Pembele, Bennette, Triantis all neutral pieces of business as things stand, all are young and the total fees for all three was probably under £2.5m. I don't see us losing money on any as things stand. Rusyn, I think there are some mitigating circumstances, has had injuries, famously couldn't get his family here for the first couple of months and it looks like he was being played in his secondary position. I'll admit the jury is still out on him but I wouldn't describe him as bad business.
Scout... don't know if you had seen Hemir play previous to joining safc?? If you have, what would your scout report have been like? If you've not seen him, judged on what you've seen while being here would you recommend him. Personally...mine would be ,don't bother signing him. Ive seen enough to know he'll never be a regular prolific goalscorer. He just doesn't look natural in front of goal.
I would have taken a risk on Hemir from the games i watched but i wouldnt have been signing him to come in as a 1st team striker He looked so good technically whenever i saw him play for benfica and you look at the physical attributes he had and you can see why we signed him
I get that mate but now it looks like we’re squabbling over a fee for an older striker and you have to think would we be if we didn’t have so many younger players on the books earning a wage that are essentially doing nothing to improve us? Other clubs seem to be signing players easy enough when they’re willing to spend the money and i’m sure someone will point out that I’m totally wrong, we have all the money in the world and we’re just doing any amounts of due diligence as always but if the reported fee for Lihadji was true (£3m) then we’ve essentially spent nothing since finishing in the play offs we’re actually in profit in fees. Should it really be this difficult?
He is quick so his pressing is def better than Hemir. The issue on the games i watched is he will quickly press but once he gets close enough to engage he backs off. That wiuld be my biggest concern tho, i want a striker to show aggression both in n out of possession and im not sure koyalipou has that in his locker
Aye that’s abit counter productive isn’t it haha pressings great but anyone of us could aimlessly chase after a defender (not for long in my case mind)
cheers for the insight, that second paragraph really worries me as I think they are exactly the skills we need from the striker we buy. of course goals are hugely important but getting a prolific striker is just so hard right now as the goalscoring charts show. yeah you want them to positively contribute goals wise but the role now is doing a lot more for the team, stretching and pressing defences, being a focal point are all critical to certainly how we play.
Seems like I’m in the minority of wanting Ekwah to stay and fight for his place. Yeah he had an average season last season but we have a new manager now and surely his job is to coach him to play to the best of his ability and when Ekwah is on it he can be some player.
I think the Mendy deal is done and dusted, but let's say we're negotiating hard, I don't think that's cos we're on the bread line or skint, it's because we're a nightmare to deal with now and get the best deal possible. Also these young lads, they're constantly improving, as young players do and it's normal that some won't graduate to the first team, that's especially the case if the team improves at a faster rate than the players are able to match. When it comes to fees, I think the remit now is all about staying in the black and becoming self sustaining, signing these young lads is a part of that process. Like Lihadji who were reportedly signed for £700,000, I think we saw him half a dozen times, he didn't necessary pull up any trees but when the Arab's came in with a chance to triple or quadruple our money in 6 months, we have a decision to make. I think it's important to keep in mind the way we do business now, like with succession planning instead of direct replacement transfers, in the past if you sell your Left Back for £5m, you try and buy a new Left Back for £3m or something like that. Now we are constantly recruiting young players with high ceilings for smaller fees in all positions, when we sell a first team player we have a gaggle of young players all competing to take that spot.
I will be disappointed if Pembele is away so soon. Appreciate he has been poor in pre season, but in my opinion there is a top level player in there. His injury was a bad one and I still suspect he is finding his way back from that. I would keep him around this season personally.
We are never going to sign a perfect striker but i do worry about his lack of desire to press I watched his highlights in 3 games so you normally get a decent opinion on a player but if we sign him we wohld have watched him a lot more than i would have
