Dont knock it till you try it, we have tried the British way, it hasnt worked. Lets try the continental way.
I'll go first, yes it's a massive gamble, to much of one imo. Ok we are buying foreign, the game and money now dictated this, but we are buying who, young, unproven, hardly the names we expected to see. I keep hearing for the future, excuse me, look at the last league table, the future is here and now, we're ****e, we need quality now, not in the future. But i must disclose a disclaimer here, i say unknown to myself, for sure someone will put me straight.. Fpreign name...........................must be class, buy him, what a ****ing false world we live in.
Not too many in my view - we still have plenty of British on the books. Some of them will be also be juniors who will count as home grown if we keep them long enough.
Some pretty compelling arguments can be had form both camps to be fair and the only true answer as to whether it is a gamble will come on August 17th? Do I have concerns? Of course I do and as is well documented I have some huge reservations concerning PDC (not the man but his ability to coach at this level) but one thing is for sure. The past 40 years have been more barren than a water shortage in the Gobi Dessert, so the fact we are trying something different is a refreshing change imo and long overdue. I may not have heard of any of our signings so far but thats not a bad thing its an ignorant thing on my behalf. The biggest thing that excites me this close season is we havent been linked with, or even spoken about being linked with ANY relegated players this time round. That in itself is very heart-warming tbh.
We have signed 4 foreign players, I bet 90% of PL transfers by clubs this summer are buying players from abroad. Too many foreign players is a myth, its about getting the right players to do their jobs in a team, who cares where they are from. Saying that we do have one of the highest percentage of British players in the league so how we can get get criticized for signing some players from abroad is beyond me.
I like the whole idea, it seems to me that we are using this window so far to build up from the u21 level (remember it has its own league now) so that players who are coming in will get the chance to impress, an influx of english speaking foreigners should not be an issue, after all footy is a universal language once you are on the pitch. I am chuffed to bits that we have de fanti and oompalumper (angle whatever it is) who bring a wealth of experience and contacts (thanks ellis) PDC worries me slightly with his iron fist approach but he will be guided. I think what we have seen so far this closed season is just the tip of the iceberg, squad bolstering with hungry younger talent, keen to get into the premiership under our new set up. Over the coming weeks I expect to see the jigsaw coming together and as i've said before, alot of fans have been hurt so many times over the years that its painfull to be optomistic without the fear of another implosion. This has a different feel to it, one which i'm loving. Ellis is the man and he's got the whole world waiting to see how this pans out. haway the lads!
i dont care where they come from, i care that they are good enough. a lot of people go on about them being unprovan but i dont see it being a problem. they all look to be big strong lads who should adapt well to the premiership. we have a squad full of proven premiership players and look what that shower of **** did this season. hopefully di fanti is a good judge of a player and these lads can hit the ground running. having them in early doors will certainly help with that and they should be rareing to go come the start of the season
Every signing is a risk weather they're English or not, proven or not. We've had 7 seasons of staying loyal to british or prem based player and we've spent a lot of money with not much return. We've hired personel with a track record of turning a profit on talent, so I'm going with the nsetup up, however i don't think we're going to turn heads next year. Will take a few seasons for it to show results, but I'm confident it will, with or without PDC.
If you look at the 4 lads we've signed (in July) can anyone think of 4 English equivalents going cheap/free? I know we don't know much about them (well, all of us except Poolie maybe) but they seem to have a sort of pedigree about them coming from good clubs and seemingly having genuine reasons to move. I prefer this gamble to that of being linked with the likes of Kevin Davies or some 32 year old midfielder who cannot get into his own team type of player. We've done that and it hasn't been very successful. The young lads seem be good prospects, just like Wickham, but they are not costing £8 million. I think we'll be signing a couple of expensive players but English or foreign I don't know. I think we'll do well this coming season. PDC is a breath of fresh air and I've agreed with everything he's said so far. FTM (whatever that means) (I'll ask Ellis )
i am conviced it can work but the proof is in the pudding. it cant be worse than what has happened here previously. we have had a lot of british players recently and they havent done the business. we need to find the balance with talented home grown players and some international flair
Defo this ^ Their's quality continental players bring that just doesn't exist in our homegrown players.
I wish it was easier for us to get young South Americans, and i dont mean the likes of Neymar or Oscar 30+ million super kids, but those that are good but havnt really got a chance of international football because of the likes of Neymar and Oscar alredy in the national side. you can get special dispensation, but again that is only if they are an exceptional talent. We will never get a Messi at 11 for example like Barca did (I am not saying we would anyway, but we wont get any SA at that age with the work permit rules the way they are).
I honestly think we are going to head towards an Udinese model. Buy a ton of young players with potential, loan them out then sell on the one who make it for massive profit, rinse and repeat. I for one dont think Ba and Karlsson will be anywhere near the first team next season, so I don't think it's fair to include them. Roberge, Diakite and Cabral have pedigree. Ok so they may not be known by the majority of people, but was Christiano Ronaldo that well known when United signed him from Sporting? Every player you buy is a risk. Look at AJ, proved he can do it in the premier league and was not too brilliant last season. Big Alf was an unknown, and is an absolute powerhouse in centre mid. I love the fact we are moving away from the old model of each new manager dictating the direction of the transfer policy. At least now we will see a little bit of consistency as well as a well thought out transfer process. Lets not forget, we have the guy who discovered Alexis Sanchez with us now. He knows his onions
i agree it will be good to have a consistant approach regardless of who the manager is. we have changed our manager a fair few times in the last 10 years and every one comes in with his own transfer philosophy. plus they normally have 3 transfer windows to clear out the dross from previous managers and call the team thier own.
Some very good & varied responses there lads. My own view is still one of uncertainty as a lot of you say, there's always risks. We've tried everything else so we might as well try some thing different. Hopefully they will turn out to be Bergkamp's, Henry's, Van Persie's etc. But................if they are & we sell them on at big profits, where does that leave us? Will we be able or indeed, have to do it all over again or will we then go for more big money buys? Who knows? Not me that's for sure.
If it turns out like udinese then it should mean that we have a conveyor belt of talent coming through and the team is always getting replenished without having massive outlays. Udinese themselves are doing ok, for the past few seasons they have been in and around the top 6 in serie A. They finished 5th last year
