I'm not impressed with the way Lennon has been treated, but then again all managers have ignored players, Jol, Ramos, Redknapp, Avb, have all had conflicts with players. And yes of course some players will surprise us, that isn't in question and I know there will be a young player that comes through and makes his mark, my little dig at Ali, wasn't a dig at the player, it was more a dig at our overall transfer policy which results in (as YV mentions) unbalance and if we get lucky with the emergence of a young talent, then great, I'm all for young players coming through, but as we also have a young manager with little experience, who I believe is out of his depth, then I see an average squad which has been playing dull football for many years now, its been a pattern since AVB arrived. Slow sideways passing, passing backwards, inverted wingers, watching us is boring and the only excitement we get is from players in outstanding form, such as Bale, Eriksen, Kane. As a team I see no hope for us to play exciting football, while we employ managers like AVB & Poch.
Nice to see you back, Boss. Not sure about the valuation of a lot of those signings, to be honest. Dier and Chadli have definitely been successes, in my opinion, especially at those prices. Vorm cost nothing, which pissed off his old club who had a sell-on clause in his transfer contract, so he's not failed, either. Too soon to call Wimmer, Trippier, Alderweirel, Alli or Yedlin, so there's not that much left. My main issue with Baldini is that he's replicated the mistakes of our old mate Comolli. The quality of most of the players is of an acceptable standard, but they're either unsuited to the system or not areas which we needed to strengthen. I don't doubt that many of those who have flopped would've done well with a different style of play. As I've said before, far too many times unfortunately, we need to be more cohesive in our vision for the club. Look at Swansea. They've undergone countless changes, but they've succeeded by sticking to a pretty similar footballing philosophy. It reduces the need for dramatic overhauls and everyone knows roughly what they need to do. We keep switching things around and end up with a bunch of players who are completely inappropriate for the way that we want to play.
Thanks PNP. My take on Dier is that he is a fairly average player and Chadli while he proved to have a decent season in terms of goals scored/assist, we can only call him a success if he wins the golden boot. But re Swansea are a superbly run club, they have Huw Jenkins who has been at Swansea since 2002 and according to this article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...s-think-they-have-to-spend-but-they-dont.html he also heads up player recruitment and appoints managers, that is quite rare for a chairman to have that ability and passion and understanding of the game, he is a football man and while I knew he was hands on, I wasn't aware of the extent. We're a business run by business men. By the way, that part in bold above isn't in reference to Levy.
Reece Oxford: West Ham teenager was rejected by Tottenham http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/33840538 But looking at the actual quote
Also, who knows, maybe we let him go because of a reason other than football. We've seen with the likes of Ravel Morrison and Nile Ranger that it doesn't mean anything to be a talented youngster if you don't have the right attitude. Not saying that's necessarily the case with this young lad but the article was clearly a dig and they did a hack job on the quote to make their point, as you say.
We let him go because we didn't think he was good enough to make it. It happens all the time at that age group and I have no idea who made the decision but I don't think any blame or criticism should be attached as it's very difficult to make an accurate judgement at 12 or 13,
Just think of it as a loan. If he continues to progress, then we'll buy him back when they get relegated!
Also, looking at the list of youngest PL players in the BBC website, they've not exactly all become stars, have they
I know Matthew Briggs' uncle. Big Arsenal fan. It's just never worked out for him. Injuries and a series of managers not really fancying him, despite one good spell at Fulham in the Europa. Robinson's been equally troubled by fitness issues, IIRC. Izzy Brown followed the money to Chelsea and got pushed well down the pecking order, but he's a very talented player. He's out on loan with Chelsea Arnhem this season and I think he'll do very well for them. Looked ahead of the curve in a very talented youth team, whenever I saw them.
Comolli was DoF when we signed Bale, Berbatov and Modric wasn't he? Those three make up for an awful lot of mistakes...
Comolli signed a lot of talented players, including a number that didn't work out for us at all. His main issues were bringing in players in positions that didn't need strengthening, those that were wrong for the system we played and poor attitudes. Far too many of those that didn't make it did so due to their approach to the game, for me. I think that he'd do well to look into the professionalism and mental application of any potential signing, if he continues as a DoF. Even the best signings of his era appear to have issues in this area. There's little doubt that the likes of Dos Santos, Boateng, Taarabt, Mido or Ghaly had the ability to be very good, but they've all had blighted careers. Berbatov's still a dangerous player, but he's far from the model professional.
Just because he was DoF doesn't mean much: Jol identified Berbatov as a transfer target rather than Comolli, Levy was the mover and shaker on the Modric deal instead of Comolli, and Bale was hardly unearthing an unknown gem as he was a known commodity at the time.
By the law of averages, I suppose Comolli had to get something right. In the main though he was responsible for bringing in several players who were not really needed and were overpriced.
He was also guilty of blatantly sabotaging Jol in order to get the manager he wanted to work with. In the 2007 summer window, Jol said he wanted a defensive midfielder, a left winger, and a new striker to be signed on the presumption that both Mido and Defoe would be sold. In that window we did not sign a defensive midfielder, the left winger was a French/Moroccan prospect who had been on loan to us for the previous six months, and he pissed away £16.5m of our money on Barren Dent even though only Mido was sold. Frankly he should've been fired on the spot for incompetence, misuse of club resources, and failure to follow quite simple instructions..
