Are you confident the board can and will make the right appointments needed for Sarri's system, or will another manager be starved of talent and be pushed into making apple juice out of lemons? 

I want to feel confident that Roman has changed his ways, and I believe he may have, but I am not confident that his staff behind the scenes will scout and buy the best players for the system. 

You look at the way City and Liverpool specifically have conducted business to fit the manager's ideas, it's what we should be doing. With City, they knew Pep was coming in and bought players like Sterling and KDB to fit the team. Granted, City already had an attacking style and they had technically proficient players like D.Silva, Fernandinho and Aguero. The latter being a world class striker capable of 20+ goals a season. We rushed Sarri in after a long debacle over Conte's contract; signed up Jorginho and Kovacic on loan. Meanwhile we got rid of a world class striker in Costa and replaced him with a misfiring striker in Morata who is inconsistent at best. 

We need to be linked with fringe world class/world class players from here on out, and only players capable of pushing players out of their starting places otherwise there's just no point. It's crucial that the board pull the trigger faster to sign up these top players, otherwise we'll find ourselves once again found wanting. 

Your opinions? 

Edited November 26, 20187 yr by enigma

My concern is Sarri up to now has been 'a nearly man', I hope we are not just settling for being also rans... 

the opposite of confident. 

No I cant see it........the ambition aint there. God knows the pressure is well and alive, ambition not so much.

We’ve not been buy the best players for a few years now.

We’re not buying the most sought after players, we’re more looking for those who can maybe/hopefully make a step up.

Alonso, Emerson, Zappacosta, Morata, Drinkwater, Bakayoko, Luiz. 

These aren’t universally sort after players, a lot of those raised an eyebrow or two at the time of their signing and that’s a lot of money spent despite not getting the worlds best.

We get linked to the likes of Icardi, Sandro but the last world class player we signed was Kante and that was off the back of one good season at Leceister where he had a buyout clause.

You have to feel a lot will depend on if Hazard renews or not. If we are forced to sell him for a discount price we are in huge trouble. Even with Hazard here we might have to spend 200 million on a striker and RW to be able to compete.
Now if Hazard also leaves i fear how we'll line up next season.

We also need a CB, two fullbacks, and at least one midfielder. 
I am not confident the club will deliver the kind of players we'll need to compete with City anytime soon to be honest.

I think Sarri get's his players... he kind of already has with Jorginho and Kepa.  

Mourinho and Conte seemed to irritate their players and needed new players to get better....but also fill the wholes by the players irritated.  Sarri, seems to be more of a fix one issue at a time and develop what you have manager.  I see him adding a guy in January and a guy in the summer that really makes the top 11 better.  RW is the easiest to improve (as in find quality in the market) , really need a splash at that central defender and center forward.

I think Sarri has an attractive enough outlook on how he wants his football to be played for players to buy in to. Sarri got Jorginho to join us instead of Guardiola; on another note, the Spaniard has made no attempt to hide his admiration of Joringho's mesmeziring talents - which is in stark contrast to half our fanbase. I do find that intriguing. 

Conte couldn't attract talent even if his life depended on it. A great, great coach, but his signings for Juventus were mostly a disaster as well. The club was in my opinion correct in not backing him fully. The words that have leaked on Sarri's wishlist, if we are to believe them, are much more positive and in tune (in terms of style and age) with what we've been wanting to do as a club for years.

Personally I think Sarri is full of it when he says he doesn’t worry about the transfer market.  He needs certain types of players in order to play his pressing style.  I think he will definitely have some targets for the board.

The difference, is, he will not complain like a Conte and Mourinho did, if we do not end up buying his targets.

Since Sarri has said himself that he doesn't pay attention to the transfer market, it makes me wonder how things will go regarding it. We can't say that the board doesn't purchase players, because they do. The problem has been the type of players that have been purchased. Spending large amounts of money on Bakayoko and Drinkwater didn't make much sense. Morata can't stay onside to save his life (honestly I'm not sure he knows how offsides works). Giroud is getting pretty old as well. Our RW are the oldest in the league and we haven't gotten much production out of them as well. Azpi has struggled a lot this season but I think he will adapt and eventually he will be fine. This is all besides the point...

The original point: does the board buy the proper players that can fit into Sarri's system? That is what I'm concerned about. We know they are going to purchase players, hopefully it isn't more Bakayoko's. Who are the right players? I don't know, I don't follow other leagues and other teams much. 

8 minutes ago, mwblue10 said:

Personally I think Sarri is full of it when he says he doesn’t worry about the transfer market.  He needs certain types of players in order to play his pressing style.  I think he will definitely have some targets for the board.

The difference, is, he will not complain like a Conte and Mourinho did, if we do not end up buying his targets.

Yeah, he may not focus on it himself, but it is a little silly to not at least make requests/recommendations to the board. We are gonna find out regardless in the coming months. Also, I agree that he won't complain about transfers, which will be a really nice change.

In case of a scenario where the board won't spend money, if Marina doesn't secure 2 big signings in the summer the club must give the chance to the youth players, otherwise we will lose some great home grown talents.

I think that the board should back Sarri for at least 1 big signing in January and 2 big signings in the summer.

But I'm pessimistic about it.

1 hour ago, mwblue10 said:

Personally I think Sarri is full of it when he says he doesn’t worry about the transfer market.  He needs certain types of players in order to play his pressing style.  I think he will definitely have some targets for the board.

The difference, is, he will not complain like a Conte and Mourinho did, if we do not end up buying his targets.

I think he's been outspoken about not concerning himself with the transfer market. He has said he prefers to leave it up to the board to deal with that. However, he will of course point out the kind of players he wants, but whether the club pursue the cream of the crop in that category and buy them is another matter entirely. He's only really starting to figure out this current group of players. 

Edited November 26, 20187 yr by enigma

I dont think its accurate to say the club is no longer ambitious because we're not signing the top players these days. Isn't 70 million on a young keeper showing ambition? We cant just go out and buy who we want when we want. Even Utd, one of the top 3 biggest clubs in the world can't do it. There's a lot of clubs with a lot of money these days. However, thee's enough of the right players at the right price out there, we just need better scouting and stop blowing hundreds of millions on rubbish and mediocre players.

1 hour ago, Dixon said:

I dont think its accurate to say the club is no longer ambitious because we're not signing the top players these days. Isn't 70 million on a young keeper showing ambition? We cant just go out and buy who we want when we want. Even Utd, one of the top 3 biggest clubs in the world can't do it. There's a lot of clubs with a lot of money these days. However, thee's enough of the right players at the right price out there, we just need better scouting and stop blowing hundreds of millions on rubbish and mediocre players.

I don't think that the club is showing that much of an ambition compared to Man City, Arsenal and Manure.

What so we signed a goalkeeper, but we also sold Courtois so any team would have bought a new one, 30m we got and added 40m otherwise Green would be our first choice, replacing one player with another is not showing ambition it's doing business only when you have to do it, big difference so your argument is non existant there.

Same thing happen with Costa, Conte got rid of him, club was forced to sell so we got a bench warmer Morata to act as if he is good enough as a first choice striker, did the team get better? No.

While Man City keeps buying and buying while they still have their best players, and selling old ones away, that's real ambition.

I agree with most of this.......we spend too much money on dross.

 

 

3 hours ago, enigma said:

I think he's been outspoken about not concerning himself with the transfer market. He has said he prefers to leave it up to the board to deal with that. However, he will of course point out the kind of players he wants, but whether the club pursue the cream of the crop in that category and buy them is another matter entirely. He's only really starting to figure out this current group of players. 

Some sort of reverse psychology surely, or something to that effect.  Makes everyone look good when we make decent signings.

5 hours ago, Gol15 said:

I don't think that the club is showing that much of an ambition compared to Man City, Arsenal and Manure.

What so we signed a goalkeeper, but we also sold Courtois so any team would have bought a new one, 30m we got and added 40m otherwise Green would be our first choice, replacing one player with another is not showing ambition it's doing business only when you have to do it, big difference so your argument is non existant there.

Same thing happen with Costa, Conte got rid of him, club was forced to sell so we got a bench warmer Morata to act as if he is good enough as a first choice striker, did the team get better? No.

While Man City keeps buying and buying while they still have their best players, and selling old ones away, that's real ambition.

City fair enough, but what exactly are Arsenal or United doing that are so much "better" or more ambitious? 

13 hours ago, Dixon said:

I dont think its accurate to say the club is no longer ambitious because we're not signing the top players these days. Isn't 70 million on a young keeper showing ambition?

I thought Kepa was an excellent statement by the club. It would have been easy to spend 40m on someone decent, but they broke the world record and brought in one of the most promising young keepers in the world. Was hugely impressed.

Incidentally I was watching a TV show a while back about a famous Russian keeper and they were talking about how the goalkeeper is basically a revered position in Russia. Considered vastly more important and critical than we tend to think of it in the west. I'm wondering now whether that might have affected Roman's thinking over the years. Cech, Courtois, Kepa, all really top drawer talents, even when we haven't been spending quite as much elsewhere.

7 hours ago, Argo said:

City fair enough, but what exactly are Arsenal or United doing that are so much "better" or more ambitious? 

Arsenal spent £50m on Lacazette last summer but then went on to spend another £55m on Aubameyang the same season. 

United have back Jose with about £400m worth of signings. They broke the bank for Pogba, Lukaku and gave Sanchez a whooping great contract to fend off interest from City. 

Whether those signings were worth it or better than we've got is up for debate but I think it showed ambition from those clubs. 

11 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

Arsenal spent £50m on Lacazette last summer but then went on to spend another £55m on Aubameyang the same season. 

United have back Jose with about £400m worth of signings. They broke the bank for Pogba, Lukaku and gave Sanchez a whooping great contract to fend off interest from City. 

Whether those signings were worth it or better than we've got is up for debate but I think it showed ambition from those clubs. 

And United also refused the signings of Alderwierld, Perisic and Maguire while Arsenal spent all last summer scrapping the bargain bin barrel for signings, had we done either i would wager that it would not be seen as ambitious.

13 hours ago, Gol15 said:

While Man City keeps buying and buying while they still have their best players, and selling old ones away, that's real ambition.

No, that's not an ambition, it's called being bankrolled by an oil state. City aren't run as a business, so they don't have to worry about anything. Their 'commercial income' is artificially propped up by the companies connected to  the UAE royal family and realistically they're working at a huge financial loss season after season, but UEFA are simply too scared/or corrupt to take on the City owners. No other club, except PSG (another oil state project) can operate like that and get away with it. Only recently there was a big exposé on how they lied/cheated/bullied their way to make it look like they're complying with the FFP guidelines. 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/manchester-city-exposed-bending-the-rules-to-the-tune-of-millions-a-1236346.html

Edited November 27, 20187 yr by abramovich

Of course they will back him, but if you mean go out and buy every player he wants then you are going to be disappointed.

32 minutes ago, Argo said:

And United also refused the signings of Alderwierld, Perisic and Maguire while Arsenal spent all last summer scrapping the bargain bin barrel for signings, had we done either i would wager that it would not be seen as ambitious.

United didn't want to bankroll the signings of Alderwierld and Perisic because allegedly they didn't want to keep signing players who were 29+ years old as the club didn't see the value in it. 

Apparently they tried for Maguire but couldn't agree a fee but then again allegedly United felt they'd already spent a lot of money on defenders (Bailey, Lindelof) and didn't want to keep buying players for the same positions. 

Arsenal, they bought Lacazette and Aubameyang last year. Spent about £70m this summer with only about £5m recouped through player sales. 

I'm not arguing for or against those clubs just saying how I think their transfer activity can be perceived as ambitious. 

Not massively. We spent big on Sarri, Jorginho and Kepa in the summer, I can't see us spending big money again for a while. We'll likely try to recoup some on Drinkwater, Bakayoko, etc... and some loanees, but not sure what they will do with that. it doesn't buy you much these days.