Ben Davies is a decent enough 4th option for centre back. Numbers wise there is enough for defence, he just didn’t give Spence and Reguilon nearly enough minutes until he was forced to.
absolutely this. There must be a good reason for it which I don’t know about, as it baffles me why arrivals in either of the transfer windows are left so late, when there’s many months prior to do the business, where evidence of the needs become visible. In our case, even before the season started, the hierarchy must have still felt that there was a couple of players we were short of in the squad that we failed to get over the line. Then there’s the the gaps that appear (sometimes unforeseen, sometimes down to injury) which become evident as the season unfolds. In our case again, we should have been identifying and putting a plan in place for players to arrive on 1st Jan, as the squad has been crying out for additions. I wouldn’t be surprised if the logic is to simply get away with paying a few weeks less in wages, regardless of how important integration into the team is. Bigger picture an’all that.
The worry I have with January now is the board second guessing who to back Ange with because there’s likely already been conversations away from Ange about losing faith in him - and this is why I’ve predicted for months for Ange to be done around late Jan because the board will half-arse it in January, we’ll continue to lose games and then it gives them the “out” to bin him around the end of the window. Statistically he’s the around the third worst manager we’ve had in about 15+ years, with only Nuno and Ramos having lesser win rates in that period. Conte, Jose and even AVB were sacked with better records let alone Poch and ‘Arry, even Dim Tim had a higher win rate, albeit both Tim and Nuno didn’t get prolonged spells to judge whether they would’ve improved or worsened with their records. The other thing to take into account is any incomings at the moment won’t make the Europa squad - this already includes Yang. So Ange is either going to have cull a few or the new signings will be joining knowing they’ll immediately not play in Europa and if it’s the latter, you can bet your house that any new signing is likely going to be of considerably low quality for them to accept such a predicament. Ultimately the way I see it panning out is we’ll make one £20m-£25m signing and possibly two loan incomings, all will be of a level of squad ability and not a first XI upgrade and it’ll just be counting down the losses until Ange does get the boot.
Imo Levy still clings to a decades-old belief that playing hardball and bluffing until the 11th hour will shave a couple of million off the transfer fee. This belief has been nonsense since the early 2010s when the PL started pulling away financially from every other major league in Europe, so much so that we've seen plenty of transfers where players have been offered to us for £xm but then sold in the same window elsewhere in Europe for £ym. Clubs hope to sell to a PL club as a luxury bonus, but have plenty of other suitors whose quotes are well within expectation should that first option fail. I also think we've reached a truly ridiculous sequence of events whereby the manager in charge is usually under enormous scrutiny come January and there is a reluctance (understandable albeit misplaced) to invest in him any further.
IIRC we can register an additional 3 players to our Europa squad if we make the KO stages. I assume Spence and Yang will take up two of those.
I said something similar a couple of weeks ago. Faffing about over the managerial situation for a large chunk of Jan, then leaving no time to bring in much needed additions, and ending up with distinctly average squad additions on loan at the last minute to tie us over.
I’m almost certain we are full on our quota other than CG spots. Unless I've been living under a rock, I’m unaware of additional spots opening after a certain period. Pretty sure it remains at 25. Right now we’re at 23.
I think you might be right. The issue is we're maxed out on List A. Only way to add those new players is to cut non HG/CG players from that list. Although tbh I don't think anyone would bat an eyelid if Richarlison and Werner were booted out. But I can't see how we'd free up a third spot without losing someone who is potentially useful.
It felt sooo predictable to me the moment the summer window shut too. Ange is far from perfect (understatement of the century) but he needed help in the summer and he didn’t get it. One player for the first team for a side that scraped 5th after 5 losses in 6 was wildly inadequate and we’re now in a situation where he’s doing terrible, January is around the corner where we need about £100m worth of strong additions and we’re likely gonna add Everton level signings because they’ll have the doubts about giving him what he needs.
Yeah so the additions would require three removals, unless of course two of the three players we sign would be the likes of Walker-Peters or Edwards, who could go straight in for the remaining CG spots.
I'm tempted to believe that our transfer activity will be dictated by factors that have nothing to do with Ange's security in his position...basically how much can be safely advanced from this summer's budget, given the lack of outside investment for the current development project, and whether Lange, Munn and Levy perceive any 'value' in whatever is available to us by way of signings. When you factor in that we've got a full squad already and the club's one out/one in MO, significant changes are unlikely. As history has shown, it's much easier to sack the coach and pretend that will make all the difference.
I'm hopeful we can move some more players on. Reguilon might attract interest now that he's been seen alive in public again. He's out of contract at the end of the season so I'd imagine a loan is the best we can hope for. There are rumours Jose wants him at Fener. Richarlison moving for literally any price would be a dream but it's so unlikely. Part of the problem is that in his very tiny brain, he sees himself as the second coming of Jairzinho. Werner's loan should be cancelled first thing Wednesday morning. And I'd be very much inclined to start listening to offers for Bissouma, who goes into the last year of his contract this summer and has done nothing to warrant getting a new one.
The player quota situation is an interesting one, and quite possibly the biggest challenge we’re facing. It’s one thing needing to sell before you buy, but our current predicament really doesn’t help. Clubs will know we’re not happy with our current league position (and we’ll want to strengthen), and could likely try and leave any business they want to do with our players until late in the window, hoping to seal a good deal themselves. That, combined with Levy playing hardball, could result in little to no movement in terms of exits (let alone early ones), which subsequently massively hurts us with incomings. Not to mention running out of time.
Just thinking about the Europa situation in a bit more detail ahead of January and touching on what CK mentioned with regards to three changes to the squad being permitted. Assuming we don't sign any old CG players like KWP or Edwards (or Kane... Or Winks ) who can go straight in, two of the three to drop at the moment would surely be Odobert (supposedly still out long term) and Werner (cancel loan in January). A third is harder to predict - Bergvall and send him out on loan? Ange barely plays him and it'd make sense for him to get a run of 20 or so starts somewhere, preferably in England, a decent Championship outfit would be good. Forster - he was someone I felt we should've dropped anyway, if Austin now can't be relied upon to face two sides, one of them being one we should definitely beat at home (Elfsborg) before Vicario returns then giving him a 5 year deal in the summer really was ****ing stupid. Richarlison - I don't think Ange will do this, he bizarrely seems to like him despite there being a lot of sense in doing it, it'd give Lankshear at least a couple of starts, otherwise we may as well loan him out seeing as he still can't get a sniff despite Richarlison's absence. But then those who get registered in their place is equally tricky. We've already to got two players here who'll be wanting/ needing minutes in Spence and Yang. So if that's potentially two of the three changes, it'd leave just one spot open to a potential new signing. With any other addition joining on the proviso they won't be registered for Europa, which as I mentioned earlier, almost certainly means the calibre of player will likely be a low level one because no high level signing will join without the guarantee of Europa inclusion. If Yang or Spence don't get registered, then I can't imagine that going down well with them and the latter you'd surely have to wonder if they'd slap in a request to leave? Yang at least can use the second half of the season to get some sporadic minutes in the league and vs Tamworth and because he finished the K-League season in our mid-season, it's not the worst scenarios to just ease him in over the next few months, even if Europa minutes would be more ideal. It's all very messy... and frankly, I can only see us making some very poor decisions. We rarely, if ever, seem to make the smart calls.
It pains me to agree but I suspect you are correct in this. I would not be at all surprised if we saw very little movement until say the 30th of the month! It's almost like being in the passenger seat of a car and the driver has shut his eyes as the brick wall is fast approaching. You can see the crash coming, and there's bugger all you can do about it... God, I'm so looking forward to that 8:00 start on Saturday to witness the next one.....
Ange will 100% not be here if we leave business that late. I think we'll get a couple things done in the first week or so (we should have them done now ready for 1st of Jan) but it's the quality/ calibre I'm concerned about. I just feel we'll half-arse it due to the manager's future being in question. I don't think we as a club have ever doubled down on a manager during bad times and I'd be surprised if that changes. I expect more Werner-esque type signings than Kulu/ Bentancur ones.
Reguilon he has somewhat of an excuse, as the club wanted him gone in the summer and he didn't budge Spence is a brainfart, mind
Yeah it’s clear he doesn’t rate Reguilon at all, Ange must not be happy that it looks like he’s going to be the LB for the foreseeable. Unless the club manages to get another LB in asap.
There's a certain irony there, as Reggie is the sort of LB we need on the bench, as he hugs the line so wouldn't get under Son's feet regularly and also stretch opposition defences So if we can find somebody who does that but with reliable crossing we'd have a much better chance of having a viable Plan B
