Great article, 1950, from which this is the essence: "He (SW) also talked about recruitment, emphasising that it’s about getting the right players for the Head Coach’s way of playing. Looking at the present squad, it’s clear that we have Farke’s choices in the spine of defence and midfield: Zimmermann, Hanley, Trybull, Vrancic, Maddison (who, contrary to conventional wisdom, never started a game before Farke’s arrival). The positions where we don’t have ‘Farke players’ are right-back, the wings and – especially – up front. Given Stuart’s clarity of thinking, I’ll be surprised if those aren’t our priority areas for extra recruitment, starting now. Webber also, as many have noted, talked about 2-3 windows to assemble the kind of squad he and Farke are looking for. It’s a longer horizon than we’re used to seeing from the management team at Norwich, and takes a bit of adjustment on our part too." Emotions are running high now because we've reached what I call 'the bleak mid-window' stage. Four players have left with only a '19 year-old loanee coming in'. Woe is us the instant fixers say.
Dorrans was more of an AM who could also play in CM. You're right though that both are left-footed and good passers, but hopefully McLean would be better in attack more in the way of Howson.
So a player who has never played in the Premiership is a maestro. Whatever does that make Kane, Sanchez, Hazard etc. I can't help but wonder what the reaction on here would have been if, when we were fighting relegation as Huddersfield now are, we went out and spent £11m, £12m, £14m or whatever the true figure is on a youngster who had never played in the PL and had only played about 80 times in the Championship.
I took an hour off my favourite pastime of waitress watching to go through the accounts. Amazingly we get more money per year in parachute payments following the current relegation that we got 7 years ago for being in the PL. The total TV income over the period in question was £207m. When I have more time I will go through the accounts and try and set out where the money goes. Items that most of us do not even think about add up to a lot of cost. I quickly added up one year the cost of travel and hotel costs - which includes costs on away games and hotel costs for new players etc - and it totalled £1.4m for the year I checked. How many season tickets is that?
Well I'll go on record saying that I agreed with every one of those sales as they happened. If we hadn't made them, we'd be deep in debt and minus the restructuring which has left us in a solid position with the ability now to bring in players who fit the new system. It may not be glamourous or an instant fix, but it's the right direction IMO.
Brady and Olsson replaced by Husband Howson replaced by Vrancic Johnson never replaced Jacob never replaced You are happy that the sales of these boosted the coffers but significantly weakened the squad ?
Sorry - have Lewis, Maddison,Josh,Trybull, Vrancic,Stiepermann etc disappeared whilst I was eating my Pizza?
A bit of déjà vu here, DD but I'll do it again. Brady was replaced by Josh and later Wildschut. Olson was replaced by Dijks on loan and then by Lewis (who I think would have started the season at LB if he hadn't have been injured with Husband as back-up). Howson was replaced by Trybull, Dorrans by Vrancic. Johnson had one good season, but he was a dreadful passer and would have blocked Josh's development had he stayed. Jacob was replaced to a degree by Watkins, but moreso by Pritchard's ability to play on the right. Edwards can do that now, but I think we'll also recruit an outright winger to provide another attacking option more like Jacob.
I know other players have been recruited but that is not the same as replaced. For example I replaced my football boots with bowling shoes .
I didn't ask you to Rick as you obviously don't understand my point. selling 2 International left backs for a combined fee of about £15m and recruiting James Husband for less than £1m and hoping one of the academy players will cut it is not replacing what we lost. Husband is awful and it's only blind luck that Lewis seems to be looking like a decent player . Vrancic is nowhere near the player Howson was and Marley Watkins is not good enough to replace Jacob. Yes I understand we need to sell players but the level of replacement is not adequate in certain areas. This is reflected by our troubling goals for tally.
What an inane comment!! Presumably what you were trying to say was that IN YOUR OPINION they have been replaced by inferior quality players. That might well be your opinion but quite clearly it is not an opinion shared by many others. Personally I, for example, think that Maddison, Vrancic and Trybull are better than those they replaced but that is purely my opinion and not a statement of fact.
If you judge players on what they cost then Naismith and RVW are better than any of the players you mention. Everybody has differing views on players ability but there is no way of proving who is right and who is wrong.
So James Husband is better than Brady and Olsson ? You think you can sell 2 International left backs for £15m and buy Husband and the team won't suffer? That is MY OPINION but it's backed up by the monetary value attatched to those we sold compared to those we bought. If we make say £12m on Pritchard spending £500k on the Aberdeen boy will not be an adequate replacement, I'm not sure how you can't fathom that out . We have 2 weeks left to recruit a spare right back a winger a striker or 2 and preferable adequate cover for Lewis who has only just been introduced into the side.
I don't think any other club in the World valued Naismith as much as we paid for him , we are struggling to offload him for free and pay his wages for heaven's sake .
