And yet with a net spend of virtually £0 the vast majority of our support expect us to walk over teams like Fulham at ER and want the manager sacked, the board sacked, boo the players off the pitch etc when we lose. Premier League is what it says on the tin. It's premier. The toughest league in the world and the bottom teams would probably be in the running to qualify for Europe in any other league.
Remember we bought some cheap unknowns in the summer - so that should have raised our relegation squad to midtable. Now we’ve spunked a bit more that should guarantee top 6. I wonder if Bournemouth, Southampton, wolves, Leicester and forest fans who all splashed the cash again this January, have equally lofty expectations.
Steve Cooper has now got too many players so has dropped a couple from being registered. One of them is the former Huddersfield player we were supposed to be chasing last season. Yes Lewis O’Brian. So Cooper has his hands full trying to build some cohesion with his brand new 30 players. yet pundits seem to have them as favs
The Net Spend of zero is laughable mate, stop it, you know it’s a million miles from the truth Our net spend is in the region of £193m since our return to the PL.
it’s not the case now… was the case first half of the season when we played Fulham etc, which I think was emu’s point. sold our 2 best players for c £100m - bought a bunch of largely unknowns with the proceeds
Forest were always a wildcard this season. Basically a brand new team but seemingly no cash limitations. Was always going to take time for cooper to get some cohesion. He’s done a good job. They’ve ridden their luck though. My neighbour’s a forest fan, reckons they’re not playing much different to how they started the season, just stopped conceding stupid goals - and in his words have benefitted from some profligate finishing from the opposition. They’re a tough nut to crack at the city ground though. We need to get at them early and keep the crowd quiet.
In the last three seasons, our net spend is greater than Liverpool and Man City. The best two players doesn’t wash, would either get back in our team now? Look at Gnonto, if Rutter is a £30m player then Gnonto is a £50m starting price. Price tag means little. You, Emu and Eire keep throwing in Net spends and best two players, Phillips was poor under Jesse he doesn’t fit the system, Raphinha was atrocious the middle of his final season. We sold two players this season, we’ve brought in 10. Half the fans on here couldn’t wait to see the back of KP so best player is highly debatable. Best under Bielsa but without him he’s not even been average Our squad including subs bench is miles ahead of what it was last season, Raphinha and Phillips wanted out, what was we meant to do, I don’t get the failure to credit the board with backing the coach. At present, we’re no better off than last season, difference is last season we were absolutely smashed with injuries and a small squad. Jesse needs to get this team firing and if we lose to Forest he needs to walk as he’s getting no points from Man U
not sure what your point is here Rich… we’re talking about net spend from the side that avoided relegation on the last day. If you want to beat up orta and bielsa then take your 3 year argument. If you want to beat up Jesse, which lets be honest you do… then you’ll have to make do with the net spend since he’s been here… and the position of the club when he arrived. Phillips wasn’t brilliant in the handful of games under Jesse, but then he wasn’t match fit. Raphinha always blew hot and cold for us, but he was a 50+m player that loads of clubs wanted. Pretending that they weren’t our best two players is utter nonesense. Phillips would walk into the side in place of roca and Raphinha would be playing wide right for us - without him last year we’d be in the championship now.
I know you and Emu both try to balance my Jesse bashing, usually you make thought provoking points but honestly, the Net spend argument is ridiculous. Let’s look at since Jesse arrived, two out and 10 in because Jesse couldn’t coach what we had, he now has his own players. Value does not matter, James was a big money signing, was he worth it. Gnonto was peanuts, is he worth more than Raphinha or KP Adams in the KP role, Rodrigo up front with the back 5 it leaves us 4 spots… McKinnie, Rutter, Summerville, Gnonto - KP nor Raphinha is getting on ahead of them, they’d be on the bench alongside Roca, Harrison, Aaronson and Bamford in a fully fit squad The fact is, under Jesse not Bielsa we have at least 5 players who’d class as better than KP or Raphinha and that’s edging on cautious some would argue at least 7 Edit three out if you include the sale of Klich
No one’s making the net spend argument today rich… it was made before this window. I’m not sure with your maths.. of player in and outs… James, llorente? And if you include academy guys as purchases you probably ought to include the squad players who’ve moved on to. If I trawled back through your posts from the summer I’d be pretty confident in finding comments about buying Jesse’s old boys.. problems and risks of integrating players from foreign leagues into a Prem team etc. They were valid concerns to be fair. People tipped us for relegation. You just seem to have selective memory when you’ve subsequently talked about our midtable squad. Somehow these cheap punts of his are now all superstars (despite apparently being held back by his strategy ) and capable of keeping 50m players at city and Barca out of the team. What we did in the summer was sell our two best and most important players in exchange for building what we hoped would be a better squad. Anyway- here’s what we hopefully can agree on. We’ve strengthened the squad. I think most agree that. The board have supported marsch and orta. If we don’t see an upturn in performances and results there’s no hiding place. My personal concern and biggest criticism of Marsch is I now see a premier league midfield and attack… with still a championship level defence. If the former can’t bail out the latter, then believe me I’ll be holding marsch to account. ALAW
My argument about Jesses old boys (which you are right, I probably have complained about) and ignoring if they are any good or a complete waste of money... as that can only be recognized further down the line What is Ortas job? Does he sign us players based on a style of play that means should the coach get poached away, or fail miserably, the next guy can come in and continue a smooth transition, able to coach what we have. I assumed this was the DOF job, I wouldn't have thought his job was go out and sign players requested by the coach. This is in fact a huge criticism of mine over the appointment of Marsch after Bielsa, it has been far from smooth We are risking rinse and repeating the same as we did with Bielsa. A good coach should get on with it and coach who he has available to the best of their ability.
I'm talking about last summer bud. When we lost to Fulham at home we had spent nothing in the window. Chelsea have spent over 400 million in the last couple of weeks and still couldn't beat Fulham at home which we find amusing. It wasn't amusing when our team couldn't. There's no consistency. By the way, a fit Phillips is still our best player and by some distance.
The point about whether the players are any good or not risty is it’s often a question of whether the system makes them look good. People seemed to accept this with the bielsa machine - ie the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. With marsch everyone thinks the opposite. So they’re great players held back by an idiot. People don’t seem to question why ‘cheap’ imports might be looking good. Maybe the system shows their attributes…Creates transition chances for our forwards so it looks like they’d finding space. Competitive midfielders like Adams allowed to show his athleticism and tenacity in a way he couldn’t in Leipzig…. Etc. (Hopefully the same will be the case for mckennie who apparently felt shackled at juve) Re the role of orta. You’re are correct, he’s meant to buy players who suit a style of play that a certain type of manager can play with. There are way more similarities than differences between marsch and orta in terms of the type of player they need. I actually think the mix of orta buys and marsch recommendations in the summer (jury out yet on winter) worked well. So I don’t think it was that marsch couldn’t or wouldn’t coach the existing ones… it was that plenty were proven to be crocks/past it/not good enough - On the evidence of last year.
A lot of games today to mess with the bottom of the table. Afraid we all have to hope on results going our way again. If that happens and we win tomoz things will look much rosier
Thing is Milky/Emu it’s not just the fans that have lost confidence, it’s the media and most pundits. The common theme with them is “stop talking and start doing” Marsch now has everything he wanted and needs to get on with it. Losing tomoz and then twice to Man Utd puts him in jeopardy but think he will have Southampton and Everton to redeem himself
