Way to early to be making final judgements on most of them. Henderson and Downing have massively improved upon their form from last season, especially Henderson. I still think Borini and Allen will be good signings given time and patience. Y'know, that thing that absolutely no football fans have any of anymore. Players, including Dempsey, need time to adapt. They need at least 2 seasons before you can tell for certain whether their a success or not.
I suppose it's about time you lot dodged one of the bullets flying around, most of the others have been hitting you smack on. Thanks to The "king" & Comolli There's no comparison between Dempsey & Sigurdsson. Sig is turning out to be well worth the money.
If we fail to qualify for the CL this season, Levy's gotta take a long hard look at his approach towards the squad and where we go from here. The combination of only spending some of the profit from sales, and signing "bargains" isn't a transfer policy that's enough to get us CL football. - It's too competitive at the top of the table, and we're not being competitive enough. I'm sorry, but none of our rivals would have signed Clint Dempsey. Yes with this policy you can pick up some gems, but all I'm saying is that you can't rely on it being enough. Not if you want top 4. - Like Sidney has mentioned, players have values for a reason. (Yes, there's the exceptions). Some proper investment has got to be made now, whether we qualify or not. -Not the approach where we're making a massive profit and replacing excellent players with "decent" players. we will never properly go forward with that approach as we're always playing catch up as those new signings develop. We'll never have a finished article! Also, if they don't end up being a good replacement for the quality player we initially sold, there's actually a massive chance we could go backward. Our recent "season finale" history looks like it may repeat itself, once again. What ever happens, I believe Arsenal will spend a lot this summer, Chelsea will probably do the same and Liverpool could well be backing Rogers with some decent money too. I don't think Levy's going to have any choice but to spend. But Levy will probably get out of it by selling another top player (Bale) instead of spending. and guess what? Deja vu! My concern is how much our rivals strengthen this summer. We could end up getting left behind unless the policy changes.
Not quite. We got CL and he didn't spend that money. That was a HUGE mistake. Now we are trying to get back in the CL without spending money. Its like trying to ice skate up a hill. Our transfer window the summer we qualified for the CL still haunts me and by the looks of things will continue to do so for the forseeable future. We desperately needed NEW STRIKER then and we had the CL money (ok, we had to beat Young Boys but that is as close to a CL windfall as we were likely to get) and we had the lure of CL football. Levy ****ed up imo. That season we had a great run in the CL, we showed that the squad was capable for the most part. We finished 5th and just missed out despite the midweek distraction. With NEW STRIKER i think we would have got 4th again.
I can't disagree with most of what you've said. I just get the feeling that Levy's current "strategy" is to try and get CL qualification on the cheap, and then possibly open his wallet. I would agree that had we invested in at least one top quality striker and a decent playmaker that we wouldn't be sitting here now biting our nails over CL qualification. Given the level of opposition this season, we could easily be sitting comfortably in second spot, with qualification to the later stages of the comp pretty much in the bag.
Chelsea are basically having a **** season and are above us, perhaps excusable considering the moolah they spent. Arsenal are having a **** season, and if they win their game in hand they are also above us. They didn't exactly spend much and lost by far their best player in the summer. How depressing is that? Giroud got a bit of stick but the guy has 15ish goals this season. How many have Ade and Dempsey got? For the amount Giroud cost i think he's done ok for a 1st season, i would take him over Ade and Dempsey combined. Sorry, turning this into another striker whinge, i can't help it at the moment.
Where did we finish last season then? Where are we this season? I was under the impression 4th was in the top 4? Am i wrong?
Sturridge gone a bit quiet? Same at every club he's been to,initial impressive then a few months in Joe Average.
We finished 4th last season and are 4th in the league at the moment, how would you define it? Edit: Woops already been pointed out. Since when was "top 4" defined as "consistently top 4 over a 40 year period"?
Despite Uncle sugar Daddy spending about £100mil on you this year alone, you might still not make it..Pretty piss poor I'd call that.
what have the previous 39 years before last season got to do with anything? Are man utd premier league champions because they won it 2010-11?
"We got CL and he didn't spend that money" He spent ~ 15m of the 30+ made in the CL on land purchase for new WHL. Tis all in the 2011 financial reports for those who can be bothered to read it. Whether said land should have been purchased then, or deferred til later, is another story.
Most of the rest went on higher salaries/bonuses I think. Levy spends what we have pretty wisely. I'm not in the least bit surprised in his reluctance to 'invest' in big signings given what happened to some of the previous ones. Hopefully that will change under AVB who I imagine can have a sensible discussion with Levy about budgets, value etc. Nothing much wrong with the recent signings on a value for money basis.
