We still have room for 3 loan players so hopefully we are trying to tie some down now. We also have players we are not using so should move them on. Hopefully Harrison will not be needed any more as he’s been crap every game, Bornouw wishes he had not come, Meslier must be sold even if for pennies
I was pretty vocal about each one of those signings not being better than what we had at the time. I was shot down rather quickly. Think it was along the lines of Bijol being a more expensive Charlie Cresswell. Perri not much better than Meslier. Didn't want Justin because of his injuries and his lack of form/attributes since them. Think I was okay with Bornauw as an improvement on Debayo and a bit of a free hit.
Longstaff has been decent. He's not eye catching but he gets through the graft. He drags people along with him too. Seems a bit of a leader out there. Don't think he was £18 million either. Thought it was £12 million plus £3 million if we stay up.
Given that not many of them can either get or hold down a first team place adds weight to you being completely correct.
Had we simply stuck with last seasons team we wouldn’t be much worse off. Should have invested heavily in the forward end of things
no and yes we’re competitive in every game and we have chances to win, the players are giving their all still not been discussed much but the dcl handball when it was harder not to score. An everton fan friend of mine described him as the unluckiest striker he'd ever seen... finding new and innovative ways to avoid getting the ball in the back of the net At the other end, talent though he is, give Roger’s the free kick and the goal chance again in another game and he likely doesn’t score either of them. Thats why some teams are at the bottom and some are midtable. Fine margins. Better to be lucky than good. likelihood is though with our run of games coming up, we're going to be on a long barren run and probably a few points adrift... and once confidence goes, performances will likely follow - tough gig being an optimist at the moment
Stach, Longstaff and our LB missing from that, Farke signed these players, he spent the budget as he felt necessary. Last season you praised him for the likes of Gruev and Tanaka, so signings this season are on him. Let’s also remember Farke had been chasing Bornauw for 6 months, we got him cheap due to his contract, why chase him for 6 months and not play him. If he is not good enough, why sign him, Wober would have been better than Bijol, Farke can’t forgive Wober yet he can Harrison Farke shipped out a few players on the cheap, Wober and Ramazani, Schmidt another, he got rid of Cresswell who is better than Bijol, he got rid of Joseph who is no worse than DCL If a player can have his limit and we can say he is a championship player then so can a coach. Farkes level is championsip, just like Warnock and a ton of others
My opinion what it's worth is Farke has proven that his adaptation to the Premiership has never worked. He is process driven instead of taking a game by game approach which newly promoted sides have to take because of the inevitable disparity in player quality. He has made changes to the way we play but he takes the same approach against Arsenal as we do against Wolves so if you're the opposition manager you know exactly what you're going to get. Works in the Championship where he has always had a significant advantage in terms of player quality but the play off final in 2023/24 showed his weakness to adapt to a 'cup final' type game. (That was the disaster for Leeds, not going up that season and not keeping the players that we had to sell and building upon them.) It's Farke out for me and has been for a long time but I don't see this squad under any manager having the ability to stay up, it's just not good enough. So whether he's sacked or not in my opinion is irrelevant. I don't think any of the signings have shown so far that they are an upgrade on what we had, we wasted money, who had the final say, none of us know.
I remember, I also remember hoping you were wrong, I also remember defending the signings. However, the signings are on Farke, along with all the other points you have made about reacting too slow you know deep down he needs to go so I don’t quite understand the reluctance not to just come out and say, he isn’t a PL coach