I guess as we move along a relationship with Raiola may be essential. His power in the industry is only growing and like it or not he has managed to get all his clients very good deals. Clubs may not like him but players are lining for him especially young players. I am still an ardent believer of avoiding this pisstaker but is the situation becoming untenable now?
Agents tend to have a particular niche. Mendes has strong ties with Portugal/Brazil and Raiola with the Netherlands. If we can go straight to Brazil and Argentina to find players, we may avoid such agents, who may take greater cuts and meddle more than their South American counterparts. If we want European players with promise and experience, however, better hold our noses.
What do you base this upon?Any purchase of this guy could be as glorious as any mistake we've ever made in the transfer market. It's Mangala with bells and whistles on and will be this season's example of spunking more money on a problem that can only be rectified by coaching. We were ready to buy Maguire but ultimately couldn't afford him and he'd have solved nothing anyway because just buying pricey defenders and throwing them out in any order from week to week is a disaster. Defence is the one area where you need coherent play and it's the most vital area on any team as it's far easier to leak a goal by poor play than it is score a goal with good play.
Our yearly policy of buying pricey defenders, unproven in our league is akin to throwing great food at a shit chef and wondering why what he produces makes you puke! With a properly coached Laporte, Stones, Ake and Harwood Bellis/Adarabioyo we have ample tall and physical defenders. What we don't appear to have is anyone who can coach them, and until we sort that then NOTHING will change in our defensive capability.
Maybe the way Pep plays requires more ready-made players at the back. He’s obviously not the best at coaching defenders, but Pep sure knows how to play in a creative way and arrive in the final 3rd. He improved pretty much all attackers in this team but you can’t say the same about our defenders.
Having someone like Koulibaly coming in could have a similar effect as the one Virgil had on Liverpools defence. And you can’t put a pricetag on that. We’d have at least four seasons of a superb Koulibaly (29,30,31,32) but he could be immense til he’s 34-35.
I’d be very excited about our CB-options going forward having Koulibaly, Laporte and Aké. All three are fantastic options. I still expect Stones to depart though.
2021 vardy - sorry mate he would be shit for us because of the way we playI agree, but I'm not necessarily sure Martínez is available. He has a contract until 2024 with Inter and they seem to have enough money to keep him. And Barcelona, who seems to be the great contender for Martínez, is out of cash.
I stated this quite a few times but for me the plan would be:
Summer 20: Don't sign anyone, Agüero and Jesus will do.
Summer 21: Agüero leaves, we sign a lethal old striker on loan (Vardy?).
Summer 22: We sign Mbappé for free (obviously start the charm operation to bring him as soon as possible).
If Mbappé is out of the plans then:
Summer 20: Don't sign anyone, Agüero and Jesus will do. Sign a CB, a LB, a DM and a CM.
Summer 21: Go all out on a striker (Haland seems like the only amazing option).
100M is not enough for Haland. It'll probably be enough for Martínez though.
But I'd rather spend those 100M on a 50M LB and a 50M DM.
We have Agüero and Jesus. Next season, when Kun leaves, we can buy a striker.
Makes sense.
But did we have any successful transfer from South America except Jesus
I’m assuming that’s one of the purposes of the CFGAgents tend to have a particular niche. Mendes has strong ties with Portugal/Brazil and Raiola with the Netherlands. If we can go straight to Brazil and Argentina to find players, we may avoid such agents, who may take greater cuts and meddle more than their South American counterparts. If we want European players with promise and experience, however, better hold our noses.
Perhaps, but I’m not sure we’re bringing these youngsters here only to send them to New York, Melbourne, or even Girona. These are players that could quickly be training with the first team and challenging for places. If it proves successful, signings such as Koulibaly could become less and less common.I’m assuming that’s one of the purposes of the CFG
Same here. It got to a point where some agents basically decide who wins the league. Check what Jorge Mendes has been doing with Benfica (Portuguese League) and Wolves (Championship) for the past 10 years and you'll understand what I'm saying.
Oh, I know about Jorge Mende’s influence. I just can’t see it anytime soon but something to be done sooner rather than later.
Yeah I thought things were moving that way when they forbid funds from having percentages of players but probably the agents have way too much power inside all the football organizations.
It may have gotten to that point. They don’t have a union or something similar at the moment but do the top brass at many football organisations want to wait till the day that happens? When they become an organised force?
Only time will tell. I naturally don’t care as I’m far removed from that world. It’s just the concept of their roles in football.
Anything from Tolmie on this one?
looks like Arsenal have won the race to sign Gabriel from Lille who was the rumoured target Napoli were after to replace Koulibaly.
Years of watching us spunk millions on supposedly great defenders only then to watch them develop into complete clowns. Did you not witness the Lyon game? Just look at the money we've wasted on centrehalves and fullbacks, it's shocking. Our inability to develop defenders into a defence is beyond comprehension. Just examine the complete nonsense of Left-back. We already had Angelino at the club and he was looking a decent player but was sold/loaned to various clubs as we thought he wasn't good enough. Meanwhile we bought that clown Mendy and latterly Cancelo. Neither proved to be capable during various periods of time so we have even seen midfielders Zinchenko and Delph be required to play there. All have failed to make the position safe so we brought Angelino back and even he couldn't defend in our team (despite being great in any other team he's played for), so once again he was released and is now at Leipzig and about to play in a Champions League Semi after we have on countless occasions dismissed his ability to fill the role on which we have spent a bloody fortune. The fact is it's not the players, it's our non existent defensive coaching strategy that guarantees this annual nonsense of wasting money on players to make a defence. THAT IS WHAT I'M BASING MY ARGUMENT ON.What do you base this upon?
The 2 seasons before this, in which we lost Laporte, we conceded 23 and 27. This season liverpools greatest ever defence concede 33. So your statement is just wrong.it's our non existent defensive coaching strategy that guarantees this annual nonsense of wasting money on players to make a defence. THAT IS WHAT I'M BASING MY ARGUMENT ON.
Years of watching us spunk millions on supposedly great defenders only then to watch them develop into complete clowns. Did you not witness the Lyon game? Just look at the money we've wasted on centrehalves and fullbacks, it's shocking. Our inability to develop defenders into a defence is beyond comprehension. Just examine the complete nonsense of Left-back. We already had Angelino at the club and he was looking a decent player but was sold/loaned to various clubs as we thought he wasn't good enough. Meanwhile we bought that clown Mendy and latterly Cancelo. Neither proved to be capable during various periods of time so we have even seen midfielders Zinchenko and Delph be required to play there. All have failed to make the position safe so we brought Angelino back and even he couldn't defend in our team (despite being great in any other team he's played for), so once again he was released and is now at Leipzig and about to play in a Champions League Semi after we have on countless occasions dismissed his ability to fill the role on which we have spent a bloody fortune. The fact is it's not the players, it's our non existent defensive coaching strategy that guarantees this annual nonsense of wasting money on players to make a defence. THAT IS WHAT I'M BASING MY ARGUMENT ON.