Last season's buys

Thought I'd put my ratings for the new boys of last season.

Matz Sels - Expected more for this outlay. 3/10
Matt Ritchie - Good excellent value for money 10/10. Prem quality
Dwight Gayle - Yep, he played just two thirds of the season, but was brilliant 9/10 Prem quality
Jesus Gamez - sorry, but this fellow flopped. 2/10
Isaac Hayden - rose to the challenge 7/10. Prem quality
Grant Hanley - did what he could when asked, but he's Championship. 5/10
Mo Diame - Not consistent enough 5/10
Ciaran Clark - Gelled from the start. Top man 9/10. Prem quality
DeAndre Yedlin - some performances 7/10
Daryl Murphy - gave us that little extra. 7/10
Achraf Lazaar - no idea what he can do, as wasn't played enough 2/10
Christian Atsu - has good wing play, with best to come 8/10. Prem quality.

 

Sels below Gamez. All in all, not a bad return.

 

You call Jesus a flop and not Lazaar due to lack of games - surely they played a similar amount of games?

Diame on the other hand is a flop/
Hanley to me was a flop in terms of cost compared to Jesus
Also I would have Hayden at a hugher rating than Murphy and Yedlin - as soon as he was back for us our midfield went back to being good.

 

I think (and hope) Hanley was bought just to get us out of the championship. If he was then it's job done, so no complaints.

 

Lazaar looked pretty good to me at Hull in the EFL but what do I know!

 

That then applies to all buys?

 

Would agree with most of that. Maybe Atsu on 7 tho.

 

Roughly same but I'd give Yedders and Hayden an 8 and Atsu a 7

 

I'd have to say I think you are pretty generous.

Matz Sels - He was poor but I wouldn't write him off completely - and our best defensive run came with him in the side strangely. 4/10
Matt Ritchie - Good excellent value for money 9/10. Prem quality
Dwight Gayle - Yep, he played just two thirds of the season, but was brilliant 8/10 Probably one of those players who excels at Championship level but just ok at PL level.
Jesus Gamez - can't really comment as never played and was never fit 2/10
Isaac Hayden - just ok but gives the ball away an alarming amount - he will get punished for that in the PL 6/10. Jury out on what level he belongs at.
Grant Hanley - again difficult to judge as hardly played, only looked ok when he did. 4/10
Mo Diame - An absolute bag of ****e 3/10
Ciaran Clark - Did quite well, form tailed off a bit. Seemed to be cut much more slack than Lascelles for his defensive errors by our fans. 8/10. Again probably one of those guys who excels at Championship level. Probably decent back up in the PL though.
DeAndre Yedlin - Looked ok with potential to improve further. His defending leaves a bit to be desired. 6/10
Daryl Murphy - Did what it said on the tin. 6/10 Time to move him on.
Achraf Lazaar - See Gamez 2/10
Christian Atsu - Inconsistent. Looked very good at times particularly with our counter attack set up. At others he looked brainless. 6/10. Jury out where his future lies.

There is only Ritchie I would be confident would do a good job when we step up. The likes of Clark and Gayle can almost certainly play some part. Hayden, Atsu and Yedlin are worth persevering with. The rest I'd shift if possible. I think we bought a squad for the Championship and would be foolish to now backtrack and try to take too many of them with us. Some can fill the squad, but there is only one I'd want in my starting 11 out of that lot.

 

Bloody hell I hope you never manage any of the clubs I own. Cost me a fortune!

 

I know but Hanley (3m), Lazaar (1m), Murphy (1m), Gamez (1m), Diame (4m) are all blatantly not good enough.They need to join Colback (4m), Haidara (1m), Riviere (free), Ameobi (free) on the **** tip. Its pointless retaining them, as they are not good enough to play any part at PL level. To be honest that is only shifting out 8 players. If we add 5-7 new players back in...

Darlow

New RB (Peter Ankersen 3.5m)
Mbemba
New CB (Lejeune 8m)
New LB (Marvin Zeegelaar 3.5m)

New DM (Acquah 8m)
Shelvey

Ritchie
New No 10 (Yeferson Soteldo - 10m)
New Winger (Ismailia Sarr 13m)

New Striker (Vincent Aboubakar 8m)

Bench: Elliot, Clark, Yedlin, Lascelles, Dummett, Hayden, Atsu, De Jong, Perez, Gayle, Mitrovic

Woodman, Aarons and Arma go out on loan.

54m spent. 15m recouped. Job done. Then we get relegated because none of them speak the same language.

 

Ritchie's the standout, easy a 10/10, Prem quality and a real coup that we managed to snap him up when we went down, definitely should have won the Championship player of the year over Knockeart.
Gayle can't get anything more than an 8/10 for me, and that's pretty generous. Goal machine when we played, but injured far too much, and in a tough league like the Champ we can't afford to be relying on players who we can't depend on and leave us badly exposed for too much of the season. Gonna be an Andy Carroll/Keiron Dyer, I don't really want him next year.
Clark - 9/10, ****ing awesome, Villa must feel like utter bell ends for letting him go, along with Ritchie, he's the only other guaranteed starter for me this year.
Sels - the long period without conceeding was down to great defending, not him. Flaps at everything and is a completely liability. Big failure 2/10
Yedlin 7/10 - sub in the Prem, decent attacking option, don't want him starting, but would be a good impact sub.
Lazaar 2/10 - hardly there was he? Looked crap when he was.
Gamez - 3/10 hardly the champions league maestro we expected.
Murphy - 7/10 waited patiently and took his chance, good championship battler
Hanley - 5/10 carthorse, if he's the Scotland captain it says a lot about them.
Atsu - 8/10 seemed to grow and develop a lot as the season went on, pacey, skillful, and a great eye for goal, think he could well make the step up to the Prem.

 

There's just no way on earth we'll be buying that many for the first team, we have to be realistic in our approach and accept some will stay in or around the team. We're also still owned by Mike Ashley.

I'll be astonished if we aren't lining up with a very similar eleven to last year. I personally think we're going to struggle to sign this keeper we want and Darlow will be in the sticks. I don't think we'll bring in a RB, Yedlin will start. CB is up in the air, four decent options including Lejeune. LB will almost certainly be Dummett again.

In midfield, Shelvey will start and I'd bet Hayden alongside. We'll probably have a new face or two in the attacking four, but again it wouldn't surprise me to see Atsu, Perez and Ritchie starting behind Gayle.

Transfer world has moved on and I'm yet to be convinced that NUFC have. We've always baulked at anything north of £15m.

 

Could easily be the case. If so we will be relegated.

 

Think Cairney will be signed from Fulham, but suspect you're not too far wrong otherwise; something like:

Elliott

Dummett / LB
Clarke / Lascelles
Lejeune / Mbemba
Yedlin / RB

Ritchie
Shelvey
DCM / Hayden
LM / Atsu

Cairney / No10
Gayle / No 9

 

Looking for to the Championship again then

 

Think one or two will step up but yeah, could be difficult

I guess the benefit of keeping a good proportion of the existing team together is that we don't need to wait for it to gel - last thing we want is a decent set of opening fixtures wasted because they're playing like a bunch of individuals.

Or we could just lose them because we're crap...

 

I'm not so sure, I don't think there's a vast gulf between 7th and 17th. Ritchie will go up even better, as will a good few of our players - the likes of Mbemba and Lascelles had a tough year learning, but Clark brings stability, the Frenchman competition. Are Dummett and Yedlin going to propel us to Europe? Nope. Are they better than at least three other full back pairings? Yep. We may well bring another LB in anyway, the lad Taylor hasn't moved yet.

Midfield - well, I like Shelvey, he has quality. Hayden stormed the end of the season. We need better than Colback and if we do sign a decent DM, great. I think then up top is the investment. We're one down with Murph, but let's not forget that Rafa loves Perez and bought Ritchie, Atsu and Gayle!! That's all four positions potentially covered.

We have 34 professionals in the first team squad, which is pretty high, so we won't see a boatload through the door anyway. Most will be swapsies - Sels out, Hanley out, Murph out, etc. And it looks to me from the consistency of rumour that Rafa wants a pool of players at a similar level, which suits our owner down to the ground on costs.

 

So you're certain that our present squad is about as bad, or worse, as the one which went down?

 

Diame - 1. The goal he scored at Brighton is what stops him from getting a zero