Sorry . I know I am being thick , but it’s late , what is that graph meant to tell me ? That we have been tight ?
Very tight. At a time of record profits in the PL we're one of only two teams that have sold more than they have bought. Even Swansea is a net buyer over the past three seasons, if only barely. Sometimes, you get what you pay for.
I wonder if the Burnley and Tottenham fans are moaning? Our current position is more to do with manager selection and individual position non-signings than net spend.
Yeah, individual position non-signings are a problem, because we were cheap. We didn't choose to go without a replacement CB because we thought we were set at CB, but rather because we didn't have resources allocated to strengthen all of our positions of weakness. Les hasn't been sitting with a 100m transfer kitty that he somehow failed to spend each year. Burnley's number is also somewhat misleading because they were in the Championship. It's a rather different story in the PL: a net spend of about 15m a year. Looking just at PL seasons, the only club even remotely close to us is Swansea. And absolutely, management matters. Might be the difference between survival and relegation. But the biggest reason we're bad is that we have a group of defenders that individually are not of the necessary quality, and I don't think that any combination or formation or tactical instruction is going to rectify that. From late October on, we have the worst defense in the league. That's really difficult to overcome.
Surely one impacts the other? Spend more and we probably would've addressed the positions we are lacking in
Was at the game...JRod was brilliant!Surprised the heart WBA showed after all their woes. Pogba worst player on the pitch
Still not replaced players like Mane, Pelle, Fonte. Lack of spending and selling so many gets to you in the end. Burnley haven't sold off a whole team and neither has Spurs. It all adds up to how the club has been run and how it is now. Having to replace your best players every year, **** upper management, poor choice of manager and replacement players is why we are where we are
You make it sound like they just let this happen. Granted, mistakes have been made, but, the players who have left all had their heads turned but the glamour/money & prestige. You yourself know that the players have the power, and the Virgil situation is what happens when you try to say 'no' to them. We have broken our transfer record multiple times in our recruitment process, trying to find players of the same or similar quality of those who have departed. But in our price range that is very difficult. I actually thought we did well this summer getting Lemina & Wesley through the doors. But, alas too much turmoil & not enough spirit or fight and we find ourselves starring down the barrel. The biggest mistake for me was firing Puel, and the subsequent sequence of events. Hiring a dud, and not firing the dud till far too late. For that, people should be held to account. But, pinning everything on them (him) just seems like a petty vendetta. We are not the same club as five years ago, and more upheavals is not going to help us recover this situation. Some noise from the new owner would be very welcome right about now, just so we have clue what to expect during our next adventure in the Championship. But, whatever happens, 2009 is fresh in my mind and this is a cake walk in comparison.
Yes. You agree with me. Spending loads doesn’t guarantee you achieve these things. Romeu was excelllent last season and cost £5m. We could have signed a worse CDM for £20m. It’s about how and who you recruit. That’s all I am saying.
So I see Man £ity have bought another title. BRING IN A WAGE CAP! Football must be one of few professional sports to not have a wage cap, EVEN THE FRIGGIN IPL, THE MOST COMMERCIALISED FORM OF CRICKET EVER, HAS A WAGE CAP!
Don't complain too loudly mate. I was reading about how Disney started making mega dosh in the 70's, and your owner might well have another plan in place. He is one heck of a businessman. If he has been bitten by the footy bug, you may well have some rapid ascension to come.
Sure. But our self-imposed restrictions meant that we pretty well had to have the best recruitment in the league. We're nowhere near that, obviously, but the degree of difficulty here was extreme, and always likely to catch up with us. That we seemed to believe that we had the best recruitment in the league long after reality suggested otherwise didn't help matters.
Schad, all I’m doing is pointing out to people that the table posted doesn’t mean a great deal really. We could have spent loads more, been higher up that table and still been poor this season.
I don't know what your beef is about City. How do you think all the other PL titles have been won?(With the exception of Leicester). It's always been about about money.
Sure, that's certainly the case for the WBAs of the world. But if we're looking at why we didn't sign a striker to begin last season, didn't sign a CB to replace Fonte in the winter, didn't sign any attackers to begin this season and didn't sign a CB to replace VVD in January of 2018, that table is Exhibit A. It's certainly plausible that we'd have ****ed up those transfers. We needed to at least try, though.
