I'd be worried if we were relying on pelle and gallagher for striking options, then again I'm also worried about relying on pelle, gallagher and long as striking options
Ramirez right wing, Pelle central, Tadic left wing is what I'd go with this season. I'd use Long as a rotation option, from the bench or if I wanted to play a different system. Ramirez is good on the right in 4-3-3.
Agree with this MMJ, and we always knew we'd sign a striker before the window closed. Just thought DTLW made it sound pretty certain that this whole deal was being fast-tracked now. Given the media knew nothing of it until about teatime yesterday makes me wonder why we're in a fluster so suddenly with two and a half weeks left to go. Is it something to do with Pelle/Gallagher going on, maybe an injury or a move in the case of the latter, OR have we literally run out of any other valid options for signing a striker better than Shane Long for £12m and just want to wrap up our 3rd/4th/10th choice now asap?
I'm getting used to it now, welcome Shane. He is definitely capable of getting 15 goals provided he gets the supply. But does anyone know how Hull signed him so cheaply? Was his contract at Brom running out?
Would much prefer ings for that price. Long isnt even english why are we paying a premium price for him?
TSS, reality check time. We signed Jayrod from Burnley as good potential and that paid off. We weren't signing proven excellence. We signed Osvaldo who was proven excellent, but that failed miserably. We signed Lovren who was "having a bad time" but came good and we signed Wanyama who was thought of as excellent and has been excellent. I can't think of the last player we signed who was excellent and we paid and "excellent" level price beyond Victor. Most of our excellent players were signed when they "may turn out excellent" because we are not a big pull really. Unfortunately. We tried to sign Hernandez who is excellent. He said no. We tried to sign Rojo who is excellent and his club said no, but now united are involved the player has packed his bag.
This is true, but is still part of my worry, because I just don't see Long ever being "excellent". He's 27, he doesn't really have room to improve as significantly as it would take to become "excellent"
The interesting bit for me here is if he does that he becomes our Premier league top scorer since we've come back. We keep talking about goals which are very important however Rickie got 15 I think first season and JayRod got 15 last season. We've not had a 20 goal a season striker in this Premier League stint. how many goals did we get in total last year? Anyone know?
I agree, I don't think he'll be excellent. I just checked, we scored 54 goals last season, so there is the target for comparison.
Long has 28 PL goals (same number as Rickie, actually, though in double the games) by my count, in 146 games; his best in the PL is eight, and he has only reached double figures in league goals once in his career, at any level. And we finished 8th last year in goals scored, tied with Swansea with 54.
I don't think you can make a sweeping statement and suggest the signing of Long represents a Transfer Policy when none of our other signings really fit that Policy. The value is obviously far different, but Steven Davis joined us and had hardly pulled up trees in his premier league career beforehand. I would argue he has not been that "excellent" signing which TSS refers too, but he has been incredibly consistent and puts in a very good shift every game and i'm happy he is part of our team/squad. Long is capable of doing the same. You know what you're going to get and that can be a good thing
Hull fans are saying let's go for Remy, an excellent or even superb striker, for less (but more in wages). I presume wages is the issue? If not, I can see Remy working well with Pelle. Thoughts?
It's rare for more than 2 or 3 players to get 20 league goals in a season. 15 is a better target. Like Joe said though, I'll be surprised if Long or Pelle get 10.
It is always the wages. If we break our ceiling for a player then we then go in for a round of 'improved contracts' for everyone else or there is disharmony. That then limits us as with FPP we have less to spend on transfers due to wages going out and means we also can't have as large a squad and our weakness is the size of our squad. So like that FFP article the other day (and I by no means suggest the board are thinking exactly the same as that article) we cannot get players on much larger wages (even if they are free transfers) unless we can increase our FFP limit substantially. We do not have the revenue levels of a Newcastle, Everton, Spurs or even West Ham/Villa and these are the teams we are aiming to beat. So if we want the best players on larger wages, we then have to improve our squads wages to keep them onside and then we have to compromise on squad depth. I think Long is a short term thing, Koeman has obviously seen something not working and sees a short term fix for it in Long and if that costs a few million more than market value then remember how much each place in the Prem is worth!!! This may not be about buying a player to shoot us up the league and rather a quick fix to enable others to shoot us up the league until we are in a position where we can financially sort out what we need without compromising FFP or our squad depth. This is where Nicola's dream had hit it's glass ceiling we were as high as that model could get without it hitting that brick wall anyway. That is why we have seen the catastrophic events of this summer where loads of players paid more than their counterparts jumped off 'the bus' because Saints could not improve the squad without exploding the whole team spirit and harmony let alone breaching FFP rules.
Surely though, we've lost a big chunk of wages with our sales? I'm guessing somewhere between £100k and £150k a week has gone from our wage bill. Maybe even a little more.
