Agree but over last few seasons some made it sound like we were only team with injuries and was used constantly as excuse for underperforming. Part of the game and sizeable squad required to cope with it and get rid of the sicknotes
Think what we found in our second season after promotion was that some of the younger lads, who were supposed to be the squad fillers, weren't actually good enough at that time. In essence that (and not having more senior pros) cost Bielsa his job and ultimately lead to the reversing of the upward trajectory we'd enjoyed for the previous 3 seasons. However I still maintain that Bielsa should have been given the time to correct that, even if it meant doing so from the Championship. Fortunately in Farke we have now found an able replacement and hopefully we appreciate what we have this time.
Thinking about it my boy Firpo's not too bad so we could stick him in a Miami Vice remake with a nice linen jacket and a toothpick. Go'on Junior thrash that Lamborgini
Seems Bielsa not only needed time but also needed players the club couldn’t get. Kinnear says Bielsa wanted to regress the squad and told the club the existing squad wouldn’t be able to cope with a fourth year of heavy training. He told the club that they would never cope for second season in the prem but he wasn’t backed. Kinnear admits this
Exactly that and I think most fans realised it at the time but hoped the promotion winning side could go on forever. Gross incompetence by the board
Compounded by the board thinking Jesse Marsch would be able to coach them into becoming better players than Marcelo Bielsa.
It's a good job you're not prone to hyberbole isn't it. The board you speak off signed; Rodrigo Raphina Koch Llorente Firpo Dan James Kristensen Aaronson Tyler Adams Marc Roca Gnonto Wober McKennie Over £200M worth of players there so not exactly hoping the Championship winning side would go on forever is it.
And only Gnonto, James and Firpo (probably because he’s injured) are still here. Never got anywhere near £200 million back for them. We are still relying on Ayling, Cooper, Struijk, Bamford, Meslier (and possibly others I can’t think of).
Signed virtually nobody when Bielsa and team were crying out for fresh blood. Every time those clowns went near the transfer market we came out weaker
The board stumped up the cash for our first 2 seasons back in the PL without selling one player. Should they have done a bit more in the second season - yes Were they grossly incompetent - no Their biggest mistake was appointing Marsche and then backing him for too long, but hey that's football.
Raphina & Phillips = £100M Tyler Adams = £24M Sinisterra = £25M (pending) Harrison = £20M (pending) Total = £169 million. So roughly £30M down over 3 seasons which given the PL income doesn't seem too bad to me. We aslo have loads of players/assets out on loan who's futures have yet to be resloved. Plus we've still many young valuable assets in the squad such as Summerville, Gnonto, Rutter, Archie Gray etc etc which we didn't have when intially promoted. The board we had were average, at times they did ok but also made mistakes which ultimately led to relegation. At no point were they grossly incompetent.
Think you have to take off the KP money, he wasn’t brought in. Also can you add up the amount for all the loanees + JKA (that was grossly incompetent) and deduct that from your £169 million.
You can't possibly include Phillips in this argument. Orta never bought him, so you can't use his sale for this argument. So it's really £80m down, using your argument above. EDIT: And you can't use 'pending' payments, when we might not get a penny for any of them for a variety of reasons. So, argument over. It's bollox.
