You can't compare our struggles to Arsenal's and Spurs. Isn't that the exact reason people laugh at Arsenal's fan base?. All Cardiff fans didn't expect promotion and see this as a bonus season so are happy to buy players equipped for the champ and hope for a bit of luck. Huddersfield again, similar story to Cardiff they're just surprised to be up a second year. The Jose infliction with regards to Manure? Yeah they must be seething, playing CL football and paying silly money on players. The fact remains, and you can be as cute with the money as you like, you are more hamstrung in improving a team if you actually recoup more money than any other in the PL. We still have it worse and I reckon most outsiders would agree. No I think he's waiting on hope we might get a buyer and would no doubt like to stay in England. If I was him I'd have ****ed off when West Han came knocking but there you go. I don't think he's on a one man crusade to bring back the Keegan days. He's just a manager, one I think we won't get better than in this current situation. No its not that controversial, the first time he hired Kinnear and Shearer, the second time he hired McLaren and had Carr as head scout. However, can't ignore lack of investment being an important factor, even if not the sole one. It also does not change the fact it would be the reason we get relegated this season. First time we bought players from YouTube on the cheap, second we bought aload of players that didn't fit into a team that was already swimming in ****. It hadn't been that long after the 18 months of buying nobody. Nobody really said we improved on much this summer. At best we improved on a few back-ups, at the worst we still mostly have the first XI that took us up from the champ two seasons ago. Think it's also rather easy to say buy aloada players that will be bossing the Prem next season, get them in the championship and prepare to walk it" That is definitely not how you get out of the champ in one fine season when you've sold half your team. Who should he have bought for his three year payment plan instead like? Not arsed about the Shelvey-Lascelles business. Lascelles broke Shelvey's finger whilst chinning Diame last year and we finished 10th. When it came out, people were having a ****fit about behind then scenes as well. Some of the football is ****ing negative and I think some sub's are plain ******ed (stop keeping Kennedy on and whacking atsu on the right FFS) but struggle to think of what manager we could get in to do a better job overall with this team and a consistent lack of spend.
You miss the point beautifully. With more to spend, both transfer fee and wages, then it’s reasonable to assume that Rafa would not have been buying Joselu or Manquillo or the like. Brighton’s net spend since promotion has been £59.9M in summer 2018, in January 2018 £14.5M and for summer 2017 £39.65M. Huddersfield’s net spend since promotion has been £29.3M in summer 2018, in January 2018 10M and for summer 2017 £38.9M. Ours was £28.7M profit, £0 and £23.7M respectively. So we have spent £5M in 3 transfer windows with Brighton spending £114M and Huddersfield £78.2M. And you’re seriously trying to compare? They may have not spent very well or they may have spent very well but the point is we haven’t spent at all. We came up with a Championship team and we haven’t improved it. Rafa and the players performed miracles last year but it is totally unrealistic to expect a repeat when all other teams are attempting to improve. If these figures don’t get over the point about net spend then nothing will. Simple question, where has all the PL money gone? Rafa was promised every penny we generate. Fair to say that has not been the case. Or in other words, here you are Rafa, no money. Now go out and improve the team.
Firstly, those figures cannot be correct, based on reported figures and me adding up on my fingers. Secondly, net spend does not mean no spend and we have spent more than other teams have this season... And more than a few over Rafa's time. Net spend being lower just shows we are more committed to moneyball than others. If you truly truly think net spend is important, show us all the relative balance sheets, because that is the only way it matters! I'm not sure how you rate players as assets on paper, because transfer fees would be a hopeless non-starter, but saying Brighton have spent £100million means nothing to anybody without context. Our squad is probably better than Brighton's, Huddersfield's, Cardiff's, and probably has more value on paper. We spent more on wages than anyone else in the championship year... By a lot apparently. We definitely spend more on wages than the three teams I have mentioned, and that is with the concession they will have to pay more in wages to draw players to their club. They just will. There was this whole standoff over the contract which has probably decided the lack of funds on offer as well. Why would Ashley provide more to a manager who only has a season left on their existing deal, particularly one who has (in my opinion) spunked what little money he has had up the wall? He's probably thinking he'll just spend a little bit when we go down and have a new manager, as in previous excursions. Rafa basically held the board to ransom using his media whoring and likeability, didn't get much out of it but still signed quite a few players. If this was unacceptable to him, if his position was untenable, he should have walked. He doesn't care enough about the club to make this a self sacrifice, a heroic effort to save us. It's a free shot, because he has used his little comments to basically make everyone think he is free from any responsibility if it goes tits up, in which case he walks away, somehow looking like a hero... probably straight into another job. Just because he can't go out and sign the world's best players like we all want, doesn't mean the owner has been a bastard to him in this case. It is well established we don't know as fans what "every penny generated" means, it's ambiguous in the context of a football club, but Rafa will contractually or otherwise have an understanding of what that means and like I said, if he feels wronged he would have walked. If "every penny generated" means profit at the club at the end of the financial year, we would be spending very little because football clubs tend to lose money... It was never going to be sky £100mil + whatever we make in player sales, we have to pay wages over a year.
Have to admit your wumming, because that’s all it can be, is almost as good as Pouchy’s. The ability to ignore relevant points and gloss over them is improving as well. We have spent £5m in 3 windows to improve the Championship winning team and you can’t see the problem.
It's when you can't even remember what your point is that it becomes difficult I'm just trying to change what we're talking about enough that eventually you just agree with me and don't even realise what I did
My only comment is that even if we hadn't of sold him he would not have scored 5 goals here - other than the fact Rafa wouldn't have played him our main issue is that we cannot create chances.
Fulham play to his strengths, ie get in the box and gesture your strength and get on the end of the crosses (mostly on the deck by the looks of it). We wouldn't/didn't supply him with all those chances. He's improved as a player going there though I feel and his confidence is obviously sky high.
We were 2 points of 13th where I expected us to finish (you can check last years prediction league), 10th looked very good but it's a bit like saying we won the championship. Brighton choked, we shouldn't have won it even though we should have walked it in reality with the most expensive team put together in that league and 10th was again a fluke, beating Chelsea on the last day meant we finished 10th instead of 13/14th where I think we all expected us to come - in and around there at least. True you can only beat what is in-front of you but Chelsea were in a slump and didn't have anything to play for in that game. On the skin of it it looks like Rafa is going above and beyond when in reality we are scrapping the barrel and getting a bit of luck here and there. I've said on numerous occasions we should have done zero business in the summer compared to what was done. I'd have rather sold Merino, as you couldn't prevent that, sold no one else and not bought any one in (bar maybe Fernandez/Schar for Lejuene's injury). Armstong, Mitro, Mbemba, Gayle, Saviet, Aarons all could have done as much for the squad thus far as any of the players Rafa decided to buy, and he decided to sell them all with the exception of Merino, I mean christ I'd have kept Colback and let Hayden go myself but we've got a young inexperienced player with 15-20 EPL appearances (last year) who doesn't want to be here and let go of a ginger version of Pirlo who's got 100+ EPL games under his belt and actually doesn't mind living in the area. O.K that last one may be a stretch...but still a valid point.
I get the defence of Joselu but I'm afraid Manquillo is down to one man only - Rafa. This was not some panic signing late in the window, the lad arrived in July and Rafa clearly felt he could do a job. Its not the first time he has signed him. What really grates with that signing though is we let a young full back go on a free that summer who was a far better player and is now gracing the CL. I see both sides of the coin with Rafa. He has awful restrictions in place. However the money he does spend, he doesn't do particularly well with. To be honest that has been levelled at him at most of his previous clubs too. I understand what you have to pay to get a PL footballer. However we only need to look around at transfers over the last few years to realise there is still value out there. Will Hughes at Watford cost 8m. Brooks at Bournemouth cost about 10m. Rico cost them about 10m. Max Meyer went on a free to Palace. Joe Bryan went for 7m to Fulham. Gross to Brighton 3m. Mooy 8m. Maguire to Leicester 12m. Ricarlison to Watford 11m. Watford signed Femenia for 4m and Holebas for 2m. I'm not saying all these clubs signings have been great, only there is decent value out there. Not every player is costing 25m.
If i'm given £1000 to buy a car it's not likely to be very new or very good, i could in theory buy 2 or 3 (maybe more) older and more ****ter cars but I could still buy a car, or cars. Now give me £100,000 to buy a car and I could buy a brand spanking new car and a very good car at that, or alternatively I could buy 3-4 really good brand new cars or even more nearly new but still good cars. My point is, when your bjudget means you have to shop in the bargain basement, the players you can buy are priced accordingly. You might pick up a diamond in the rough but it's pure luck rather than anything else regardless of who is spending the money.
Granted and if you have to make a profit while purchasing a car it's unlikely to be better than what you have so why bother?
I have to say buying players is nothing like buying a car. I get that shopping with less money in both scenarios is more difficult than not. There are just so many different factors in play when buying players though. I think everyone thinks Rafa has had it rough. Hand on heart though, has he had it any rougher than the previous incumbents like Hughton, Pardew? I don't think he has. Obviously McClaren is the anomaly in Mikes reign of terror but generally all managers working under him have had no money to spend, or at least not in line with what the rest of the league is doing. Its a weird one for me because I thought we spent what little money we had under Hughton and Pardew, far better than Rafa has. Yet I'd class him as a far superior manager to Pardew, not so much Hughton. I just wonder how we'd be doing with a top scouting team buying the players instead of Rafa having so much control. I don't think anyone would sit and doubt his management. Yes he makes mistakes but the end result in his time here has always been a big tick in the box for me. I realise though there needs to be complete trust and synergy between a coach and his scout for it work. You have to buy his type of players. For instance if we went and bought Mbemba, Mitrovic etc he wouldn't be happy as he doesn't see them fitting his style. It seems an unacceptable notion to some of our fans that his buying is not very good. The argument is always that its because he has to shop at the lower end of market. It certainly explains some of the problems but I think its a bit blinkered and dare I say fan boyish to think its the sole reason. The bottom line for me is there have been other clubs making their funds go further than Rafa has managed. He simply overcomes this with tactical acumen. Whereas I'd say someone like Keegan had a great eye for a player, I'm not sure Rafa does. He certainly spots the odd one like Lejeune or Merino. However if you look at some of the others and look at players signed by other clubs for similar fees, I'm not sure he's pulled up many trees. One day this ****ing football club will go back to having it all right. We will have the top coach, we will have the top scouting team, and we will have the money to make use of both.
