3 minutes ago, Whats_The_Mata? said:

Can't disagree with that.

We've signed so many poor young players you can't even say we have a lot of potential but because we've paid 5x their value people think they're top prospects.

Can't fault Poch as he didn't want all these duds he asked for experienced players multiple times before pre season and the board didn't even attempt to deliver them.

Fofana should never be worth more than 45m given his injury record

mudryk is a 20m winger who is a one trick pace merchant

cucurella we at least overpaid 25m more 

Enzo we paid 30-40m more than he worth if you compare to Bellingham 

Caicedo the same

 

 

47 minutes ago, cfcforeverfan said:

Fofana should never be worth more than 45m given his injury record

mudryk is a 20m winger who is a one trick pace merchant

cucurella we at least overpaid 25m more 

Enzo we paid 30-40m more than he worth if you compare to Bellingham 

Caicedo the same

 

 

And we ignored the importance of goal scorers, again.

I'm still adamant in saying the goal scorer market in the summer was still a bit bleak. Mitrovic and Tareme in hindsight looking like we should've pulled the trigger. 

 

6 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

I'm still adamant in saying the goal scorer market in the summer was still a bit bleak. Mitrovic and Tareme in hindsight looking like we should've pulled the trigger. 

 

Given we paid crazy money again we could have just decided to spend it on Oshiman instead.

1 hour ago, axman2526 said:

Given we paid crazy money again we could have just decided to spend it on Oshiman instead.

He would be 150+   minimum  

2 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

I'm still adamant in saying the goal scorer market in the summer was still a bit bleak. Mitrovic and Tareme in hindsight looking like we should've pulled the trigger. 

 

There was no one available reasonable 

1 hour ago, El regreso said:

He would be 150+   minimum  

So if we spend the Caicedo and Palmer money on him instead we don't spend any more this summer and have an actual goalscorer.

11 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

So if we spend the Caicedo and Palmer money on him instead we don't spend any more this summer and have an actual goalscorer.

And then fans most we still lacking in the midfield.

How much did that Ugo and Diasi sign for? 60m combined? Two players I never heard of or seen play. Palmer 45m. That's 3 signings we could've used on a top striker instead.

Disasi was a pointless signing, when we had Chalobah who plays the same position. He looks a bit better than Chalobah, but I don't think it was worth the money.

Ugochukwue, I dunno. He seems okay, but we also bought Caicedo and Lavia, so there was no need for him.

Palmer I don't mind, he looks decent. Hopefully we can shift Sterling soon and then he can have more chances.

Honestly, if we want to sign players for the future, we should be doing more deals like the Kendry Paez signing.

 

Extremely cheap fee, low pressure given his age, and could go on to become a world beater. That's far better than spending 40-60m on a 21/22 year old and expecting them to be a top Premier League player instantly. 

21 minutes ago, Drogba1 said:

Honestly, if we want to sign players for the future, we should be doing more deals like the Kendry Paez signing.

 

Extremely cheap fee, low pressure given his age, and could go on to become a world beater. That's far better than spending 40-60m on a 21/22 year old and expecting them to be a top Premier League player instantly. 

Agreed. Some of the signings like Paez, Casadei, and Andres Santos could be very promising in the future. But we made too many signings for the long term and very little that is ready in the short term. Also if even half of these prospects end up fulfilling their potential there won't be room in the squad for them anyway, given that 80% of our squad is very young. we should have balanced this out with a few signings for the next few years. For example we could have picked up Edson Alvarez instead of Lavia, or Maddison instead of one of the many young wingers we purchased. A seasoned striker like Callum Wilson would have been invaluable for a couple of years too, and would have helped some of the younger players.

 

Maybe we can just start Poch up front, seems to be better than our current attackers

I wonder where we would be if Potter had stayed. We have gotten  a lot worse since he left.

4 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

I wonder where we would be if Potter had stayed. We have gotten  a lot worse since he left.

I'd put these early performances around the same level as what we were seeing under Potter, lots of chances but not converting them.

 

Better than what we were playing under Lampard, but worse than what we were under Tuchel.

6 hours ago, axman2526 said:

So if we spend the Caicedo and Palmer money on him instead we don't spend any more this summer and have an actual goalscorer.

Because then we would be having the conversation about why we didn't replace our midfield and we haven't had a proper DM since Mikel 🤷‍♂️ 

9 minutes ago, timetowaste said:

Because then we would be having the conversation about why we didn't replace our midfield and we haven't had a proper DM since Mikel 🤷‍♂️ 

Lavia would still be signed, he is more of a DM than Moises to be fair.

For the record I would have prefer Mitrovic as our striker signing.

1 minute ago, axman2526 said:

Lavia would still be signed, he is more of a DM than Moises to be fair.

For the record I would have prefer Mitrovic as our striker signing.

Maybe so but in the 2023 we lost Jorginho, Kovacic, RLC and Kante, Caicedo was Kante's replacement. 

To be honest the way Mitrovic behaved in leaving Fulham put me off him. Only cared about money, absolutely mugged off the club where he rebuild his career after Newcastle (even after he got an 8 match ban) and at one point refusing to play because he couldn't get a move to Saudi Arabia. If it means we sign Toney in January then I'm happy 

11 minutes ago, timetowaste said:

Maybe so but in the 2023 we lost Jorginho, Kovacic, RLC and Kante, Caicedo was Kante's replacement. 

To be honest the way Mitrovic behaved in leaving Fulham put me off him. Only cared about money, absolutely mugged off the club where he rebuild his career after Newcastle (even after he got an 8 match ban) and at one point refusing to play because he couldn't get a move to Saudi Arabia. If it means we sign Toney in January then I'm happy 

Well Toney clearly has a screw loose so he may pick us over Arsenal lol.

 

Disasi has his weaknesses but he is fit and available every week. Chalobah is in fact only available occasionally. 

Plenty of criticism on here for the youth approach  not balanced by playing Silva from the (well) over 35s.

We won't ever know whether the youth approach is right or wrong really but it certainly looks wrong right now.

Personally I don't think it is wrong. There is plenty of talent in the players. We are actually doing ok in pretty much every department except scoring goals.

I honestly think I really do that with the right manager we would be scoring goals as well. Klopp, Guardiola, De Zerbi, Postecoglou even Conte and I think we would be playing more attackers, some chances would go in, belief would grow and we'd be setting sail.

But we aren't ever going to know that with the current approach. And once the rot has set in, it's haincreasingly hard to stop without a circuit breaker.

i hesitate to mention Postecoglou because its flavour of the month and he still has so much to prove. But I think it's completely obvious how much more fun spuds are having. And Ange has generally done what he does with younger players. In australia with Brisbane Roar his first act was to sack all the old guys (who had been heroes at the world cup) and replace them with youngsters. I am not advocating for a manager change, but simply that there is a skill to getting a tune out of the players you have. Poch is not getting the tune right now.

1 hour ago, ozboy said:

 In australia with Brisbane Roar his first act was to sack all the old guys (who had been heroes at the world cup) and replace them with youngsters. 

Not to take away from your overall point, but this is a bit of a myth. Of the players involved only Craig Moore was a Socceroo at the World Cup, and in fact most of the players were ex-Rangers mates of Moore not Socceroos teammates. Moore was a close friend of Frank Farina and took umbrage at the club's decision to sack Farina following his drink driving incident and replace him with Postecogolou. Moore, then club captain, issued an ultimatum to the club that it was either Ange or him, and the club sided with the newly-appointed manager and terminated Moore's contract. Moore's friends - Danny Tiatto, Liam Reddy, Bob Malcolm and Charlie Miller - also clashed with Postecogolou and actively tried to undermine him, so the club sacked them as well.

There has been speculation that Moore and friends perpetuated a 'drinking culture' at the club that Ange wanted to stop, but no hard evidence (though I have heard from one friend within the club at the time that was the true case - pretty awful given the circumstances surrounding Farina's dismissal)

I prefer to use the word raw more than youth because that is more our problem. 

Doku is 21,mudryk is 22. Doku is ready, Mudryk is not. 

Haaland is 23, jackson is 22. Haaland is ready. Jackson is not. 

Top team doesn't really sign madueke, mudryk or jackson, certainly not for starter option, maybe for long term project or at most backup. 

Top team usually try to get caicedo, szobo, Doku, Haaland, Gakpo, Nunez, Tammy or Enzo. They are young but they are ready to contribute straight away. 

 

 

7 hours ago, Zeta said:

Disasi was a pointless signing, when we had Chalobah who plays the same position. He looks a bit better than Chalobah, but I don't think it was worth the money.

Ugochukwue, I dunno. He seems okay, but we also bought Caicedo and Lavia, so there was no need for him.

Palmer I don't mind, he looks decent. Hopefully we can shift Sterling soon and then he can have more chances.

Ugochukwue, Santos, Lavia, Caicedo, Enzo, Gallagher ... Maybe we are planning to play with 3 holding midfielders in the future ... but even then we have too many. Not sure what the f**king point is.

 

It's an open secret there wasn't a plan with recruitment, an obvious example be the holding\defensive MF. It's a matter of let's sign all of those young players with potentials, maybe the manager will find a way to develop them or just load them out. A complete opposite is the striker, just can't be bothered, just go with a 21 year old and hope he will turn out to be great. Heading towards deadline date, Poch already stated he wanted some experience, guess what he got? Palmer, who may turn out to be great in a year or two, but not what the manager needs right now. Granted Poch hasn't been great and made some mistakes ( who wouldn't), it's a near impossible mess he's been given.

1 hour ago, Bob stark said:

I prefer to use the word raw more than youth because that is more our problem. 

Doku is 21,mudryk is 22. Doku is ready, Mudryk is not. 

Haaland is 23, jackson is 22. Haaland is ready. Jackson is not. 

Top team doesn't really sign madueke, mudryk or jackson, certainly not for starter option, maybe for long term project or at most backup. 

Top team usually try to get caicedo, szobo, Doku, Haaland, Gakpo, Nunez, Tammy or Enzo. They are young but they are ready to contribute straight away. 

 

 

Well there is a fundamental difference between the clubs as well. Liverpool and City are settled, experienced sides in terms of players, playstyle, playing together and every other metric that points to minutes, habits of winning.

We have absolutely nothing of that sort. Someone like Mudryk has played next to nothing minutes and he has probably won 0 games with the other 10 players he plays with.

From the young crop we have I feel Enzo is a leader, maybe someone like Colwill in near future. Otherwise it is hard to say. Jackson plays with an edge which can be a difference in games. Otherwise we are an unknown quantity. We just need time to find out. This needs time and positive experiences on the pitch which usually reads wins.