54 minutes ago, just said:

So now I know Todd should have brought M'bappe, Halaand, Musiala, Bellingham and Vinicius for most of our billion and with the spare change thrown in a bit of experience by nabbing Harry Kane off Tottenham.

Simples.

Didn't think he was saying that though. Think he was just providing an illustration in response. There is no getting away from the fact that shedding all experience out of the squad and replacing it with expensively priced but totally inexperienced kids en masses is not only folly, but has no historical standing in modern football.  They have drawn on a model they adopted for the LA Dodgers with an arrogance and disregard for the game in general and the toughest league in professional football specifically, that have now made us everybody's go to mocking boys. The footballing cognoscenti throughout the country are licking their lips every weekend lately with rate at which we are plummeting towards an abyss.

Edited September 24, 20232 yr by WhiteWall

1 hour ago, Sconnie Blue said:

It is genuinely looking like us and Everton will be playing around relegation the entire 2024. 

Clearlake may do well on the business end but on the pitch they haven't a clue. Something we feared now becoming realized. 

Watched Everton v Brentford and worryingly we actually look worse.

I reckon we've played 29 Premier League games in 2023 and we've won.........5 of them.  And the five are Luton, Bournemouth, Leicester, Leeds and Palace.  Shocking, truly shocking. 

29 minutes ago, WhiteWall said:

Didn't think he was saying that though. Think he was just providing an illustration in response. There is no getting away from the fact that shedding all experience out of the squad and replacing it with expensively priced but totally inexperienced kids en masses is not only folly, but has no historical standing in modern football.  They have drawn on a model they adopted for the LA Dodgers with an arrogance and disregard for the game in general and the toughest league in professional football specifically, that have now made us everybody's go to mocking boys. The footballing cognoscenti throughout the country are licking their lips every weekend lately with rate at which we are plummeting towards an abyss.

@WhiteWall, @General, @charierre, @WeatherMan If you pop across to page 86 on the So It's Pochettino thread you'll see I've written a longer post expanding on this and also talking specifically on experienced players we probably should have considered as realistic transfer targets.

45 minutes ago, WhiteWall said:

Didn't think he was saying that though. Think he was just providing an illustration in response. There is no getting away from the fact that shedding all experience out of the squad and replacing it with expensively priced but totally inexperienced kids en masses is not only folly, but has no historical standing in modern football.  They have drawn on a model they adopted for the LA Dodgers with an arrogance and disregard for the game in general and the toughest league in professional football specifically, that have now made us everybody's go to mocking boys. The footballing cognoscenti throughout the country are licking their lips every weekend lately with rate at which we are plummeting towards an abyss.

I'm hearing a lot about us getting rid of too many experienced players but exactly what players are we talking about? I honestly don't think we got rid of anyone, who should still be here and would merit a place in the team.

I agree all sides need a balance. Balance of experience & youth. Balance of flair/skill and then those who will roll up their sleeves and dig in. We had it in the past - in abundance, but over the seasons the quality had diminished and we we where we are now, but keeping some of those we let go recently would not have helped at all IMO. The one thing we are missing which is obvious to everyone and has been for some time is a striker who can score goals. If we had a decent striker, many of the results so far this season would look oh so different and there wouldn't be all this doom & gloom.

Not sure what everyone expected. We are playing the kids most are new to PL football. Just tune out for this season if it winds you up.

12 minutes ago, Nibs said:

I'm hearing a lot about us getting rid of too many experienced players but exactly what players are we talking about? I honestly don't think we got rid of anyone, who should still be here and would merit a place in the team.

On paper or what? Because I am 100% sure you could put together a team out of those we've sold that wouldn't be relegation battlers over 40 games (with a half decent coach).

 

6 minutes ago, OriginalS said:

On paper or what? Because I am 100% sure you could put together a team out of those we've sold that wouldn't be relegation battlers over 40 games (with a half decent coach).

 

Who? Azpi? Great servant but in decline and heading towards the twilight of his career. Mendy, Kepa, Pulicic, Havertz, Jorginho, Kovacic, RLC, Aubameyang? All here last season and all had us heading towards the bottom of the PL after they failed time and time again.

I’d drop both Sterling and Silva against Fulham. 

55 minutes ago, Nibs said:

I'm hearing a lot about us getting rid of too many experienced players but exactly what players are we talking about? I honestly don't think we got rid of anyone, who should still be here and would merit a place in the team.

I agree all sides need a balance. Balance of experience & youth. Balance of flair/skill and then those who will roll up their sleeves and dig in. We had it in the past - in abundance, but over the seasons the quality had diminished and we we where we are now, but keeping some of those we let go recently would not have helped at all IMO. The one thing we are missing which is obvious to everyone and has been for some time is a striker who can score goals. If we had a decent striker, many of the results so far this season would look oh so different and there wouldn't be all this doom & gloom.

I don't think anyone is disputing that players like Kovacic, Kante, Azpi,  for example, were due and possibly overdue to be shown the door but not replacing players like these with players of a certain level of experience appears to be crazy, especially looking at the way it is unfolding.  After all it wasn't just the vast majority of football punditry decrying this approach,  the majority of our own fan base were saying the same.

As soon as anyone mentions a solid if unspectacular seasoned PL Pro though, there are a dozen other posters saying how crap they are, so we spent tens of millions on players that have little if any experience and then just throw them all in together with virtually no senior support.

Edited September 24, 20232 yr by WhiteWall

If our present side had half the determination to win as some in here have to make out that everything is fine and going perfectly well on route to world domination in two seasons, we’d already be top of the table!

2 hours ago, The Rising Sun said:

Seeing the Newcastle result reminded me of when we beat Villa 8-0 under the much hated and reviled Benitez.

We'll dish out a spanking one day , keep the faith 

Come on you BLUES !

Soon after we'd beat Man U 5-4 aet in league cup. 13 goals in 2 home games. Doubt that will happen again in the near future?.

 

To trow some salt on the wounds… Lukaku just scores again, his third in 1 week. And all 3 importent goals from zero win roma to 2 wins. 

5 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

Won't make a single bit of difference. The players just aren't good enough. Gambled on players with barely any experience and it's blowing up in their faces. 

Oh, If Guardiola got the squad we have, he will win a lot of trophies with them for many years too. A lot of human beings have no memory. We suffered so much in the summer to sign a top player like Caicedo. Even Liverpool wanted to have him, he was very good for Brighton last season. We got Palmer incredibly late in the transfer window when we didn't plan to get him but because of Nkunku's injury. We got Enzo, Madueke, Mudryk, Gusto, Nkunku etc

Now you say the owners gambled with players. Is that fair? Instead of saying we should remove mediocre players like Gallagher from the team and use good players that can make us win, this fanbase will ignore the right thing and be fighting the good players they have.

Now you are saying the players are just not good enough when only few of the players are just not good enough. The manager is wrong with team selection, but you say the players are not good enough. Is it Caicedo that is not good  enough or Enzo.

I saw someone wrote today that Sterling is so terrible. I've said it here before that Sterling is not up to the quality that the team needs. Madueke obviously will be a better player than him. Also, Palmer obviously should have started ahead of Gallagher, but the manager started Conor instead of Palmer.

instead of the fanbase to go hard on Pochetino, they are saying their superstars are not good. Some fans don't believe you are good if you don't score goals. Maybe this generation would have said Makalele is not good because he doesn't score goals.

People go against what is good and ignore the bad. I saw about eight people like your comment but nobody liked my own comment.

Edited September 24, 20232 yr by hephzibah

Another week of business as usual. As soon as we went down to 10, I had the feeling we would find a way to lose it, and didn't take us long. Really poor from Silva not to take a card for the him, but I think even his mind wanted to, the body just couldn't execute it. The red was a bit harsh, if referee showed a straight red that's the way it is, but not a clear and obvious error for VAR to intervene. Once it's been slowed down and played 12 times, of course it made it look worse than what it was. GK was the best player on the field, which is why we could not get close to winning it. Couple of real big chances missed, especially by Sterling, maybe he just needed a bit of luck? 🙃 Jackson just kept going offside, Enzo clearly not comfortable playing where he was. I thought Mudryk was decent and put in some good final balls. Gusto was actually good before the sent off, it's a yellow card offence but when things are bad , VAR will chip in to make it worse.

In the midst of the anger, despair, lack of goals and position on the table I still see us as improving. Caicedo looked very solid in patches. Not a lot between us the results and us scoring lots of goals and getting the points. Eventually Poch will move colwill inside and put chiller back where he belongs, move Enzo deeper and things will start happening. 

Missed the game today as opted to do other things, and am pleased we did. 

Just watched a replay of the match, well, up thru the red card. Result was inevitable then based on Chelsea’s lack of bottle. 

Just typical Chelsea really. Didn’t take our chances, and mistakes (both red card and goal) punished to fullest extent. 

Really are in a relegation battle. 5 goals this season, average of 1.25 goals now and falling over last 70 games. Another home loss, and over 5 hours of football without a goal. I don’t think a team could be this ineffective if they even planned it. 

13 hours ago, charierre said:

The difference being the players mentioned complimented a good squad and weren’t expected to form the spine of the team as we are with the kids bought at present. We literally are expecting young players still very much learning their profession to learn to swim or drown.

I would say at least 20 of those were bought with the intention of them being starters rather than squad players.

Most clubs have more misses than hits when it comes to buying players, but us and Man United have been particularly bad in recent times.  Some of Clearlake's signings will work out, and some won't.  I'd imagine the percentage hit/miss will be similar to what we saw in the Roman era.

31 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

I would say at least 20 of those were bought with the intention of them being starters rather than squad players.

Most clubs have more misses than hits when it comes to buying players, but us and Man United have been particularly bad in recent times.  Some of Clearlake's signings will work out, and some won't.  I'd imagine the percentage hit/miss will be similar to what we saw in the Roman era.

What you are missing though is that the hits and misses in Roman's era happened upon the foundation of a solid, competing club structure.

If this doesn't start changing very rapidly here the players deemed to have most value will look to bail as quickly as possible. Another bottom half finish and i would fully expect to see the likes of James and Coilwill going, simply becuase they will want out and they are pure and total FFP assets.  Players that we cannot really let their value drop too much will also come into the equation, regardless of contract length, especially if they are continually piping up that they are unhappy. Do we honestly think that Fernandez is one to keep his cards close to his chest if things aren't working out for him. If we end up 16th and they get a 75m offer for Fernandez, do they take the hit. Possibly, they've got previous now.

2 minutes ago, WhiteWall said:

What you are missing though is that the hits and misses in Roman's era happened upon the foundation of a solid, competing club structure.

If this doesn't start changing very rapidly here the players deemed to have most value will look to bail as quickly as possible. Another bottom half finish and i would fully expect to see the likes of James and Coilwill going, simply becuase they will want out and they are pure and total FFP assets.  Players that we cannot really let their value drop too much will also come into the equation, regardless of contract length, especially if they are continually piping up that they are unhappy. Do we honestly think that Fernandez is one to keep his cards close to his chest if things aren't working out for him. If we end up 16th and they get a 75m offer for Fernandez, do they take the hit. Possibly, they've got previous now.

I'm not missing it at all. Merely countered the assertion that transfers under Roman were mostly good !

As Nibs posted above, everyone we have sold under Clearlake was sold because they weren't very good. Who did you want us to keep out of Mendy, Kepa, Alonso, Azpilicueta, Koulibaly, Jorginho, Kante, Kovacic, RLC, Saul, Barkley, Kenedy, Pulisic, Werner, Mount, CHO, Ziyech, Havertz, Lukaku and Aubameyang ?  Lukaku is the only one that I'd have kept on playing grounds, but he burnt his bridges and didn't want to be here, so what can you do ? All the rest had either declined, weren't good enough in the first place, or had injury problems affecting their availability and/or performance. Clearlake could do nothing about Rudiger and Christensen leaving on a free as that all happened before they arrived.

Now it would have been nice if Roman had left us with a core of experienced players, a spine if you like, that we could rely on and tweak with a few promising younger players, but what Clearlake have inherited was basically a broken squad that had it's last hurrah in 20/21 and 21/22, mainly as a result of having an elite tactician in charge.

Our new owners have done an amazing job in clearing that out. You could argue that they should have signed a few experienced heads along the lines of the names mentioned (JWP, Maddison etc) but they've opted for a different route, and at this point it is far too early to tell how it will all pan out. A bit of confidence and a few goals and it could all turn round really fast !

1 hour ago, Sexyfootball said:

Who did you want us to keep out of Mendy, Kepa, Alonso, Azpilicueta, Koulibaly, Jorginho, Kante, Kovacic, RLC, Saul, Barkley, Kenedy, Pulisic, Werner, Mount, CHO, Ziyech, Havertz, Lukaku and Aubameyang ?

I was desperate for a Hudson-Odoi remontada 😭


But that aside, I agree - Issue isn't the outs, and it's not necessarily the ins (in the sense that we havent signed bad players these past few windows). Our issue in the short term is the lack of an experienced goal scorer. That's realistically been what we've lacked so far this season. We're outplaying everyone until we get into the box.

I like Jackson and I like Broja, but they're both young and tall strong strikers tend to peak later in their careers (typically after around the age of 26). Nkunku was obviously meant to offer goals, but as he's one of those "not-quite-a-nine-and-not-quite-a-ten" players, I do wish we'd bought in a striker with some more miles under his belt to take the pressure off Nico and Armando. (Mitrovic would've been my first choice).

I wouldn't be suprised to see us rectify this in January, until then we're really just going to have grin and bear it a bit, and hope the kids find a bit of confidence soon.

i think Jackson took that yellow on purpose so he is suspended for the league cup game instead of a PL game 

13 minutes ago, azpi28 said:

i think Jackson took that yellow on purpose so he is suspended for the league cup game instead of a PL game 

I'll play ... 🙂  

Poch deliberately talked about Jackson and his yellow card situation in the media to attract the referee's attention and make it more likely that he'd wave a card at Nico, and then he'd only miss the League Cup game rather than a PL fixture. 

17 minutes ago, azpi28 said:

i think Jackson took that yellow on purpose so he is suspended for the league cup game instead of a PL game 

Then he's even dumber than he comes across as on the pitch as yellow cards no longer count in cup matches.  He'll miss the league game against Fulham.

On another note I think people are being very dishonest when they list all our old players as not good enough and say who wouldn't you have sold.   Yes players like Werner and Mount probably weren't good enough to ever win a title here and people love to point that out like it justifies our business.

But players like Mudryk and Madueke don't have the potential to ever be good enough to win titles. They don't have the potential to be as good as Werner or Mount so it was a mistake selling them because they currently walk into our team.

We haven't sold any world class players but we've replaced them with less talented players and results and performances reflect that.

 

11 minutes ago, Whats_The_Mata? said:

Then he's even dumber than he comes across as on the pitch as yellow cards no longer count in cup matches.  He'll miss the league game against Fulham.

On another note I think people are being very dishonest when they list all our old players as not good enough and say who wouldn't you have sold.   Yes players like Werner and Mount probably weren't good enough to ever win a title here and people love to point that out like it justifies our business.

But players like Mudryk and Madueke don't have the potential to ever be good enough to win titles. They don't have the potential to be as good as Werner or Mount so it was a mistake selling them because they currently walk into our team.

We haven't sold any world class players but we've replaced them with less talented players and results and performances reflect that.

 

i didn't know that