Alexis Sanchez

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Again, we had both starting CB's returning, but we were losing one of the starting strike duo. Yes, Kompany was injury prone, but so were Aguero and Jovetic. This feels like dejavu.

Put it this way, both positions were losing something. Striker was losing a starter, CB a backup. Both positions had injury prone (or deemed injury prone as the case turned out for Sergio) stars. And our defense actually got much stronger towards the end of the season as our goals dried up. I pointed all these out in many arguments I had back then.

The interest and believe that Mangala was the better choice was a carryover from the previous January window needs, when we had been scoring for fun and seemed weak on defense. By seasons end, Demichelis play had jumped leaps and bounds and Garcia was playing better. Where we had actually dipped in performance was at scoring. Post Negredo injury.

Sanchez, outside of being world's better than Mangala, was actually a greater need by season's end. But because we went in for Mangala in January and failed, folks just believed we had to have him in the summer.

Again, I pointed it out then, that if everyone was healthy, Mangala was going to be a backup his 1st season (Even if he developed into world class) on the other hand, Sanchez was going to start immediately in our attack. How is a backup more needed than a starter?

MDM did improve in the second half of the season and was an important part of our finishing second to the Scousers. But no way could he be considered our primary option besides an already creaky Kompany given our goals. Nastasic was well out of favour by then (and arguably rightly so after a poor season), so we were very thin at CB. As for goals drying up, we scored 156 that season, smashing the record and including plenty towards the end - remember even with Aguero out, Dzeko stepped up incredibly and Yaya was on fire the whole season. Virtually all the games we lost were due to rookie defensive mistakes (e.g. Hart/Nastasic fuck up at the Bridge, Kompany at Anfield, the Cardiff and Villa fiascos). Can obviously argue anything in hindsight, but it's a major stretch to say offence was our problem after that season ended.
 
MDM did improve in the second half of the season and was an important part of our finishing second to the Scousers. But no way could he be considered our primary option besides an already creaky Kompany given our goals. Nastasic was well out of favour by then (and arguably rightly so after a poor season), so we were very thin at CB. As for goals drying up, we scored 156 that season, smashing the record and including plenty towards the end - remember even with Aguero out, Dzeko stepped up incredibly and Yaya was on fire the whole season. Virtually all the games we lost were due to rookie defensive mistakes (e.g. Hart/Nastasic fuck up at the Bridge, Kompany at Anfield, the Cardiff and Villa fiascos). Can obviously argue anything in hindsight, but it's a major stretch to say offence was our problem after that season ended.
At the beginning of the season we were averaging about 3.5 goals a game then Never do got injured from that point on things tighten and we finished the rest of the season averaging 2 goals a game.

Yes, I don't disagree that Nastacic was out of favor, but so was Negredo by season's end.

I'm saying we won the league on offense. But our offense got weaker towards the end of the season. Our weak defense actually improved towards the end of the season.

We made the error lots of people make, we were fixing a weakness rather than doubling down on a strength. We lost the league the following year because we didn't score enough.

Put another way, had we scored 150 goals in 2014/15, we would have won the league.

I said it then, ill probably have to go find the thread, if we get Sanchez we win the league. If we get a defender, then I we open a 4 way race. We got the defender @and opened a 4 way race.
 
Indeed. Little Pogo was his main target from day one. I remember watching one of the very early episodes as a kid and he was mithering fuck out of him for money outside the shops and Pogo saw his arse. That was it. Scene setter.
I hope you two are watching celebrity pointless, you'll be creaming your pants.
 
At the beginning of the season we were averaging about 3.5 goals a game then Never do got injured from that point on things tighten and we finished the rest of the season averaging 2 goals a game.

Yes, I don't disagree that Nastacic was out of favor, but so was Negredo by season's end.

I'm saying we won the league on offense. But our offense got weaker towards the end of the season. Our weak defense actually improved towards the end of the season.

We made the error lots of people make, we were fixing a weakness rather than doubling down on a strength. We lost the league the following year because we didn't score enough.

Put another way, had we scored 150 goals in 2014/15, we would have won the league.

I said it then, ill probably have to go find the thread, if we get Sanchez we win the league. If we get a defender, then I we open a 4 way race. We got the defender @and opened a 4 way race.

It's true we averaged less in the 2H of the season, but no set of human beings could have kept up the pace we were on before Xmas. We scored plenty of goals down the stretch: 2 at Anfield, 3 at the Swamp, 3 at Goodison, 4 in the critical home game against Villa. The defence still looked leaky as you can see from the 2 games on Merseyside. So going into the 2014 off season, it was very reasonable to argue that a CB was a priority over Sanchez, although I agree not as clearcut as it would have looked 6 months earlier.

As for 2014/15, clearly in hindsight you are right about our offence. But who knew that Yaya would fall off a cliff along with a mountain of other injury problems. If we had scored 156 goals, we would have walked the league, but we also conceded the most goals of the top 4, including a catastrophic 4 at the Swamp (albeit 2 offside as I recall). So if we had bought a good CB, you can argue we would have been got as close to Chelsea as if we had Sanchez. All hypotheticals of course.
 
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Sorry - thought this was the Sanchez thread.

JOGzHEF.gif
 
Drifted out to 2/1 to sign him now on skybet. Evans for Arsenal to keep him. They seem to be in for Lacazette and Thomas Lemar so I imagine when they sign them up they will make the deal with us.
 
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