On 29/10/2023 at 04:27, Bob stark said:

You can hire pep, klopp it won't change anything. 

You want to compete for top 4, build a proper squad. 

 

Completely agree, our squad building has been deeply unserious for a while now.

Easy example, we spend £110m on Caicedo and £35 on Jackson. I'm not knocking either player as I do think Jackson will grow into a good striker, but the sensible/smart approach is to buy a proven striker (Osimhen perhaps) for Caicedo money and a more raw DM (such as Gourna-Douath) for Jackson money.

Goals win games.


Poch has done fine with what he's been given if you ask me. Yes Saturday was a setback, but it's also clearly a game you'd want to rely on experience to get you through, which we don't have much of. When was the last time we looked good when we played early on a Saturday, especially after an international break?

Edited October 30, 20232 yr by cfr95
typo

1 minute ago, cfr95 said:

Completely agree, our squad building has deeply unserious for a while now.

Easy example, we spend £110m on Caicedo and £35 on Jackson. I'm not knocking either player as I do think Jackson will grow into a good striker, but the sensible/smart approach is to buy a proven striker (Osimhen perhaps) for Caicedo money and a more raw DM (such as Gourna-Douath) for Jackson money.

Goals win games.


Poch has done fine with what he's been given if you ask me. Yes Saturday was a setback, but it's also clearly a game you'd want to rely on experience to get you through, which we don't have much of. When was the last time we looked good when we played early on a Saturday, especially after an international break?

Hindsight is wonderful

I remember before the season started nobody wanted us to splash a hundred million on an unproven Serie A striker, now it's the smart thing? How many sh*te strikers have we signed from that league now? 

The team needs cohesion and time, and things will start to come together, I really don't see how Osimhen hits the ground running like so many (recently I'll add) think he does. Would much rather spend a 100 million on Caicedo who's played in the PL, young, and a good midfielder we desperately need in the spine than spending silly money on a striker again. Will we never learn? 

1 minute ago, Victor90 said:

Hindsight is wonderful

I remember before the season started nobody wanted us to splash a hundred million on an unproven Serie A striker, now it's the smart thing? How many sh*te strikers have we signed from that league now? 

The team needs cohesion and time, and things will start to come together, I really don't see how Osimhen hits the ground running like so many (recently I'll add) think he does. Would much rather spend a 100 million on Caicedo who's played in the PL, young, and a good midfielder we desperately need in the spine than spending silly money on a striker again. Will we never learn? 

Osimhen was just the first name that popped into my head, don't read too much into that. My wider point still stands that we have signed good players, and players with the potential to be good, but havent necessarily ensured we have established talents in the right spots.

Just now, cfr95 said:

Osimhen was just the first name that popped into my head, don't read too much into that. My wider point still stands that we have signed good players, and players with the potential to be good, but havent necessarily ensured we have established talents in the right spots.

It's not that simple though, Osimhen at the time cost a bomb, and that would've been a huge risk to take. 

Is it really as simple as "he scores a lot of goals, so those goals will win us games", we've signed plenty of forwards from there who've had great seasons only to come here and be sh*t. Osimhen currently has the same number of goals as Giroud, and Lukaku is just one behind with fewer games. 

I know Jackson has been pretty poor recently, but I think the only striker who could've came here and hit the ground running would be Harry Kane, and I really don't think Tottenham would've sold him to Chelsea, we probably would've had to pay double the fee. 

And besides, we already have one Victor here, do we really need another? 

There were no proven, quality CF available this summer. We had the chance of improving out midfield, which was much in need, and the owners did very well, to the point that I think that we have a quality midfield line for a few years. When a quality CF becomes available, I have no doubt that the Club will be interested, but at the moment, there were no possibilities.

Edited October 30, 20232 yr by RMH

20 hours ago, Victor90 said:

If you want Todd to sack Pochettino, who do you want in place for him?

I was quite open about the fact that I didn't want him sacked.

But is he here in a month of we take 3-4 points over the next five and are in the relegation battle before we face Everton at Goodison (precisely the kind of team and ground we struggle with)?

No chance.

Unpopular opinion... Lukaku is still on our books. Bring him in for the panto season... 🙂 sadly, he does what no one in our team can do which is find the back of the net. 

 

 

34 minutes ago, cfr95 said:

Completely agree, our squad building has deeply unserious for a while now.

Easy example, we spend £110m on Caicedo and £35 on Jackson. I'm not knocking either player as I do think Jackson will grow into a good striker, but the sensible/smart approach is to buy a proven striker (Osimhen perhaps) for Caicedo money and a more raw DM (such as Gourna-Douath) for Jackson money.

Goals win games.


Poch has done fine with what he's been given if you ask me. Yes Saturday was a setback, but it's also clearly a game you'd want to rely on experience to get you through, which we don't have much of. When was the last time we looked good when we played early on a Saturday, especially after an international break?

🤭🤭🤭 You are giving up secret of squad building. 

But this is how you build a team if you are serious about winning. You start with getting the best attacker. 

With defense and midfield, you can make sure the space is tight, you are compact, you press well, bla2 and you will be fine but attacking are individual thing, if you can't beat your opp one on one and you can't finsih, there is no system that can fix that.

 

Interesting analysis of our season so far from Yan. Lots of @STATShere for those who like to see them:

 

 

18 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

Interesting analysis of our season so far from Yan. Lots of @STATShere for those who like to see them:

 

 

Just further emphasizes on what we already know. We are playing well both on and off the ball. We just lack quality in the attacking end and are prone to switching off defensively. 

8 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Just further emphasizes on what we already know. We are playing well both on and off the ball. We just lack quality in the attacking end and are prone to switching off defensively. 

That only 28% of our passes are forward passes was a bit of an eye opener. Playing defensive minded football is not working.

Just now, axman2526 said:

That only 28% of our passes are forward passes was a bit of an eye opener. Playing defensive minded football is not working.

What's City's in comparison? I'd imagine our forward passes % is low considering we retain the ball higher than every club bar City.  The average forward passes in the league will surely be higher considering half the clubs play directly vs retaining the football. 

If City's is considerably higher whilst playing 4 CBs then I agree. We need fixing. 

 

4 hours ago, Victor90 said:

Hindsight is wonderful

I remember before the season started nobody wanted us to splash a hundred million on an unproven Serie A striker, now it's the smart thing? How many sh*te strikers have we signed from that league now? 

The team needs cohesion and time, and things will start to come together, I really don't see how Osimhen hits the ground running like so many (recently I'll add) think he does. Would much rather spend a 100 million on Caicedo who's played in the PL, young, and a good midfielder we desperately need in the spine than spending silly money on a striker again. Will we never learn? 

I never wanted to spend 100m on a DM either. Or 60m on a second choice left back. Or 80m on an Ukraine winger I've never heard of. 90% of these signings I never wanted for the money quoted and it's painful because my fear came true.

6 hours ago, cfr95 said:

Completely agree, our squad building has been deeply unserious for a while now.

Easy example, we spend £110m on Caicedo and £35 on Jackson. I'm not knocking either player as I do think Jackson will grow into a good striker, but the sensible/smart approach is to buy a proven striker (Osimhen perhaps) for Caicedo money and a more raw DM (such as Gourna-Douath) for Jackson money.

Goals win games.


Poch has done fine with what he's been given if you ask me. Yes Saturday was a setback, but it's also clearly a game you'd want to rely on experience to get you through, which we don't have much of. When was the last time we looked good when we played early on a Saturday, especially after an international break?

We'd likely be having the same problems and we'd be saying 'why did we waste £150m on another dud striker from Serie A'. Our midfield has been pretty ass since Kante/Matic days. Unless things get worse and players for a move Enzo and Caicedo sort us out for a decade now.

I think the boards built a good squad, but its not going to happen over night. Realistically we aren't gonna be challenging until 2025.

6 hours ago, olderschoolcfc said:

Unpopular opinion... Lukaku is still on our books. Bring him in for the panto season... 🙂 sadly, he does what no one in our team can do which is find the back of the net. 

 

 

Apart from last time where he scored something like 3 goals between October and May until there was some dead rubbers to stat pad in.

Or his first ever season at the club where he didn't score a single goal all season.

6 hours ago, olderschoolcfc said:

Unpopular opinion... Lukaku is still on our books. Bring him in for the panto season... 🙂 sadly, he does what no one in our team can do which is find the back of the net. 

 

 

Saw that Roma are apparently considering offering Abraham in a swap deal for Lukaku... Id bite their hand off if that materialised. Tammy needs to come home!

11 minutes ago, Coxy15 said:

Saw that Roma are apparently considering offering Abraham in a swap deal for Lukaku... Id bite their hand off if that materialised. Tammy needs to come home!

Bambi coming home for xmas. No thanks. 

7 hours ago, cfr95 said:

Completely agree, our squad building has been deeply unserious for a while now.

Easy example, we spend £110m on Caicedo and £35 on Jackson. I'm not knocking either player as I do think Jackson will grow into a good striker, but the sensible/smart approach is to buy a proven striker (Osimhen perhaps) for Caicedo money and a more raw DM (such as Gourna-Douath) for Jackson money.

Goals win games.


Poch has done fine with what he's been given if you ask me. Yes Saturday was a setback, but it's also clearly a game you'd want to rely on experience to get you through, which we don't have much of. When was the last time we looked good when we played early on a Saturday, especially after an international break?

Not sure I agree? If it was the opposite and we splashed the cash on a striker vs a midfielder and we were still having issues people would be bringing up the same point but contrary to what you said. Point being, people are always going say decision X, Y or Z was wrong and A, B, C would have been better with hindsight. There's also the issue of us wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on strikers over the last half decade (more than any position) and none of them have worked. I could see why the board were more conservative in spending that kind of money on a striker again.

37 minutes ago, Coxy15 said:

Saw that Roma are apparently considering offering Abraham in a swap deal for Lukaku... Id bite their hand off if that materialised. Tammy needs to come home!

Perhaps we could bring back Solanke and Franco Di Santo if he's still around and have the fab 4 of not very talented strikers from Cobham.

1 hour ago, Coxy15 said:

Saw that Roma are apparently considering offering Abraham in a swap deal for Lukaku... Id bite their hand off if that materialised. Tammy needs to come home!

But he is is crap...Never came good after all these years.All our players are better than Tammy

Edited October 30, 20232 yr by guddy69

3 hours ago, KonaKai Blue said:

I never wanted to spend 100m on a DM either. Or 60m on a second choice left back. Or 80m on an Ukraine winger I've never heard of. 90% of these signings I never wanted for the money quoted and it's painful because my fear came true.

I don't think Caicedo is worth a 100 million, but we desperately needed to bolster the midfield, and we desperately needed more physicality there. 

Wasn't a huge fan on the Mudryk move or Cucu either. But this was before the fact. After all the money we spunked, the one thing we did need to get away from was spending silly cash on bums from the Serie A. 

Under the Roman Administration we made many errors when signings forwards, we would always pay over the odds on hypejobs that came here and could never get going. Osimhen is just that, would rather use the money on the GK and LB situation if I'm perfectly honest. 

2 hours ago, RIP Mourinho said:

We'd likely be having the same problems and we'd be saying 'why did we waste £150m on another dud striker from Serie A'. Our midfield has been pretty ass since Kante/Matic days. Unless things get worse and players for a move Enzo and Caicedo sort us out for a decade now.

I think the boards built a good squad, but its not going to happen over night. Realistically we aren't gonna be challenging until 2025.

After signing 3 players with proven PL goal records in recent times and not improving I can't fathom how many still think just looking at the top line for a signing is the way to go.

Not to mention if I had to list our best performances from Tuchel and beyond I'd wager atleast 90% of them have come when we haven't started with a 'natural' striker.

Edited October 30, 20232 yr by Argo

I am pretty much willing to go out on a limb and say Pochettino is the best possible managerial fit for this "project" (I'm sure we've all grown to hate this word because of Todd et al). 

It's clear he's a good coach, but he needs to build his team. The truth is Liverpool and City have been successful and to a lesser extent Arsenal now over the last 12 months because the owners believe in their appointed coaches and let them build their team.

It's been made clear that pretty much none of the summer signings were Pochettino's. He was crying out for experience and we didn't give it to him. It's come out now that he will have the final say moving forward which is positive so he will get to choose players and identify profiles that suit his style.

Hopefully this is the way forward because the past 3 windows have been so scatter gun. From two extremes they started off getting only proven players like Sterling, KK, PEA and then switched to under 23s only. 

The new strategy should be elite or top proven talent that we don't overpay. Toni and another top goalscorer who can play multiple positions across the front line.

In the meantime despite all the pressure put on Nkunku's shoulders we need to hope he can handle it.

We'll greatly benefit in the attacking third when Nkunku is back. The guy is talented and can score, can't wait for him to get involved this season.