The thinking in signing Richarlison for £60m and as a result settling for a Barca reject on loan in defence continues to show itself as one of the worst transfer decisions in the history of football. Up there in terms of embarrassment with Arsenal bidding £40m + a quid for Suarez.
All seemed to agree that he was Conte's choice though....it's often a mistake to let the coach choose transfer targets.
It isn't necessarily a mistake, but it almost always is when you already have someone in place whose remit is specifically to choose transfer targets. I personally think the summer window was the beginning of the end for him. After a first window that saw him bring in two players very much known to him, the summer signings reflect a total lack of coordinated thinking. Some were clearly 'club'/Paratici signings who Conte (wrongly) had zero intention to play (Bissouma and Spence), while others were clearly 'his' (Perisic and Richarlison). I don't think he could ever fully wrap his head around the fact that he was never meant to meddle so much in transfer policy and was also expected to make the most out of the hand dealt to him (an idea he openly rebelled against), and the rest unravelled from there in stubborn obstinacy. I suppose an argument could be made that Conte expected another big money signing on top of Richarlison but was served Lenglet on loan instead. There is certainly vindication in that and even a degree of sympathy, but my gut instinct is that for that second big money deal to happen, we needed to shift more players out on permanent deals.
Just seen the highlights. Dier needs to consider a career change. Preferably something that doesn't involved thinking or moving. A scarecrow perhaps.
First half mediocre, second half much improved. Seemed a wasted opportunity sitting back after the equaliser, though. Was Manchester's Anthony Taylor as **** as he seemed from the stands? ****y-Ballsack and Lindelof appeared to get rather fortunate from where I was sitting.
Well there was a recent discussion about whether there was any bias toward 'certain' teams. Clearly the Lindelof decision showed that there was no bias, it was just a coincidence. Again.
Yes he was appalling with the decision not to give Lindelof a 2nd yellow top of the tree. Though in his defence I would say that Richarlison going all Everton on him and falling over every time some on breathed on him didn't help our cause. As for the game at least we showed some fight, and overall a draw was about right imo, and whilst the order of the goals suggests a game of two halves we had chances in the first and they missed a sitter in the 2nd. Bringing Fred on really helped us, Eriksen really makes them tick and I was pleased that he was warmly applauded when he left the pitch, it showed that we do still have some class off of the field.
Was at the match last night. Was going to comment but I went to the bar after 20 minutes after seeing Richarlison do donkey like things. £7 for a double with mixer. Wasn’t too shabby. missus not too happy as I only got home at 6.30
