. Too many fans don't seem to have the patience or stomach to wait it out.
The truth is that players have had to improve because they are filling holes left by players who were already better than them when they left. The question isn't about imorovement of individuals but improvement of the squad - which as certainly got worse. The law of diminishing returns is going at work here. One good summer could fix it. One summer when we sell no one we need and build on our squad. A summer which gives Puel a team with decent forwards, creative midfield options and three solid centre backs. We get that, no one can complain. Who thinks we will?
Yes and no. "you will only get if their price is driven down significantly"? Eh? Who said that. If anything his price was driven UP significantly (he's not actually that good) and there becomes a price/wage where the January premium just becomes a pointless addition. I strongly believe (perhaps wrongly, but it's all opinion) that we got (rightly) to that point. Our B option perhaps we got wrong. For sure. I really wanted another CB in this window (as I'm sure the club/board did even more so) but after that, perhaps the options were very thin/massively overpriced. Honestly. Genuinely. I suspect that's what happened.
It could, but I don't think that's what the fans are restless about. And I don't think that when they are raising their concerns (sounds better than moaning) it is foremost in their minds. Maintaining that level was always going to be very, very tough and a season dropping back was predicted long back. I stand by my view that half the time a lot of fans can't deal with that in the short term. This was proven by the near melt down last season under Koeman.
I agree with you. I would however politely point out that while those laws of diminishing returns were at work, we had two record seasons. That was down to good recruitment of players and staff. Therefore I remain positive that one (actually just over half, but why split hairs) poorer season doesn't immediately mean that the cards are falling down. It might, but it might not and this is why I get annoyed when fans launch into dispairing complaints, early. Each summer I have read that our squad has got worse. For whatever reason, the fact remains that three of the last fours have lead to improved seasons, so I will remain patient with the club, if not some of the fans
Haha, this is an odd one in that I completely agree with much of it, but that first sentence annoys the buggery out of me. Of course the players we have sold are good, and better than those we signed, that's the whole point of our positioning. We take a player, bring them on, sell them at a big profit. BUT I agree that as a result our squad will basically remain at a level which will be consistent, with the odd variation. As Fats has stated for a long time, there was always a point at which we would level out (or, shock horror, be a bit worse), at which point our massively over-entitled (not talking about you, for what it's worth) fans would throw a wobbly. Here we are. We're a good to average mid table team and squad right now. We might and probably should improve from that over the next summer period, but the reality is we're gonna finish around 12-15th this year, with a league cup final at Wembley. So that's okay. Not brilliant. It's okay. Sometimes you have okay years. Sometimes you have brilliant ones, and sometimes you have **** ones. We're really lucky actually, that through smart planning and clever management we've only really had mainly the second, perhaps this year the first of those within the last few years. As it happens that's a MASSIVE credit to us. Ask the guys at Apple, Microsoft, BMW, Virgin, wherever. EVERYONE has average and **** years. It doesn't mean they are rubbish. It just means that the ground shifts and sometimes, no matter how clever, prepared or brilliant you are, you sometimes miss the mark.
This suggests you know details on all the players we were interested in. I bet we had other irons in the fire.
Take the cup final out and it is still something I can live with as I always thought it could happen. I'd prefer it didn't happen, but I am realistic.
We're talking about a loan here. The biggest hurdle, from the sounds, was paying his wages. Understandably, we didn't want to pay 100k p/w on a loan, and were hoping that Liverpool would eat a portion of his wages to get him out the door. That was a risk; if anyone paid Sakho's wages -- and Palace appears to have done so -- we'd thus be left standing. Further, it's something that would always come down to the wire, a bet that Liverpool would find themselves on the 31st with no other dance partners. Which, in turn, didn't leave us many options. We seem to have switched to Tasci with a few days remaining, and ended the night trying to loan Jordi Amat, who is one of the key pieces of a Swansea side fighting relegation.. If we had other irons in the fire, they weren't in there long. Beyond that, the difficulties of the January market are not novel. We certainly knew about them in the summer, when it became clear that Fonte wanted out, and when most of us wanted a younger CB anyway.
I clearly didn't say the cards are falling down after one half season. My point is we need a diferent kind of summer. Our summers have not been kind lately - and I am not just talking about ****ty English weather...
Do you want to keep VVD for another season? If so, do you want to bring someone in at 30-40k a week more (who is not as good as him, by a LONG stretch) because you're desperate? How do you honestly think that's going to play out? Okay, there's an argument to say "put VVD on 105-120k a week" but he's just signed a 6 year contract on the salary he's on. I know you're not saying that it's a good idea, and yes it left us in a bind, but I genuinely suspect we were given the right signals to believe it would happen before we were essentially gazumped by a Palace side willing to take the financial risk in order to stay up.
You may be right but all I am doing is again trying to show the other side. There is always another side. The other irons may have been in there a long time but just not come off. It's a juggling act. When I read statements that say we didn't try for enough players or hard enough, I just like to point out that is just a onesided view, that has no fact or evidence to it. It's not a wrong opinion, but we all know how quietly we normally do stuff and we may have tried others without people knowing. We may not.
Then don't pursue Sakho as your primary target. I would much prefer that we would have instead targeted a CB that we'd look to sign in the summer, and perhaps pay a little extra to get them now, which would hopefully be offset by the increased revenue from not dropping a few extra places in the table.
