The way the transfer window is structured is ridiculous. The league starts before the window closes. All the preparation and friendly games are given with a different team in mind and coming 31st August everything can change. Jol was just caught out as I believe other managers too. As if he is the right manager, I believe he is and will find a solution.
Duff in the middle could be worth trying. I'm not certain it would work, but I can see the case for giving it a go.
I think management is as much about personality than it is ability. I don't doubt AVB is a scholar of football and probably has a deeper knowledge than PL managers 20 years older, but if he can't convey what he wants in an attractive and positive way then he will always struggle here. It might be part of the language barrier which he may be able to overcome, right now he strikes me as a particularly arrogant and blunt manager- Huddlestone tweeted "respect needs to be earned before it is given", then removed it, but I'd say that's a decent insight into how a lot of the players feel toward him. It's good to identify the style and players you want to build on, but when the others are around the squad there is no point completely alienating them and creating an avenue for protest.
Captain,I am not saying that i dont rate Jol,but for me he has to prove himself. the team that finished last season was mainly an inherited one,my concern is on several points. Ruiz what 10/11 mil has to prove himself. The defence was not sufficiently strengthend in last Jan window No substantial replacement was found when Murphy left. Rodelga not convinced about his future contribution. Clint Dempsey,it was known some time ago he wanted to leave,and we did not find an adequate replacement. We are now talking about shuffling the pack, re players, fitting into positions not normally played. Credit for the signing of Berbatov,but he alone cannot carry the whole side. I hope my concerns are completely unfounded,and I will be the first to give credit if and when due.
I share a lot of you’re concerns and tend to wonder how much cash we had to spend. It wasn’t until we had the Dembele money we were seen to make bids to sign players, up to then all the player that came in had been on load of free transfers. I think the money from Dembele’s sale may well go towards the Riverside stand expansion. I feel we may not see it reinvested. I'm not overly concerned with our Defence. We don’t have a lot of depth but its not really were my concerns lie. I think our midfield is very weak, no depth and lacks a leader. We didn’t replace Murphy which is a massive issue. I don’t think people appreciate what he bought to the team, he was massive for us. So many times last season when he came off after 80 min we fell apart. Everything went though him and he was a natural leader. Because he done a simple job I think he went overlooked by a lot of people. His loss concerned me more than the Ds leaving. Again Rodlega… I don’t rate him but I’ve said that before… We may have well kept AJ. I also think its poor we didn’t replace the Dempsey as we knew he was off. You don’t need to have money to speculate and I think we should have had a replacement lined up. I think the Berbatov signing is a great achievement, I’m also happy with Richardson. At £2m I don’t think you can go wrong as it can play in a variety of positions to provide cover. I think the fact that we went for Richardson shows that we didn’t have a lot of money to spend. With Ruiz I’m still not sure. I think he will improve but don’t ever think he will prove to be worth that money. I hope he proves me wrong though. I rate Big Maart, when you look at the clubs he has managed prior to us I think we were lucky to get him. Sadly though I can’t see us improving on our 9th place finish last season or matching it either.
So why do you think we signed Petric, Rodallega, Berbatov and Dejagah? One of those must replace Dempsey in some way. I'm pretty sure we played with 11 men in all our games this season... And the Murphy situation - we did alright without him in pre-season, and the first two league games, it was only until Dembele (and the new AJ, Ruiz) were out of the team we started to have issues. I agree we need a leader like him in some form, but I find it very telling that everything is rosy, then a month later and a couple of games/players lost, we're in a gigantic crisis and problems that didn't exist before are suddenly huge catastrophes. I suspect that when we play Stoke or somebody away and get hacked to bits everybody will be complaining that he haven't replaced Etuhu. If we beat WBA then we'll forget about all of this.
Not really Bidley. They are all forwards (okay Dejagah is included as a midfielder in the 'Squad profile' but as I said in the other thread that's because we put all our wingers in that category). The first 3 were signed to replace BZ/AJ/Pog. Surely you must agree with TMHAF's points about having loads of time to replace Murphy and anticipating Dempsey. Jol himself had been signalling the need for two CMs for at least two weeks before the deadline. Why, oh why did the Club therefore leave it until the last afternoon and end up getting caught short. And none of that had anything to do with Dembele leaving. I'm not saying we're in crisis (and I don't believe TMHAF is either). However, the reality is that we failed to deliver the CMs that Jol needed to plug that position and consequently life is more difficult.
I wouldn’t say any of the above are a direct replacement for Dempse. Petric, Rodallega, Berbatov are strikers and Dejagah is primerly a winger. To appreciate what Murphy bought to the team you need to watch the full 90 miuntes. When he was subbed for the last 10 min for a number of the games last season the result didn’t change, so you could argue we didn’t miss him then the structure of the side fell apart. He wasn’t a great flair player like Dembele and didn’t score the goals Dempsey did but he held the team together. You can’t measure that by looking at stats, you have to watch how the team perform over the 90 min with him in then out of the side. I’m not saying it’s a gigantic crisis or a huge catastrophe I just saying he is a player we are going to miss and in my opinion should have replaced.
Dempsey mostly played, nominally, on the left of midfield. In Kacaniklic and Frei we had two good replacements to him even before last season ended. Losing Dempsey has changed the pattern of how we attack, allowing us to gain width on the left where previously Clint used to constantly cut inside looking for goals. Nothing wrong with that, but we can't expect a replacement to stay wide (as Kaca does much more) AND chip in with anything like the same number of goals. Of the new signings Petric and Berbatov and - perhaps - Rodellega look like being replacements for Clint's goalscoring contribution. Like others I'm not convinced by Rodellega, but I'm not ready to write him off yet either. Diarra is a more than adequate replacement for Murphy the player, but I agree that we don't seem to have replaced Murphy the leader. That's my biggest worry unless someone can step up in the next few weeks. I think senior pros like Duff, Riise and Hughes have to take responsibility and back up Captain Brede if we're not going to see the season start to slide. Blimey, that last sentence reads a bit gloomily. I think we'll be fine. There are issues to sort out, but most of them are the result of Dembele's last-minute departure, which was beyond the control of everyone at the club. I've also got more confidence that some in Ruiz's ability to come good this season.
I don’t think this is a crisis. We finished least season strong and 9th was a good finish for us. We all knew AJ would go and we knew pretty early on that the Pog would go too. We bought in replacements for them in plenty of time. The additional of Berbatov was a bonus and means our front line is stronger than last season which is only a good thing. You always want to build on and improve on the previous season. Had we replaced Murphy and at least one of the Ds (I know we have the like of KF, PK, Kaka… coming though so we didn’t necessarily need to replace both of them) I feel we could have carried on from last season. I just feel it’s a shame we seem to have taken a step back rather than forward squad wise from last season. I know we are in a transitional period and Big Maart is still trying to build “his” squad and I have faith that he will succeed in that, I personally think he’s a quality manager. I can’t see us struggling this season or getting pulled into the dog fight for relegation, I think we will be fine. I was hoping with additions to the squad we could push on from 9th last season and get a top 8 finish. May be that was be being unrealistic? Sadly I can’t see us doing that this season, and can see us finishing lower than 9th, which is a shame but not a crisis.
So where did Dempsey play then? Captain said it better than I could, essentially. We didn't get a like-for-like replacement for Demps because we play differently, without him as a focal point. Players were brought in to plug the gaps though. Also, Pog was brought in to replace Bobby so they shared the same place in the squad. Also, TMHAF, I'm well aware that what Murphy brought to the team was more than goals and assists, and I said as much.
Agree with much that has been said. We'll be fine, but we may need to be a little bit patient while Jol reshuffles his pack to get the best from the players at his disposal. He did this last season after a shaky start. It's interesting to look back at the teams he picked for the first four games last year. Dembele only actually started one of them before he came on for Ruiz at half time against Blackburn after which he was a fixture in the starting line up and the rest, as they say, is history. We need one or two players to really step up their games in the same way this year - Ruiz being the obvious candidate, but also at least one of Kasami, Kaca and Frei needs to make themselves a fixture in the starting XI.
Yes, I do think we have tended to underplay Berbatov's possible goal contribution so far. He could quite easily be a 15 - 20 goal a season man and this has to be a significant factor. The other thing about him is that he can create goals from virtually nothing himself, so I am very excited about his potential goal totals per season for us.
