True, and he was injured half the time anyway. Tufan was the striker for a while before reinforcements came in January. Still wanting us to take our turn having a Szmodics or a Mitrovic amount of goals from our striker, every other club seems capable of signing these kinds of strikers, just not us.
Exactly, all the lovely build up in the world means **** all if you don't score at the end of it. And if you don't score, you don't win. And if you don't win games, you go down. It'd be the easiest job in the world if football was as simple as that. As I've said, I think our problem is we overcomplicate it. The quality in our squad is enough that a simple formation and tactic would probably see us alright, but the insistence on doing this rotational stuff and weird lines of engagement is both infuriating and unnecessary. What's worse, it really, REALLY punishes mistakes and at this level, we're gonna make them.
haha - Morton, Philogene, Carvalho, Giles, Zahoury and Twine all came with great reputations. People were commenting in the media and other clubs that our transfer window had been exceptional.
I’m confused on exactly what the argument is but we definitely had a better starting 11 last season even if we didn’t know it at the time. Just look where some of the players are now.
We're talking about the first time he signed for Villa as my question was 'why didn't a PL club sign him when we bought him if he was PL ready' to which Charon said a PL club had already signed him.
Yeah I was coming in to say this. For people to say this season's squad is a clear downgrade is an indictment on the recruitment team as we've spent far more this summer than last. Perhaps it's just the manager we've downgraded.
Yep, a huge credit to the management at the club for turning a lot of those players into outstanding players by season's end. The fact we spent a fraction of our spend this summer last year and had a substantially better squad says a lot.
We've certainly overpaid on a good lot of them from what I've seen. Only Hughes looks worth it currently.
Belloumi looks quality but we aren't seeing it often enough. Kamara we're wasting on the wrong side even if he did look a lot better against Derby. Everyone was critical when we signed Zaroury in January when his best position was the same side as Philogene but we've gone out and done it again.
On last season, I distinctly remember the excitement on here when we bagged Philogene and Carvalho, and even Zaroury who had all done well at other clubs at this level previously. To say that they were risks at the time and the previous manager turned them into quality players is just false
It's not false. There was excitement about Philogene from a select few who had seen him play, but a lot either hadn't heard of him or thought it was decent in the same way Delap was - young, promising English players. No one expected him to have the season he had (although if you can find the quotes that suggest they did, feel free). Both Philogene and Delap had had underwhelming seasons prior in the Championship where they didn't set the world alight so if anyone thought he and Delap were coming in to give us the seasons we got then I'd be amazed. Carvalho had almost his best goal scoring season of his career (in half a season) after being a bench warmer in Germany. To say Rosenior 'turned him into' a quality player is of course false, he is a quality player already. But to say Rosenior got the best out of him and redeemed his season is absolutely true. But the fact is we spent a fraction last year of what we did this year but had a similarly transformative approach to our attacking personnel. Philogene, Delap, Connolly and Lokilo was an entirely new front four, with the only similar piece to the previous season being Tufan.
Of course, no one suggested we didn't need new players? But with substantially more funds available this summer than last with the same objective (transform the forward line), we seem (at this stage) to have done a much better job with less last summer. Delap, Philogene, Connolly, Twine, Lokilo v Bedia, Burstow, Pedro, Kamara, Millar, Belloumi The former cost us maaaybe 8m when you factor in loan fees and sign-on bonuses, the latter cost us at least that much just for Kamara, Millar and Belloumi. We didn't HAVE to spend all the money we recouped for Philogene, but we did, and have somehow ended up with a weaker forward line at this stage.
Bedia is on loan but otherwise point taken. Issue is when the players you sign permanently are lemons you're stuck with them a bit longer than a dud loan.. At least Pedro was a one year deal.
I think striker aside we’ve recruited very well in the wide areas of the forward line. We really cannot risk it with the striker again though
Agreed, which is why I was curious at some people saying our squad this season is "clearly" weaker than last season. I think we have a very good group of players and outside of Delap v Bedia most other positions should be seen as stronger this season over last. Philogene as a single asset was another bright point but you would like to think that Belloumi/Millar/Kamar v Philogene/Lokilo/Twine is a win for this season even with Millar's ACL injury. I think the comments around the squad quality feels a little like an out for Walter, when the reality is that we have a really good squad this season that to this stage hasn't performed to its potential due to a myriad of reasons. Some of those reasons (time together as a squad) are becoming less relevant as an excuse as the weeks tick by. I've been on record basically since Acun came in that I've been really disappointed with his messaging around strikers and the reality we are constantly left with. He has always said that it is the one position to focus the most resources on but from Forss to Oscar/Tetteh (free signings where we were lucky Oscar started with a purple patch) to Delap/Connolly (again a bit lucky with how those panned out) to Sharp/Ohio to Bedia/Burstow/Pedro we have never focussed resources on the position, they have all been loans, free signings, or punts on kids. Yes we missed out on Moore and Tomas-Assante, and Conway opted for Boro, but we need to be doing better.
It's a shame we didn't go for a striker in the similar mould to how we went for wingers and midfielders (e.g. young ones who have a high ceiling to develop). Biereth who went to Austria seems to fit that bill, and the fee was reasonable too. The striker signings from this summer just feel odd. Bedia and Pedro just didn't make sense to me, especially Pedro, who looks poor and is stopping Burstow from getting game time (not saying that he's the answer but he's a young lad who needs games).
Our main 3 striker targets of the summer have 7 goals combined so far this season. Moore 2 in 12, worse than Bedia, Thomas Asante, 1 in 11 albeit only 4 starts and then 4 for Conway in 8 games who I’m not sure why we ever bid for as he was always going to Boro
