This transfer window has been yet another huge disappointment for the fans. Last summer FARKE couldn’t really get going until the window closed as ins and outs were happening right up to the deadline. Some of us expected the same or similar to happen this summer due to last seasons anti climactic failure and so it has proved to be. Over the last few months the 49ers have invested heavily on a recruitment machine including a new DoF as well as the guy we originally brought in as interim DoF plus others from Liverpool and other clubs. A new scouting network created who head into the new recruitment team. Lets remember that all these are football people. So far we have replaced one keeper with an ex Leeds keeper, and we brought in a loan player plus spent £10m on Rodon and £5m on Bogle. Other than that zero recruits but plenty of sales and releases. So far every statement from Parag Maratha has been shown to be a lie. If we lose any top players we will replace with like for like or better. We dont need to sell as we are in a good place financially. We are now seeing cracks in the United front too as yesterday FARKE seemed to throw the club under the bus as he started to get his excuses in early. Now remember the club stuck by FARKE straight after our doomed Wembley final by saying the manager is staying and taking us to promotion this year.. there can only be two answers. we still have the most expensive squad in the league, even without Rutter. Could it be that the football people who are in charge of recruitment like the boss Greta Steinsen (ex Spurs etc) have decided that this squad is plenty and just needs a couple of good bodies for the bench and it’s the coach who needs replacing if he can’t make it work. It’s been a disastrous week with 3 terrible performances and FARKE being outcoached. 2 wins from the last 12 games isnt great. The recruitment team have a good list and have been in negotiations and are now waiting for the prem clubs to finalise things and dominos to start falling. We will know which within the next 10 days. £15m spent so far and well over £100m brought in from player sales.
Agreed Emu but there are a couple of ways to answer that. Like you say it’s obvious we need bodies, but if a different coach was in charge would it be enough. For example on paper we should now have plenty of options in the back 4 or back 5 with Wober able to play CB and LB, we also have Byram and Ampadu. Midfield Ampadu, Gruev, Rothwell plus Aaronson, Gelhardt, Gnonto, James then Bamford, Joseph, Piroe plus some kids. Playing to a different structure and tactics maybe gets different results? The tactics used over the last 12 games have been crap, but sure we can blame the players
I will judge at the end of the window. Conspiracy Theorists - 49ers are asset stripping, sensible question why did we buy Bogle and Rodon. Dallas said yesterday, (someone with more inside knowledge than any of us) he believes Leeds were waiting to see which PL players were surplus to requirements. Why would Redbull invest if we were not bothered about promotion. Bashir Humphrey’s a CB who can cover LB - Click bait sites and doom mongers will say we missed out, he decided on Burnley. A more sensible theory is that we were waiting to see what happened with Wober. Wober might still down tools and go but if he doesn’t, when would Bashir get any game time. Rak-Sakyi- Leeds miss out again, that’s what click bait will tell you, realistically we didn’t want someone who could be recalled or someone whose club wants guaranteed game time. Doom mongers who want to buy into asset stripping will ignore we had a £15m offer turned down as Palace didn’t want to sell. I believe something is a bit wrong at the club, I don’t know what. I wondered if the 49ers totally trusted Farke. Farke has stated he won’t accept anyone with a release clause, is that realistic, has it meant we’ve lost out. Do we have players like Firpo and Wober totally resenting being here, have other departures meant they’re even more resentful. Ayling and Cooper, the club treated them terribly yet they loved the club and gave it 100% every week, I don’t feel we have that now. I point my finger at Farke, others will want to blame the owners, my own opinion on that is owner bashing has become a hard to kick habit, Bates, Cellino and GFH so it’s easy to understand why. I won’t add Radz to that list, he stayed on too long but he turned us around and gave Orta too much freedom. Then again, we wouldn’t have had Bielsa and promotion if he hadn’t. When Radz brought us, you’ll find posts with my concerns and discontent, but I always saw him as a stepping stone. When the 49ers brought us, it’s exactly the same thing, it was required at the time. I find it a very strange theory that comes to the conclusion that they don’t want promotion and they are not going to spend some money on a team that can challenge. Final word: We still put out a starting 11 yesterday that most Championship teams would only dream of, we did the same on the opening day and had a chance to against Boro. Farke is not getting the best out of them, he is definitely underperforming and it proves to me that last season he relied on that individual talent winning games. I still maintain, give Bielsa a preseason with this group and he’d get them promoted We’re focussing too much on the ones who have left and not what we have, we’ll add to this group but if they don’t play as a team, we’ll miss out again
Ristac I dont have a theory that the 49ers are not bothered about promotion, I believe they are even more determined that’s why I gave 2 options in the OP. Either they don’t now trust FARKE and will soon be sacking him or they do trust FARKE and the players he wants will start to land within days
My post wasn’t aimed at you (or anyone) mate. I am just putting my opinions out there and my reasoning behind them. I’m happy for people to agree or disagree and counter it with reasons why. I didn’t agree with you last season when you blamed Farke, or Olof when he was pretty much Anti Farke early on, but I’ve joined the club. We’re nearly all (myself included) guilty of allowing some panic to creep in, Farke, player sales, incomings, asset stripping, unrest, take your pick. We are off to a bad start, we could have been 4-0 up against Portsmouth and it would all feel different now. I said to Gessa in another thread, we know we’ll see Piroe ruined further at 10 we know Bamford will come on at some stage no matter how the games going. You’d have also put money on Willie being subbed, it’s all so predictable. Farke does the same changes no matter how the game is going
It’s obvious Farke just puts fresh legs on “hoping” someone will pull out some magic. If he was a great tactician or coach he’d make different changes each game.
It’s amazing how for many years we all moaned here about how unfair the parachute payments were and how we couldn’t compete. Doc was one of the systems greatest critics. Now when we finally need and get them, what do we do, piss it all into the wind. No use to us thanks to the mismanagement of last couple of seasons. Anyway I’m off to four hours of live hurling so a good Sunday is guaranteed
Southgate and FARKE cheeks of the same ass. Wrong team selection, players out of position, crap tactics, wrong subs and done too late. Weird how low profile coaches have FARKE worked out and why he has only had one good performance in the last 12 matches and only 2 wins.
Roca Llorente Wober McKennie Aaronson Wober Harrison Sinisterra Rutter Kristensen Koch 11 players, release clauses of one kind or another that’s hit us hard for the last two season. Not just hit us, questionable as well if they were value for money. Thank Orta for that gift. Throw in the likes of Drameh and Ayling, thrown away by Farke, the signing of the divisions leading scorer Piroe and what playing him out of position has done. Enjoy curling mate I’m off out with family too now
Hi mate McKennei was a loan with a buy option if not relegated, but you could add Rodrigo who walked for only £5m due to his clause. The one really noticeable thing about that list of players is that they were bought on average for £10m. Rodrigo Aaronson and Dan James obviously more plus Rutter. But £10m and now fans demanding we pay £15m for a championship player or £25m for Clarke. Our squad right now is valued at over £100m yet deemed not good enough. Teams in this league have an average value of less than £20m so FARKE has plenty of advantage is only he knew what he was doing with them. Last season he relied on individual skills rather than finding a team mindset. His job is to assemble a team from the individual parts he has. Without including a value in Struijk or Byram we have a defence valued at £40m?
How possible is it that the club and recruitment department are trying to back FARKE but targets are knocking us back as not guaranteed to play or scared of being treated like Spence, Roberts and the kid from Bournemouth, plus some players who were on the bench who some thought should be playing more? I look at the comments about Spence by FARKE and then listen to what Ange has been saying about Spence. He is doing great, trains well, and has fit into the new Spurs squad really well. You see FARKE is stubborn and plays his favs week in week out
can't be arsed to look the teams up but be interesting in seeing who didn't make the match squads in the prem games over the weekend who were available. Always said once the big boys get going pieces fall into place for the transfer window. Another thing in which hinders us is our transfer structure Listening to Farke the club won't go down the same path in offering release clauses, exit clauses. We want to be in control and learn lessons. yeah sounds good and can understand but in todays football its a big part of the future. Agents want to many get out clauses for their players these days if things go baps up. its fine in signing joe bloggs from division 1 or 2 but the higher calibre of player demand to much. might as well not have contracts these days because one way or another they find a way out. as in replacing Summerville and Rutter with similar or better players just won't happen not when we are a Championship club. We don't need to sell so the club say. but, I dare bet if the right offer comes in we will. adding to the equation a unsettled player. as long as we are in the championship that's the way it will stay. Willy will be gagging to get away now his bro has gone in Cre. In the championship we have to find the right players especially now when the possible prem players we have are bolting as they don't want to play champ football. it will be a continuous circle until we get out of it. if we in this league again next season Ampadu,Struijk,Rodon will all be the next batch to go as the circle goes round. we have to face facts now we are a championship club and will only attract championship standard players sad but true unless we unearth some unproven talent from across Europe. We have to get a couple of loan Prem players regardless of their demands ie a season loan with no buy on clauses as otherwise we dropping down the ladder in quality. as nobody wants to be stuck in the championship. I will bite the bullet as well until we see how many come in before the window closes but I'm not expecting anyone special or at crazy prices. lets see what the club do it's in their ballcourt now and need to act.
Is our current squad smaller than under Bielsa? I heard it was 20 before Rutter went. i think the problem we have is that we don't seem to do anything better than average. We struggle to break teams down, we don't break particularly quickly, we don't have a dominant midfield, our defence isn't rock solid and our keeper is prone to the odd error. We don't have a prolific goal scorer or a player, like Pablo, who can play that fantastic ball or create a chance out of nothing. Do we have a leader on the pitch? Under Bielsa we had average players but they worked their bollox off so teams got overrun. Why does anyone think we're so good now? That's my worry. You're not going to sign a superstar this late in the window, you're getting what's left over. As has been said, we can't replace Cre and Rutter because they're PL players. it is tough to find positives. Maybe some of our U21s can step up. I agree about Cooper and Ayling. They were dumped very early when you consider that Howson, at 36, was playing out of position at CB during our humiliation. We couldn't get past Bartley yesterday either.
Everything in that first paragraph is directed by Farke. We have a striker who scores 20+ per season but we play him at 10 and hes shyt there. So we don’t play like a team who wants a No9 because we rarely across the ball for a striker to get on the end of. We rarely shoot from outside the box so a striker has no bits and pieces to to feed on. We have a system where we have 2 wing backs who bomb on but are then leaving the back door open. Ampadu plays more like a 3rd CB leaving a huge hole in front which Gruev ends up trying to fill so he’s not creating and going forward so another big hole in the middle for the opposition to fill and we end up playing more cross field passes or longer passes which get intercepted. There are lots of things we should be doing but don’t do anything well. So having a prolific striker is pointless because he wouldn’t get the ball. We have seen Bamford, Piroe, Joseph, Gelhardt etc playing up front but end up running around trying to,press and thats it. We need a new coach. We need to be able to change things at times and have a back 3 and then use wing backs, we need to have more in the middle and as we have strikers why not try 4-4-2 so crosses are sent in from our real wingers or wing backs and have a partnership up top. We won’t though because Farke is stubborn
Watching the Everton v Brighton highlights. If I was Rutter I’d change my mind because he ain’t getting into that team.
West Brom only lost 4 games at home all last season. They gained only 4 points less than us on home form. They are a formidable opponent at The Hawthorns. We conceded 6 goals in 2 games. I give credit to Farke by setting up defensively and keeping a clean sheet. You've got to start building the foundations back somehow. Last season when we had all these "superstar" players we lost at West Brom. Farke got 90 points last season. We lost in the play off final. If we give him a squad to work with then he will get us somewhere near again. We have the money to give him that squad. The whole season depends on whether we give it to him or not. It's far too early for "Farke out!" It might be time for "sack the board!" in a couple of weeks if we do not invest in this squad.
We have full backs and CBs ideally suited to 5-3-2 we have strikers suited to 5-3-2 and we have a midfield where we have no creativity or attacking flair unless we play two wide men, James and Gnonto The balance is all wrong and it ends up with one or two players out of position. If Bielsa was in charge of this team, he’d love having Ampadu in front of Struijk and Rodon, the runs from the full backs wold be disciplined and god help anyone not following his well oiled instructions Before Rutter went, a couple of players had not been counted so we actually had 23 I can see us bringing in two more and maybe a loan or two but I can’t imagine we have much of a chance of bringing in three of any quality, I hope I’m wrong
