yeah he was pretty bogus, still bagged same as Oscar in the champ for that laughable PBoro side, I don’t think he’d be a terrible option.
I think this is all true, but I do have a feeling based on Rosenior's comments about signing robust players that we'll be steering clear of the Turkish Super Lig this time round. Do any of the names you're aware of come from there?
Bollocks isn't it. Would have all stemmed from some stupid throwaway comment earlier on in the season. That's why it bugs me when people make things up and spout them out, because if you do it a few times **** starts to stick. Look at someone like Guler... Would he be made of glass?
There is a very clear link when you look at our injuries this season. Everyone who came from Turkey has missed long spells with non-contact injuries, particularly serious hamstring tears. The players who came from UK clubs or other European leagues have stayed free of these kinds of muscular injuries. Maybe if we can get them in early enough that they get a full pre-season here to get up to English levels of intensity then we can make it work, but I certainly don't think we want to be drafting in players from Turkey in the latter weeks of the window again.
Wasn't Longman out for a while with one? Salah wasn't brought in from the Turkish league. Did Allahyar have one last season whilst he was with us? The way I see it, we've had loads of injuries this season which could be due to various factors. I highly doubt its just because of which league we've bought some of the players from. Seems a bit xenophobic. Every other Turkish player not playing in their national league were sicknotes for the first season or so overseas im assuming? Tetteh for example didn't need his second injury. He naively overstretched to get a ball that had gotten away from him and you knew the second he stretched out what was going to happen. If he doesn't do that, he possibly finishes the season playing up front for us. Did the pre-season cover conditioning? Is the training ground that bad for causing injuries? Sinik was supposedly fine until he set foot on it. Have we pushed players back into action too soon? Is the rehab not working properly? Have we just been unlucky? I don't think we can write off an entire league of teams and players as being injury prone based on looking at this season's injuries alone, whilst only looking at those players when so many have been injured. There's just more to it. Rosenior said recently about looking into the whole matter so it isn't repeated. If it was just "their league is full of players that can't handle the rigours", then it wouldn't need looking into.
Don't remember Christie, Connolly, Fleming or Baxter playing in Super Lig either. Tetteh had 2 years in Prague before his one year in Turkiye, so do we avoid the Czech league also? Some folk seem to making quite a lazy generalisation, but as someone else said, gets repeated enough then it has a tendency to stick.
There isn’t a clear link at all we’ve had just as many domestic players out this season to suggest the “link” you’re making is completely baseless.
I think the injury crisis was a mix of reasons. The Turkish league’s fitness standards being lower than in England is a possible reason but not the only reason. I remember Robertson saying he struggled when he first went to Liverpool because he had to adapt to Klopp’s more demanding training and fitness standards compared to City’s. Players coming from some Turkish clubs might be a similar situation. I don’t think our pre-season helped either. There are rumours Shota wasn’t happy with the way it was organised. I think there’s also an element of rushing players back too soon and pure bad luck.
