That has been my feeling this season, the talent is still there but his heart hasn’t been fully in it since refusing the deal at the start of the season. Should have sold him then
Pukki leaving at the end of the season is not a big surprise. At the moment, we will be left with Sargent and Idah as recognised strikers which gives me little confidence in our chances next season in the Championship. Other fans have expressed their doubts about Idah (1 goal this season) so my feeling is that we need to find another Pukki if such a player exists.
But even if we could find another player in a similar mould to Pukki, would he be able to work well if we are abandoning our style of the last five years? I'm one of those who thinks that Pukki has faded badly not because he's getting past it, but because for two seasons now we have not played a style of football that suits him. Saturday's hoofballs over his head were painful to watch for those of us who can remember Pukki at his best. I suspect we have given up all hope of succeeding with Farke's type of possession-based football, so we intend to go with Sargent as first-choice striker next season and play in a much more direct way. Personally I'm not looking forward to it - we all saw on Saturday, and throughout this season, how we have sacrificed an attractive style of football without any concomitant improvement in terms of results. But if Sargent and hoofball which makes no attempt to compete in midfield is to be our future, we need to recruit for it - the halfway house of 21/22 and 22/23 has been a disaster at both a results and an aesthetic level.
Describing this season as "a disaster" is gross exaggeration. I'd say we are currently 8 points short of where realistic expectation would have put us before the season started, and still with an outside chance of claiming a place in the playoffs. "Disaster" would be finishing the season with relegation. There has been serious underestimation of the effect on our senior players of our two dispiriting failures in the top flight. The team has played as if promotion is the last thing that some of them want.
Personally I'll stick with 'disaster' to describe the last two seasons following Webber's recruitment at the start of our last PL campaign and his subsequent sacking of Farke and appointment of Smith. We can argue about how many points we are currently short of a realistic expectation, but for me that is less important than the abandonment of a coherent style of play for a mix of hoofball and cluelessness. I can't remember a single game over the last two seasons where I think we could reasonably say we played 'very well', and even if we lower the standard to 'fairly good', I can only think of a handful - perhaps Watford and Everton and Man U last season, Millwall (twice), Coventry (twice), Preston (away) this. The decline over less than two seasons is shocking, and no amount of 'jam tomorrow' nonsense about a new pragmatism that is going to make us genuine PL contenders at some undefined point in the future can disguise that.
The style of play went out the window when we sold Buendia, Farke tried to change the style and requested players for that style. I remember those first 10 games of the season not only for horrible results but we played some horrible football too.
Something like that, our players were dead on their feet for the first few games as they didn't have the preseason. Selling our best player, no preseason, hard early games and loads of new players. We started losing and the confidence drained and the older players who had seen it before mentally broke = if it could go wrong it did go wrong
Aarons being touted as a transfer to Spurs or the rest of Europe. Less than £10m being the going rate. Surely NCFC will not be interested in such a paltry sum? Or will they?
Sara and Gunn to be sought after? It’s about time we sold our best for what they are worth, not what other clubs want to pay.
There is a report out that City are amongst a clutch of clubs including Everton, Palace & Bournemouth monitoring American Striker Brandon Vazquez, 24, has scored 18 goals in 2022 season for Cincinnati. Can also play as a right winger, and has a desire to move to Europe https://app.pinkun.com/23444644/content.html
Rachica wanted by loan club in Turkey for a reported €7.5m about £6.6m. What did NCFC pay for him? I suspect it was more than £6.6m.
Reportedly €11m + €4m bonuses, approx. £9.5m + extras back then, whether that's accurate <shrug> Assume we've saved something in wages since his loan out?
