Blueboys

I don’t actually think it’s any one’s fault. Rudiger is entitled to get as much money as he can and Chelsea are well within their rights to say that’s too much, we’re not paying you that.
Chelsea did the right thing, he’s asked for and signed for crazy money with Madrid. We can pay 2 top level CBs contracts with that amount of money which I imagine we do. 
the chance we had to negotiate with Rudiger this season he had only been performing for 6 months. No way did he deserve to more than double his money and get a huge bonus for that. 
 
 

Yeah he’s good enough. Not a world beater but not everyone in the team needs to be 

Little by little improving every game. That’ll be the story of our season anyway 

Little by little improving every game. That’ll be the story of our season anyway 

Was nice to see him get a standing ovation last night. He did really well. Still room for improvement but you can see his confidence is growing. Caused Lamptey a few problems and also looked threatening when he kept cutting inside. Good to see that Poch is giving him an extended run. 

Apparently partying while injured is not the best way to earn a squad spot.
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Good player though, sure he’ll bounce back.

My position and opinion has been consistent and has not changed.
The club were rotten to the core, and stagnating for seasons. The top 4 finish under frank, the UCL and the cup finals under TT all masked the fact, and were achieving those heights  in spite of the way we were operating (not because of it)
That short term thinking, constant managerial churn and demand for immediate and instant success saw the squad expensively assembled, but increasingly fragmented and disjointed - playing an utterly boring style of negative football. It had not been truly competitive in the league for a while - and as i sat, the cup runs masked the deficiencies.
Clearlake have come in and tried to do something different. They went one direction under potter, spent big, then sh*t their pants due to a) the mistakes that they made in the market, b) the slow progress (or lack of) that Potter was making and c) the fans toxic reaction.
They have now gone another extreme way, hoovering up youth for a long term project. As I said when we had potter, the transition will take time. Not 1 transfer window. Not 3 windows. maybe not another 2 or 3 years. It will be a rollercoaster of ups and downs, and still at the end may not work. The same remains true now, perhaps even more so - and after 3 clearlake windows, we are still left with a squad full of potential, and little else. It will still take a long time.
Whilst I have concerns at the method we are trying, and tend to side with Alan Hansen, it is a change from the previous MO. I do believe we needed to move away from that old model, and this IS a move away. So I am willing to give it the time I think is needed. 
It is early, the kids are learning, there is little to gain from turning on the them or the club, and if ever patience was needed - now is the time.
The self entitled comments and behaviour of some of our fans , including some on here, is a perfect snapshot of the instant "i want it now" culture of the world. It doesn't help.
I do think some people would benefit from taking a step back and looking at things through the prism of 5-10 year blocks of time to measure success. Not everything has to be instant gratification- despite what tiktok and instagram may tell you....
 
 
 
PS. I am not american or indian tech support.

How can anyone write him off? let’s set a ground rule - last season doesn’t count for any of the players still with the squad. That was a mess in its own right. 
 
This season he has played a total of 55 mins which isn’t enough to judge anyone on to say they are good enough or not.
my view: Trying a little too hard but also has come on in games where we are chasing a result, not the best games for confidence building. I’d imagine bit by bit throughout the season he will get some better games to build on performances from and end up in what’s likely to become a core 15 ish players  

This might take the award for worst post made to this site for a while so well done. 
 
not sure who all these people you speak to are but they must have an extremely narrow view of football to all think our owners are the worst in the country, especially when people like Ron Martin exist (I suspect Google might be your friend here).

This might take the award for worst post made to this site for a while so well done. 
 
not sure who all these people you speak to are but they must have an extremely narrow view of football to all think our owners are the worst in the country, especially when people like Ron Martin exist (I suspect Google might be your friend here).

Backwards from where? Outside of a 6 month purple patch under Tuchel we’ve been no where near winning anything for years. That 6 months was very much the blip, just a good one. 
Also on the owners. The honest answer is if you’d ask the fans of 99% ish of clubs around the world they’d bite your hands off to have our owners after they’d made the now customary billion quid joke 

This might take the award for worst post made to this site for a while so well done. 
 
not sure who all these people you speak to are but they must have an extremely narrow view of football to all think our owners are the worst in the country, especially when people like Ron Martin exist (I suspect Google might be your friend here).

How can anyone write him off? let’s set a ground rule - last season doesn’t count for any of the players still with the squad. That was a mess in its own right. 
 
This season he has played a total of 55 mins which isn’t enough to judge anyone on to say they are good enough or not.
my view: Trying a little too hard but also has come on in games where we are chasing a result, not the best games for confidence building. I’d imagine bit by bit throughout the season he will get some better games to build on performances from and end up in what’s likely to become a core 15 ish players  

This might take the award for worst post made to this site for a while so well done. 
 
not sure who all these people you speak to are but they must have an extremely narrow view of football to all think our owners are the worst in the country, especially when people like Ron Martin exist (I suspect Google might be your friend here).

I don’t think it does but you need to get one side right first before filling in the other. And getting the good younger players in first is the logical way of doing that. Don’t be surprised if our next signings are a couple of more experienced heads to help in positions. 
 
The Mitrovic/Wilson arguments are interesting but they are just as big a risk in their own right. Washington for £20m might turn into a world beater in 18 months, he might not in which case the club will get most that £20m back. Mitrovic for £50m, picks up regular knocks, not played for a bigger team before. Won’t get much, if any of the £50m back for not guaranteed performance. 
 
Your human venture capital but I don’t disagree with, but that’s just football. The top teams hoard as many players as possible for various reasons. Look at us, ours has changed from hoarding lower prem level pros to farm out in a loan army to balance to balance the books to hoarding young talent for a similar reason. 

This might take the award for worst post made to this site for a while so well done. 
 
not sure who all these people you speak to are but they must have an extremely narrow view of football to all think our owners are the worst in the country, especially when people like Ron Martin exist (I suspect Google might be your friend here).

@enigma nice to see someone speaking a lot of sense. I’ve said on this thread previously the ownership got absolutely crucified last summer for a “shotgun” approach to recruitment that involved big money for experienced players.
I like that since then we seem to have a plan of how we want to move forward, am expecting it to be a bit up and down until it all starts to gel. 

Like what experience though? Who was out there as targets that were experienced? We got rid of most of them, and people on here and social media were wanting them older players gone. People acting like they weren't clambering for Kova, Jorginho, Koulibaly etc to be sold because they weren't good enough. So many people wanted Colwill back. They had no issue with signing Nkunku. No issue with Gusto as back up to Reece. No issue with Caicedo. No issue with Enzo. The only area we have struggled with is the Striker situation, but that isn't a new issue. Lukaku was signed for a lot of money and didn't want to play for us. 

Didn't people moan about the players over the age of 25 that we got rid of for being poor? Now all of a sudden we should have signed over 25s lol. I think people need to decide what we need and don't need, and how old the perfect players must be to help us win and score goals. I see Arsenal are struggling with those old and experienced heads in Saka (22), Martinelli (21), Nketia (24), Saliba (22), Odegaard (24), Kiwior (23) 

Were people complaining before this season? Because as far as I remember people were praising Boehly and Co for getting Caicedo and praising them to the hilt. Now we are struggling and people are blaming the board again. I'm interested what people's actual issues are with the current team. Apart from a proper striker (which hasn't been easy to acquire) what are the issues? Because everyone thought they made a good hire in Poch. They praised them for getting rid of the deadwood. They praised them for Enzo, Caicedo, keeping Colwill, getting a back up for James. Signing Lavia ("HAHA f**k the scousers and Klopp" remember?).  

Tell you what I am a sucker for these sponsorless shirts. I’ve got/ordered both. 

How can anyone write him off? let’s set a ground rule - last season doesn’t count for any of the players still with the squad. That was a mess in its own right. 
 
This season he has played a total of 55 mins which isn’t enough to judge anyone on to say they are good enough or not.
my view: Trying a little too hard but also has come on in games where we are chasing a result, not the best games for confidence building. I’d imagine bit by bit throughout the season he will get some better games to build on performances from and end up in what’s likely to become a core 15 ish players  

Well I’ve remembered why I tend to avoid these match threads. SO. MUCH. NEGATIVITY 

Well I’ve remembered why I tend to avoid these match threads. SO. MUCH. NEGATIVITY 

I think the board approached it the right way this time and so be it if we miss out for somebody wanting to massively overpay.
last season we paid asking price for a load of players and everyone has been bashing the board for that.
this year, we are rightly trying to get the best deals (which has worked on the signings we have made already!) and now the board are going to get bashed for not paying asking price for a player at the beginning. 
 
we can’t have it both ways.