For sure, I'd bet most if not all clubs use a combination of different methods to determine whether or not they feel a player will be a success, by old school and with new technology but ultimately there's no full proof method to guarantee success. No one could've predicted Alli to go from League One prospect to Premier League superstar, equally no one imagined Paulinho to go from "next big thing" in Brazil to utter disaster when in England. As for Seri, we clearly won't agree on how good we believe he is, I certainly feel he'd be a massive improvement on our current midfielders, I think his form at Fulham so far has also shown that, you obviously believe Winks and Dembele are adequate enough and that's your prerogative.
Yeah no doubt, I don't even expect Spurs to ever be able to find someone as good as Modric but I also think the club can do a hell of a lot better than our current options in centre midfield. It's a tragic shame Dembele has declined the way he has, he's gone from dominating the best midfield's in the country to struggling against PSV. Ideally I want our central midfield to be as strong as our attacking midfield, our options in those three positions are phenomenal, as shown by the fact we've been without Eriksen and Dele for games yet those who've stepped in have done great. If we can bring in the right player(s) in January, I'd fancy us to have a great end to the season. At present, if we only stick with what we've got, I think we could struggle badly in the final third and that can then have major implications in the summer with regards to potentially losing multiple key players.
I do think we need more strength (literally) in midfield Demebele and Wanjama provided this and at the moment of the two we only have 3/4. So I am not against the idea of new blood at all, I just don't get so worked up if we don't have new players every time. The worst window in recent times was not the last one when we hung on to all our star players and brought no new ones in, no it was the window following the Bale sale when we signed 7 and I spent much of the following season trying to be positive by talking about gel time. Add to this 'hairdryer treatment' and haircuts and I began looking for a the traditional cut throat razor. The single addition of Lucas has been a better addition than many clubs can claim who spent millions and he is a new signing. I can't believe people will split hairs and say he wasn't signed in the Summer window. The return of Lamela also has to be a bonus. So far during MP's time we have, IMO, signed players we needed rather than following a scatter gun approach used by some of our illustrious opponents and we have the best record of all of them in the league if you put the seasons together. Just don't take my prediction of 3 - 1 victory for Spurs on Monday too seriously, so I do hope we don't have another end of the world thread if we do lose that one.
You say that but you got eriksen and lamela out of that which is a 1 in 3 and ones world class and ones a very good player. You then sold chadli on for a profit with your big failures being paulinho and soldado so even though the first season was bad, the ones after weren't horrendous.
It's WanYama Signs don't look great with him though, I think that's why we're (supposedly) set to sign Barrios in January who is essentially a like for like replacement, albeit a bit of a nutcase - so should fit in with Dier, Alli, Lamela and co! Personally, I want some creativity in CM. We haven't had that since Modric/ Huddlestone. I want someone who can relieve the pressure off of Alli, Lamela and Eriksen, someone who can dictate things from deep and not just behind the striker like those three, if they can also push forward from the middle and grab goals/ assists then even better. The dream signing would be Milinkovic-Savic although that's likely to indeed be just a dream, Frenkie de Jong is someone I'd love to get, he reminds me of a young Modric which isn't something you can say often, Tanguy N'Dombele also looks fantastic, he's more in the Dembele mould but drives further up the pitch than what Dembele does. The "magnificent 7 " window at the time didn't seem great but as Bob just pointed out, Eriksen was a major success, Lamela is most certainly a success while we doubled our money on Chadli (who many, myself included, never wanted sold in the first place but understood his desire not to be a squad player). Lucas needed time to adapt hence why I think we signed him in January but he's been unleashed this season to devastating effect, that £25m is looking like a bargain. Seems a great guy as well.
Sure if you break it down to individuals but football is about teams and we struggled to find a team from those signings at the time. My point is that bringing in lots of players in one window is likely to be disruptive to that season. Compared to bringing in no one to a good squad AND retaining all your star players, that's the better option of the two.
Too many players certainly isnt good. However i dont think apart from the barca and reals at their peak, i have ever seen a team bring in no one and go onto win anything and thats even if they have a great side. Players age and some players lose form and hunger Especially if you are picking up players with potential who are cheaper, they need to bed in adapt to pochs game style
Very true. Im around dier hards age and lack that pre premier league footie. But it is very true of football in the modern era though
Doesn't mean it's the correct strategy though. One signing a season used to be the norm. It probably ought to be two or three now that more players are used. There are 25 players in a squad and I think players' careers ought to be at a peak for around 8-10 years.
Agreed, anything more than three signings can disrupt the balance of a side in my opinion, unless it's a mix of first team and prospects. I think most are also in agreement that it was only one or two players we felt we needed over the summer (and it remains the case now) - a CM and then maybe someone to back up Harry, although with Soldado, Janssen and Llorente all struggling, it's not exactly the easiest type of signing to attract, you can just imagine the phone conversation: "Hey, amigo! So we really wanna sign you but basically you'll be back-up to arguably the best striker in world football right now so you won't really play much but it'd be great if you could still make an impact when used on the odd occassion, fancy it?.... Hello... Hellooooo!"
We don't need a second rate back up to Harry. We've already got enough attacking midfielders to cope when he's not available. Grealish would have been good if we could have sold Nkoudou. We need to sell Dembele, Wanyama or Sissoko to make room for a CM.
I did say maybe someone to back him up. I agree that the AMs more than do a job but it's also much better to have the option of another striker than not to have one. This season alone has shown that, especially in games we've been chasing, would've been great to have another player with predatory instincts. I was a strong advocate to bring in Grealish, think he would've flourished under Poch, since he got moved to CM last season he really took his game to another level. Dembele and Wanyama are likely to be sold in January, I'd rather sell Winks than Sissoko though, Sissoko offers more of a complete package and is more versatile. The Mirror did state last night that Dembele, Wanyama, GKN and Janssen are set to be sold which seems pretty believable. Barrios will hopefully replace Wanyama, then it's a case of bringing in the ideal CM to boost our XI.
He's also much older and doesn't count as club or homegrown. With the state of our squad with regards to those factors, Winks is basically a free player, regardless of whether you rate him or not. He cannot be replaced. We can't buy somebody to take his place.
I don't think there is much point in a back up striker, especially when we have players like Dele, Lucas and Son. I am convinced that a striker needs to play week after week to build the kind of understanding that they require to be in the right place at the right time. It's not a coincidence that we have had striker after striker fail. In modern times overwhelmingly our striker signings have been a failure. A big centre forward would have more chance coming from the bench Giroud is something like that kind of player, don't we have one in Loriente and he has struggled too. You really are asking for the moon to find anyone who can play back up striker. Forget about it, keep an eye in case the moon signing does turn up but concentrate on replacing Dembele, that's the crucial one.
I think that we should replace Vorm in one of the next two windows with a homegrown keeper. Either go with a veteran who won't expect to start very often or go after a real prospect as a long-term replacement for Lloris. What's Robbo up to?
