Also, weren't people on here adamant that Ramsey would be a **** signing last summer? Funny how easy a 180 is when it's convenient, eh?
I didn’t want Jacob Ramsey or Connor Gallagher and still wouldn’t want them. I’d rather have good technical players (Bergvall) than just busy players who just run around a lot.
Levy`s approach to transfers will never build a winning squad, the priorities are all wrong and players are signed for all the wrong reasons, the strategy is to sign younger players with the potential to develop their values further, along with opportunistic signings and those who do not command top level wages. The managers hardly ever get the players they need or their first choice targets, the result is a below par squad and unwanted players who we struggle to get rid of, rinse and repeat.
This is entirely due to 5 other clubs having more money than us. The ones who have less money all do much worse. The only solution is to have more money. ENIC have done quite a good job of increasing our revenue but there is a way to go before we can afford better players.
Buying a £50m+ player when they'd cost us £15m is a sound strategy not just for our club but for any club
According to the Daily Star ...you stopped reading at that point, right? According to the Daily Star there's going to be a mass purge at The Sheikh Mansour Team this summer, with the following players mentioned as likely casualties Kevin de Bruyne Jack Grealish Ilkay Gundogan Mateo Kovacic Jack Grealish Bernardo Silva John Stones Ederson So, any takers...?
I agree to a point. I can't help thinking though that we are currently experiencing phase one of a plan that should have happened long ago, and is just painfully late. If this aggressive buying of the best youngsters went further than just Dele Ali at the time, we'd probably have won a couple of domestic cups, all before bolstering a stronger squad with experienced players like Llorente. The assumption is that there has been no change in Levy's approach. He's never been this aggressive. This is a good thing. We have just acquired more top tier youngsters in a short period of time than I've ever seen him do, and some are still yet to arrive. I think we're about to see more experience come in now too, to put some icing on the cake.
As I said a while ago, we're going back to the plan which was in place for the 2004-5 season for the third time: bring in high potential youngsters early in the hope that a £5m/£10m/£40m player could either become a £20m/£40m/£80m player for us, or a £10m/£20m/£40m player if they don't make the grade but do enough to increase interest in the event that we do sell them, with a sprinkling of academy players to be standouts and/or pure profit The first time we did this started with Santini but didn't really get started until Jol slid up the bench, and the second time was supposed to start with Villas-Boas but didn't really kick in until Poch came in The problem is that the first two times the plan faltered, and TBH it wasn't Levy per se that was responsible: the first time it was Arnesen getting tapped-up by the Chavs that saw the system falter and replacing Arnesen with Comolli is what saw it collapse given Comolli was signing players willy nilly rather than sticking to the manager's instructions or what the squad actually needed, while the second time is harder to pinpoint because partly it came down to Poch liking to work with a smaller squad, partly because we had a lot of clutter in the squad we couldn't shift (mainly Nkoudou), and partly Poch seemed to be turning down a few players who were brought to his attention such as Maddison, Bowen and the like which may play into his distrust of loans
He's far from alone in having looked dreadful in Ange's system, but he's a really good footballer when used correctly. I'd far rather keep him than Bissouma, who has been every bit as poor, without having to recover from ACL surgery. With more sensible tactics, Bentancur is a very useful player to have.
Completely agree, I think he’s a top, top player and have said how the system hasn’t suited him. He’s an 8, not a 6. Him, Maddison, Son, Porro and to a lesser extent, Vicario, have all been victims of poor positioning or instructions. I think regardless of Bentancur’s future, Bissouma was a goner this summer anyway. Frustrating to see how it’s not worked out because he looked great at Brighton but just hasn’t found any level of consistency here.
Great big nope from me. We offer new contracts like they're going out of fashion. Half a dozen good games and we warm the printer up. Weak mentality imo. If a player can't demonstrate across an entire season that they are worth keeping, be it because they don't fit the system or be it because they just aren't good enough, there isn't a single sensible reason to essentially make them unsellable.
If we're offering new contracts to players who don't suit the manager's system, doesn't that undermine the manager?
There seems to be some weird myth that Bentancur plays badly though, and I really don’t get it. Even out of his primary position he’s still largely having more positive performances than negative ones and he’s had plenty more than “half a dozen good games” for Spurs. He was a catalyst to getting 4th under Conte, would’ve won or came runner up to Kane the following season for our POTY had he not got the ACL and since returning from that has struggled at times but also shown his quality too. He’s comfortably one of our top five players.
I don't think he's bad at all. Equally I don't see him as the future. At this stage of his career he should be bossing the midfield but so many games just seem to pass him by. He was very good under Conte and I think with enough other good players around him he's a top 4-6 player, but no better. I could just as easily ask you why you rate him so highly, given that he hasn't performed with any consistency since he first joined?
Apart from Hoddle's collection of grandads and Poch's spunking of the CL Final money, when did anyone in Ange's position get the players they wanted? I think he's a coach, not a manager. I dont think he'll be either for too much longer.
I rate him because I think he's a very, very good player and I don't agree with the view that many games pass him by as you seem to have. I feel he plays well far more than he plays badly and this is despite not being in his best role. I'd agree that he's a top 4-6 player, so why you wouldn't want a player like that to renew with the club is something I find quite weird as it's exactly the calibre we need more of. In a perfect world we'd be able to get even better but I’d struggle to name many better midfielders than him who’d want to join us.
