What is this obsession that zillions have to be spent to keeping up with the "Jones´s in the footballing world?" SFC need to revamp their purchasing policy. There is a player playing in League 1 for our dear neighbours who is every inch a PL player. He did not cost a great deal, but I hope Jackett has put 40 million on his head.
Athletic Bilbao are a fine example who get the best out of what they have. Their recruitment is very specific and confined to players who were born or schooled in the Pais Vasco región. That is an área of about 3/4 million max. What SFC need to do is look for the massive talent that is in London, and often not scooped up by London clubs. With this policy, SFC do not need to s**** 20 million up the wall on a misfit.
I'm not suggesting that if you spend more you always get a better player, but we are spending alot and buying average. We also seem to be recruiting in the wrong areas. Our strategy seems to be, buy injury prone, slow and small players. We aren't a counter attacking side because we are too slow and not clinical enough and we cant defend because, well basically because we cant. How many games have we dominated and still got nothing from it
So basically SFC are f***ed!!! Maybe we should recruit Usain Bolt to give the side more pace up front.
£12-17m on an established player is definitely average territory these days. Certainly, you can get better, but you're by no means buying at the top of the market. Now, that same price range can still get you a good (but not top-level) player buying from lesser leagues, and that's what we really ought to get back to doing, IMO. Buy the best young players in competitive but lower-rated venues...the Championship, teams in Holland/Switzerland/Belgium/whatever that have some European exposure, etc. We did that with Elyounoussi, and tried to do it with Maddison (alas), but that needs to be our consistent model if we aren't going to join the rest of the league in spending £25m+ on premium talent. If you spend £15m on a guy on a big club, you're getting someone's backup, and more often than not they're a backup for a reason.
Could well be! So far, we have played six games and have 5 points which is less than a point a game and if we continue that through the season we will end up with less than 38 pts, so certainly fighting against relegation. Also, of the six games we have only played one team that you wouldn't expect to get something from. We are an average team and its so frustrating because we have sold alot of good players and made a healthy profit with very little to show for it, by replacing with average players.
I completely agree with that. and please if our transfer kitty is tight, spend it where we really need it
I would get more pleasure in finding a cheap rare diamond than paying over the limit. On another point, what has happened to our much vaunted academy?
Ask FLT? Our clubs have spent loads of state of the art academies but as we discovered in the world cup, this means naff all as our players played like robots, whereas Croatia´s played with flair and imagination. Maybe the acadamies are a bit like factories.
It seems like our recruiting team, scouting team and worst of all management team are MIA. I wish that any of our current team had even one tenth of Rickie Lambert’s vision/skill/passing/leadership - and he was found in league one.
I’m not advocating for a change of manager but it doesn’t bode well that we are starting long and hoedt continues to be a liability with no accountability. I don’t think things are awful but like every fan I was rejuvenated by our summer signings and looking forward to seeing some new interplay going forwards but so far this season we look scarily close to last season. Always on the edge of being good without really getting there. We are playing well in spells without causing any real problems but always at risk of concedeing a soft goal. Or 3. A run of draws and defeats with a lucky win in the middle is MP2 levels of performance and we need better.
Just for future reference this was MP2's first 10 games D, W, D, L, W, L, L, D, W, D Sparky's D, L, L, W, D, L From memory we had one of the easiest first 10 games in history last year. Our start this year has been a bit tougher. But not hugely.
I know of one player who doesn’t respect Hughes and thinks he’s arrogant. That is only one player though.
Reading Hughes’ comments about the budding partnership between Pierre and Mario, I wouldn’t expect that anytime soon.
On this part Badger, it is only me guessing, but Hughes strikes me as a little old school and I have this thing in my head that he likes a CB in the Shawcross mould: big and bad. I’d bet he finds Maya too polite and doesn’t think he’ll be nasty enough. just me guessing, as I’m Scratching my head over Wes.
No, for sure. That previous rebellion should have been quashed by the club though, in my opinion. I believe VVD was one of the main protagonists and he was already dating Klopp. Club got that wrong in my view. The casualty we would probably have lost that we wouldn’t have wanted to, is Bertrand, if rumours were true.
