8 minutes ago, Jangz said:

A better way to do this is who would you switch from your direct competitors.. 

Against City - For me a definite would be -  Diaz, Laporte, KDB, Bernardo Silva, Sterling others are comparable on the other hand i think if city were to pick apart from kante and none of our other players are definite in.. that for me is a big gap.

Against Pool - for me a definite would be - VVD, Salah, Mane to us while Kante, to them and hence we are closer to them

Against Utd - i would probably take Pogba on the other hand they would happily upgrade to Reece, Chilwell, Kante and hence we are slightly ahead. 

Hence our current position in the league seems just about right.

Always think bad form to take more than one player from one team.

City - Cancelo or De Bruyne

Liverpool - Salah or VVD

Utd - none

I think the trick is to pick the up and coming players, we have not been very good at that in the last couple of years. 

 

 

On paper, the squad is pretty much there. 

Trouble is, a lot of signings we have made over the last 2 seasons, havent really lived up to the billing, and none of the attackers have really taken the responsibility of being that talisman. 

Now we have situation where there is alot of players missing through injury and covid, and as a result, performances have dropped off. 

Moving forward, i think we need to decide on whether will stick with the same system. If we are, then we will likely need at least couple of centre backs if we lose players on a free, maybe Kounde, and promote Colwill. 

We also need a couple of athletic wing backs. We have seen how vital they are to our system, so it needs to be James, Chilwell, and a couple more. Gosens, Hernandez, Lamptey, Livramento, Dest, Maehle, Mcneil, Digne. Loads to choose from. 

Centre midfield, I think we would be fine if Kante could get through 50 games a year, but i think those days are sadly gone, so we need some energy in their, Rice, Tchouameni, or even Bellingham. 

Attacking wise, im not sure where we are, I think if anything we have too many options, so we end up rotating too frequently, and no one finds any rhythm. I would probably sell Ziyech, Werner, and Pulisic, and replace them Gallagher, and another versatile forward with some end product. I think Chiesa would be made for the premier league tbh. 

TL:DR

Squad is good, just needs some changes in key areas to really push City. 

Poor Recruitment. For years it’s been hit or miss a few great signings and bargains along the way but Marina has mostly delivered bunk signings, too many over the years to mention but the last few windows have been an abject failure mostly, wo the Academy players that have stepped up it would be worse. All that money on attackers and not one has a chance of getting more than a handful of goals a season each, no stand out talents, we’ve relied on 2 wingbacks to carry the team with Kante , without those 3 were exposed. Club won’t move on the turkeys they have signed easily so we’re stuck, if the slide continues the manager will go and we’ll start over.  Ridiculous but it’s our clubs way now, no accountability up top and fire the manager when it no longer works on the pitch. Always a new candidate waiting in the wings. 

Does anyone think the calibre of our signings has massively declined after Emenalo left? 

 

There have been some great ones (Kante, Rudiger etc) but far too many duds in between. The only bad window we had under Emenalo was 2015/16 

2 hours ago, General said:

Poor Recruitment. For years it’s been hit or miss a few great signings and bargains along the way but Marina has mostly delivered bunk signings, too many over the years to mention but the last few windows have been an abject failure mostly, wo the Academy players that have stepped up it would be worse. All that money on attackers and not one has a chance of getting more than a handful of goals a season each, no stand out talents, we’ve relied on 2 wingbacks to carry the team with Kante , without those 3 were exposed. Club won’t move on the turkeys they have signed easily so we’re stuck, if the slide continues the manager will go and we’ll start over.  Ridiculous but it’s our clubs way now, no accountability up top and fire the manager when it no longer works on the pitch. Always a new candidate waiting in the wings. 

Director of the year as well our Marina...

She has a big window ahead of her, really does. Not that their will be any pressure from Roman and the board on her however from the fans perspective is quite clear she and most of the board have messed up basically every time these past windows since the ban.

I mean after Lamps managed to get us top 4 after losing Eden and bringing youth through we spent big however only 2 of those signings were Frank signings we have since found out, Chilwell and Silva, and while it took Ben some time they have both proved superb signings.

The other one that was not Frank's thst did turn out successful was Mendy, who was Cechs signing. 

The big money big names deals of Werner, Havertz and Ziyech sunk Lampard.

No signings for TT in his first month here. He wins the CL and gets top 4.

Then what do we get for him? Replace our third choice keeper? OK that is neither here nor there. 

Saul well documented club signing. Been awful so far. Most of us fans called that.

Lukaku was he a TT signing or did he just ask for a top striker without a name? I believe the latter. Why? Cause we tried to resign Lukaku twice before, both times when he was still at Everton and enquired about him last summer too I have read I.e. when Frank was still here.

Most of us said don't sign Lukaku, he is trouble, got a big mouth, goes missing in big games, has a giant ego etc. Again looks like we were on the money.

So yeah she has a big window ahead of her Marina does and I really think it is in the teams and our best interests if she listens to Cech and TT and Roman opens his wallet big time.

Cause we have a quality manager who is a class act and we should not let him down. We know their is quality out there we just have to be willing to pay for it.

Edited January 1, 20224 yr by axman2526

6 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

Director of the year as well our Marina...

She has a big window ahead of her, really does. Not that their will be any pressure from Roman and the board on her however from the fans perspective is quite clear she and most of the board have messed up basically every time these past windows since the ban.

I mean after Lamps managed to get us top 4 after losing Eden and bringing youth through we spent big however only 2 of those signings were Frank signings we have since found out, Chilwell and Silva, and while it took Ben some time they have both proved superb signings.

The other one that was not Frank's thst did turn out successful was Mendy, who was Cechs signing. 

The big money big names deals of Werner, Havertz and Ziyech sunk Lampard.

No signings for TT in his first month here. He wins the CL and gets top 4.

Then what do we get for him? Replace our third choice keeper? OK that is neither here nor there. 

Saul well documented club signing. Been awful so far. Most of us fans called that.

Lukaku was he a TT signing or did he just ask for a top striker without a name? I believe the latter. Why? Cause we tried to resign Lukaku twice before, both times when he was still at Everton and enquired about him last summer too I have read I.e. when Frank was still here.

Most of us said don't sign Lukaku, he is trouble, got a big mouth, goes missing in big games, has a giant ego etc. Again looks like we were on the money.

So yeah she has a big window ahead of her Marina does and I really think it is in the teams and our best interests if she listens to Cech and TT and Roman opens his wallet big time.

Cause we have a quality manager who is a class act and we should not let him down. We know their is quality out there we just have to be willing to pay for it.

Rumors are we are going to offload Ziyech and Werner soon. The key is then finding defenders and players that can contribute more to the first lineup.

Tuchel probably didn't know when he was taking the job that he would be in a big rebuilding process very soon.

4 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

Rumors are we are going to offload Ziyech and Werner soon. The key is then finding defenders and players that can contribute more to the first lineup.

Tuchel probably didn't know when he was taking the job that he would be in a big rebuilding process very soon.

We hoping Newcastle buy? Otherwise we will likely lose half our purchase money.

I did some analysis this morning of our player purchases vs Manchester City, for the time period that Guardiola has been the manager there. It is pretty grim reading.

The common observation made is that City have unlimited funds and no-one can compete with them financially. "Pep can just go out and buy X number of £60M full backs" and so on.

What is the reality ?

In the last 6 seasons, City have signed 40 players for fees, totalling £963.4m, according to Transfermarkt data sources.

• 17 of the 40 are currently first team squad players, total fees paid £742.4m, average per player £43.7m.
• 12 of the 40 are currently on Loan. City paid £51.6m for these 12, average £4.3m.
• 11 of the 40 have been sold on, 8 for a profit, and 3 for a loss. Overall they are up £27.1m on these player sales.

How does that compare to us ?

In the same time period, we have signed 25 players (including loan fees for Higuain and Saul) for fees totalling £912.9m. 

• 15 of the 25 are currently first team squad players, total fees paid £651.4m , average per player £43.4m.
• 5 of the 25 are currently on Loan. We paid £125.7m for these 5, average £25.1m 
• 5 of the 25 have been sold on, all for a loss, cumulative loss -£71.2m

 

So we are pretty much matching their level of spending (£50m difference in a number close to a billion is relatively insignificant), Unfortunately our hit rate on signings being successful is very poor. 

The fees we are paying for first team players are in line with what City are spending (average £43.4m vs £43.7m per player), but we get far less quality and consistency for our money. This for me is a combination of poor scouting (Bakayoko, Drinkwater, Batshuayi, Morata, Werner, Lukaku etc etc - a combination of not spotting poor technique, mentality, attitude, lifestyle negatives etc etc ) and also paying far too much for what we are buying (Kepa the best example)

Where we sell players we are doing so at a loss (we are nearly £100M behind City on P/L of players that we have paid a fee for and subsequently sold in the last 5 years, mainly because we buy a few mid-priced older players who have no or limited resale value when we come to sell them) ; the players we have on loan are expensive dud signings rather than players signed inexpensively with the aim of the loan developing them and increasing their value. 

We clearly need some radical changes in how we target players and handle our recruitment process.

A top Director of Football seems essential to define the style of play, and the overall strategy and "philosophy", which the manager (or managers, assuming Roman carries on hiring and firing) then adhere to in their coaching. I don't see why Petr Cech couldn't be promoted to do this role.

Our scouting system is clearly not up to standard, assuming we actually want to catch and overtake Man City at some point. Hard to suggest improvements as I have no idea how our scouting team is organised, but something clearly needs to change. You shouldn't be spending £300m on forwards and then find that they all struggle to score goals.

We also need to be better at negotiating contracts, as we pay players far too much, which then makes them impossible to shift if things don't turn out well. 

If we can get better at player recruitment to better complement the top talent that we have coming out of the Academy, then I don't see why we couldn't get to City's level or beyond in the next 2 or 3 seasons, and especially if we can retain the services of Thomas Tuchel as coach rather than continue the usual chop/change policy.

Our Academy is a 10/10. Recruitment is probably 5 or 6 at best.

 

Here is the data if anyone is interested : 

Green = current first team squad ; orange = on loan, red = sold

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Sexyfootball said:

I did some analysis this morning of our player purchases vs Manchester City, for the time period that Guardiola has been the manager there. It is pretty grim reading.

The common observation made is that City have unlimited funds and no-one can compete with them financially. "Pep can just go out and buy X number of £60M full backs" and so on.

What is the reality ?

In the last 6 seasons, City have signed 40 players for fees, totalling £963.4m, according to Transfermarkt data sources.

• 17 of the 40 are currently first team squad players, total fees paid £742.4m, average per player £43.7m.
• 12 of the 40 are currently on Loan. City paid £51.6m for these 12, average £4.3m.
• 11 of the 40 have been sold on, 8 for a profit, and 3 for a loss. Overall they are up £27.1m on these player sales.

How does that compare to us ?

In the same time period, we have signed 25 players (including loan fees for Higuain and Saul) for fees totalling £912.9m. 

• 15 of the 25 are currently first team squad players, total fees paid £651.4m , average per player £43.4m.
• 5 of the 25 are currently on Loan. We paid £125.7m for these 5, average £25.1m 
• 5 of the 25 have been sold on, all for a loss, cumulative loss -£71.2m

 

So we are pretty much matching their level of spending (£50m difference in a number close to a billion is relatively insignificant), Unfortunately our hit rate on signings being successful is very poor. 

The fees we are paying for first team players are in line with what City are spending (average £43.4m vs £43.7m per player), but we get far less quality and consistency for our money. This for me is a combination of poor scouting (Bakayoko, Drinkwater, Batshuayi, Morata, Werner, Lukaku etc etc - a combination of not spotting poor technique, mentality, attitude, lifestyle negatives etc etc ) and also paying far too much for what we are buying (Kepa the best example)

Where we sell players we are doing so at a loss (we are nearly £100M behind City on P/L of players that we have paid a fee for and subsequently sold in the last 5 years, mainly because we buy a few mid-priced older players who have no or limited resale value when we come to sell them) ; the players we have on loan are expensive dud signings rather than players signed inexpensively with the aim of the loan developing them and increasing their value. 

We clearly need some radical changes in how we target players and handle our recruitment process.

A top Director of Football seems essential to define the style of play, and the overall strategy and "philosophy", which the manager (or managers, assuming Roman carries on hiring and firing) then adhere to in their coaching. I don't see why Petr Cech couldn't be promoted to do this role.

Our scouting system is clearly not up to standard, assuming we actually want to catch and overtake Man City at some point. Hard to suggest improvements as I have no idea how our scouting team is organised, but something clearly needs to change. You shouldn't be spending £300m on forwards and then find that they all struggle to score goals.

We also need to be better at negotiating contracts, as we pay players far too much, which then makes them impossible to shift if things don't turn out well. 

If we can get better at player recruitment to better complement the top talent that we have coming out of the Academy, then I don't see why we couldn't get to City's level or beyond in the next 2 or 3 seasons, and especially if we can retain the services of Thomas Tuchel as coach rather than continue the usual chop/change policy.

Our Academy is a 10/10. Recruitment is probably 5 or 6 at best.

 

Here is the data if anyone is interested : 

Green = current first team squad ; orange = on loan, red = sold

 

 

 

Yet Marina is director of the year. God figure lol.

Our scouting department needs to be revamped and Petr seems like he has an eye for good GKs. 

We need a better oversight on the integration of players. Marina needs to be given some instructions on not overpaying on 50-50 signings. For eg. 100m for Lewandowski is a no-brainer but for Lukaku is questionable. 

What City did right before signing Pep was basically take the best directors from Barca and build the framework. Once Pep came on, it was only the teething period they needed to sort out. 

1 hour ago, Deino said:

Marina needs to be given some instructions on not overpaying on 50-50 signings. For eg. 100m for Lewandowski is a no-brainer but for Lukaku is questionable. 

Lewandowski is 33 years old. £100m for a 33 year old is not a good deal ; you might get two great years out of him, but he inevitably will decline after that, and re-sale value at 35 years old is going to be a minimum 85% loss., if not 100%. And all that notwithstanding his wages .... which would also be considerable. Plus he is unproven in the PL, albeit being an elite goal scorer in the Bundesliga, CL and Internationals suggests he could handle the PL no problem. 

The time to get Lewandowski was at age 26 when Bayern got him on a free transfer !  

8 hours ago, Sexyfootball said:

Lewandowski is 33 years old. £100m for a 33 year old is not a good deal ; you might get two great years out of him, but he inevitably will decline after that, and re-sale value at 35 years old is going to be a minimum 85% loss., if not 100%. And all that notwithstanding his wages .... which would also be considerable. Plus he is unproven in the PL, albeit being an elite goal scorer in the Bundesliga, CL and Internationals suggests he could handle the PL no problem. 

The time to get Lewandowski was at age 26 when Bayern got him on a free transfer !  

Lewandowski based his style of football on movement and technique, He'd last well over 35 imo. 

Did we expect re-sale value and low wages when buying Lukaku? Obviously not. 

----

To get back to the calibre of the squad discussion, right now with everyone fully fit, we're definitely a title challenger. We just lack that final piece still. 

We don't know how Lewandowski would fare in the EPL, might be an expensive mistake.

We have such a high profile if he fails with us there is no recouping any fee. 

The squad has one glaring issue that I can see and that is our replacement fullbacks. 
 

The way we play depends so much in these two positions and in James and Chilwell we have some of the best in the world at doing that job. 
 

Alonso and Azpi can no longer do that job and the team level drops significantly when either play in those positions

On 03/01/2022 at 13:49, Sexyfootball said:

I did some analysis this morning of our player purchases vs Manchester City, for the time period that Guardiola has been the manager there. It is pretty grim reading.

The common observation made is that City have unlimited funds and no-one can compete with them financially. "Pep can just go out and buy X number of £60M full backs" and so on.

What is the reality ?

In the last 6 seasons, City have signed 40 players for fees, totalling £963.4m, according to Transfermarkt data sources.

• 17 of the 40 are currently first team squad players, total fees paid £742.4m, average per player £43.7m.
• 12 of the 40 are currently on Loan. City paid £51.6m for these 12, average £4.3m.
• 11 of the 40 have been sold on, 8 for a profit, and 3 for a loss. Overall they are up £27.1m on these player sales.

How does that compare to us ?

In the same time period, we have signed 25 players (including loan fees for Higuain and Saul) for fees totalling £912.9m. 

• 15 of the 25 are currently first team squad players, total fees paid £651.4m , average per player £43.4m.
• 5 of the 25 are currently on Loan. We paid £125.7m for these 5, average £25.1m 
• 5 of the 25 have been sold on, all for a loss, cumulative loss -£71.2m

 

So we are pretty much matching their level of spending (£50m difference in a number close to a billion is relatively insignificant), Unfortunately our hit rate on signings being successful is very poor. 

The fees we are paying for first team players are in line with what City are spending (average £43.4m vs £43.7m per player), but we get far less quality and consistency for our money. This for me is a combination of poor scouting (Bakayoko, Drinkwater, Batshuayi, Morata, Werner, Lukaku etc etc - a combination of not spotting poor technique, mentality, attitude, lifestyle negatives etc etc ) and also paying far too much for what we are buying (Kepa the best example)

Where we sell players we are doing so at a loss (we are nearly £100M behind City on P/L of players that we have paid a fee for and subsequently sold in the last 5 years, mainly because we buy a few mid-priced older players who have no or limited resale value when we come to sell them) ; the players we have on loan are expensive dud signings rather than players signed inexpensively with the aim of the loan developing them and increasing their value. 

We clearly need some radical changes in how we target players and handle our recruitment process.

A top Director of Football seems essential to define the style of play, and the overall strategy and "philosophy", which the manager (or managers, assuming Roman carries on hiring and firing) then adhere to in their coaching. I don't see why Petr Cech couldn't be promoted to do this role.

Our scouting system is clearly not up to standard, assuming we actually want to catch and overtake Man City at some point. Hard to suggest improvements as I have no idea how our scouting team is organised, but something clearly needs to change. You shouldn't be spending £300m on forwards and then find that they all struggle to score goals.

We also need to be better at negotiating contracts, as we pay players far too much, which then makes them impossible to shift if things don't turn out well. 

If we can get better at player recruitment to better complement the top talent that we have coming out of the Academy, then I don't see why we couldn't get to City's level or beyond in the next 2 or 3 seasons, and especially if we can retain the services of Thomas Tuchel as coach rather than continue the usual chop/change policy.

Our Academy is a 10/10. Recruitment is probably 5 or 6 at best.

 

Here is the data if anyone is interested : 

Green = current first team squad ; orange = on loan, red = sold

 

 

 

That's some great work. Thanks. 

City certainly is the benchmark (with Liverpool), but I'd be shocked if it'd been otherwise since they set up their marriage with Pep up perfectly. They got their sporting director (or whatever his title is), who Pep worked together with in Barcelona before, in 1-2 years before they signed Pep to do the groundworks already before their manager arrived. And if you put in that much commitment and money into one system so to say + keep that for 5 years and more it will usually always outperform a rather erratic system like Chelsea runs - with how many managers during the same timeframe?

 

Edited January 5, 20224 yr by weetee

Not in their peak years

Kepa

Chalobah

Chilwell

James

Sarr 

Loftus-Cheek

Mount

Pulisic

Werner

Hudson-Odoi

Havertz

Compare that to City's team.