Yeah I’m well and truly on the Rodon hype train mate don’t worry about that. Think he’s got a big future.
Their list of record signings though have generally been a lot better than ours. Pepe is obviously a horrendous flop but if you compare say ten for ten they'll likely prove better. Just off the top of my head I think Ozil, Aubameyang and Sanchez were record signings at their times. Ozil ended horrendously but was still a great player overall for them. We just can't seem to get it right when we smash ours. Son and Modric probably the only two big money signings we've made that have proven to be bargains. I don't actually think Son was a record signing when we signed him either.
This isn't about being well run or not, it's about how we spectacularly fail when spending big or going for the bigger names. In general ENIC have done a decent job. They/ we just fail when it comes to signing/ appointing the big money people. Though with regards to that list, if you're including City then Chelsea have to be there too. As would Liverpool.
Torreira, Saliba, Xhaka, Mustafi, Lacazette, Pepe, Mkhitaryan, Chambers, Welbeck, Perez, Reyes... ****! Bit harsh on Saliba, as he's still very young, but after the crap they were calling when they signed him, he can't even make their squad. And that's before you even look at the wages for those ****ers.
I agree with what you are saying but I just heard a stat about Lamela that kind of puts us as a club into perspective(for me) When he signed for us, Roma were set to get an extra 8mill off us once he bagged 20 goals...8/9 years later he’s still stuck on 16 I agree with you but if that’s his return then it’s not been very good at all and reflects on the overall quality of our squad
I just punched these into Google, from the most expensive perspective, Chelsea's top ten are probably the worst but when they go a bit further down they improve beyond ours. The rest I'd say have a better number of successful record signings than us. All clubs have more than had their fair share of flops though but I think we've struggle the most at getting it right with big money moves overall. https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/tottenham-hotspur/transferrekorde/verein/148 https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/fc-arsenal/transferrekorde/verein/11 https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/fc-liverpool/transferrekorde/verein/31 https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/manchester-united/transferrekorde/verein/985 https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/fc-chelsea/transferrekorde/verein/631 https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/manchester-city/transferrekorde/verein/281
The obvious thing with Lamela is people expected he was the Bale replacement, based on what we paid for him Instead he was the Lennon upgrade, and the Bale replacement didn't arrive for another two years when we signed Son/realised that Townsend wouldn't cut it as either a Lennon or Bale replacement
He's brought in 9 of his own players though. He's also done little to nothing to improve us overall too. On the money he's being paid there should be at least a level of improvement somewhere in comparison to the end of Poch's reign and there just isn't to be fair. We're more or less seeing a carbon copy of Poch's end of days to now.
He hasn’t entirely to be fair, we know that Bergwijn and Regulion at least are both players the club had tracked for a while and pulled the trigger on. Mourinho clearly likes both the players but they were club buys primarily. Similarly, Levy was a key factor in Bale coming back as he’s wanted it for years. How keen Mourinho really was on it we may never know. But he has clearly been backed in the market and seems happy with a lot of the additions, even if he didn’t personally pick out one or two of them.
Probably because most of our "big money moves" have actually been "mediocre money moves". Lo Celso's our 4th most expensive player. He'd be Man Utd's 25th, just edging out Anderson from the 07/08 season. Veron cost more than him 20 years ago. Morata's the one from all of those lists that strikes me as the most dubious. Cost about £60m, absolutely and utterly flopped, to the point of becoming a meme, then sold for about £45m? Really?
If Levy wasn't a 'Mourinho fanboy' or it was any other manager producing this crap, he'd be clearing his desk...but he'll be gone before the end of this month. There's no coming back from where we are now.
I don't believe a player is signed though without the approval from the manager. We know Levy goes looking for players himself but I don't think he'll sign them without a thumbs up. We know that van der Vaart for instance was also a "Levy signing" as Redknapp has spoken out before about how was asked if he wanted him - and I think that's what happens, Levy will find out someone's available who he may think is a great signing and he'll ask the manager if they want them or not. I don't think Jose would've said no to Bale, he openly said he tried signing him when he was Madrid manager too.
There's also obvious issues that his signings aren't actually improving problem areas Hojbjerg isn't the DM we need to control midfield, he's an upgrade on Sissoko in the workhorse CM role Doherty is somehow a downgrade on Trippier, as he has neither kicked Aurier up the backside to improve nor proven he can be relied on for a run of games Hart hasn't shown a single reason that he was signed either than his HG status, which doesn't justify him playing Rodon is still raw, yet somehow still makes a better impression than Dier or Sanchez
And out of them 9 who did you really think was going to hit the first team? tbh the 2 out of the 9 who have been successes isn’t too bad going considering the total layout of 65 mill I wasn’t expecting too much from Hart, Rodon and a few others...they are back up...he hasn’t signed first team starters. Bale and Doherty have been the let down. Bergwijn has had the starts to up his game and Vinicius wether you and me like it or not is a loan signing who’s going back. we have to realise you don’t become a winner like Jose with bit part squads full of loaners and a mishmash of lower league bargains and yesterday’s stars. He wants to build his own team. Of course he said he’s happy because saying the other thing would result in everyone saying ‘he’s destroying our club’ Vini is better than nothing so he took it otherwise we would end up with **** all for the 8th season running. his serious targets we couldn’t deliver he’s doing his bit...but it’s not working...maybe next summer Levy won’t go shopping in Abdul’s corner shop again when what the manager wants is in Sainsbury’s
Is he? He's making stupid, predictable mistakes, from what I can see. I knew he'd start without a striker against Brighton and it would be ****, so why didn't he know this? That's not Levy's fault, it's his.
I'd say it's about being comparative though, we generally haven't spent as highly as others but we've then also not had the same expectations of a player as others who've spent more. Ultimately though I'd say our expensive/ record signing players haven't lived anywhere up to our level of expectations.
We've finished above all of these teams, while also having our wage bill dwarfed by them, though. People expect too much from our record signings, as we have to buy differently to these clubs, who still **** theirs up anyway. Imagine the **** we'd get if we'd have signed Kepa, FFS.