Catastrophic transfers are killing us.

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Greenandblue

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Joined
18 Sep 2012
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389
For so long we got nearly everything right, smart acquisitions. Well-timed and lucrative departures.

But it's been a disaster recently, the last 3 seasons are bad. Not here to bash any players, and Savinho is "first season" and young, he needs time.

But we have to accept that Savinho, Nunes and Doku are very serious downgrades in terms of output to where we once were.

Doku and Savinho, are young and might have a chance, but cost about £85 between them. Their delivery in terms of goals, assists and big chances is way off.

Nunes, looks like a disaster.
Phillips, total disaster.
Gundogen, very definitely hasn't worked.

Hindsight is easy, but those 5 are all part of a real reduction in quality.

Gvardiol is quality, but having a hard time....so is not delivering.

When it comes to departures we've made quite a few missteps in letting home grown quality leave, think Palmer, Lavia, Porro, Rogers, Delap maybe even Harwood-Bellis, or go a bit further back to Frimpong. We made good money, but we spent even more replacing them with worse.

Can't always get it right, and hindsight is easy, we cashed in on loads of lads (whole bunch to Southampton) and Doyle, Hamilton etc who have not emerged. But Palmer looks like a huge error.

As regards sales, Pep's policy of "unhappy players out", is the right one, and served him well. But Bernardo wanted out for a while apparently and we clung onto him. Mahrez's time was up, his age, got a good fee, but he often delivered in a way the new guys haven't. Sterling, Jesus, and Zinchenko haven't prospered elsewhere, but they'd be very useful to us now. Laporte as well, and Sane. Cancelo also is a huge upgrade on what we now have. I get it that players are moved on for different reasons, Sane wanted out, Cancelo was a mardarse, Julian wanted more game time, but some of them are big losses.

The old guard also looks broken, KDB is shattered and out of contract, Bernardo well off it, Walker finished, Stones, Ake, Dias, Akanji, all good but fragile or constantly out injured.

Fells like the squad is in a pretty bad place. I still think back that 6 months ago we played Madrid off the park over 2 legs and got mugged on penalties, so maybe I'm overreacting, but it feels like we've wasted huge sums on inferior quality, and failed to manage the age profile.

Big job for the new Sporting Director.
 
Last edited:
Greenandblue said:
For so long we got nearly everything right, smart acquisitions. Well-timed and lucrative departures.

But it's been a disaster recently, the last 3 seasons are bad. Not here to bash any players, and Savinho is "first season" and young, he needs time.

But we have to accept that Savinho, Nunes and Doku are very serious downgrades in terms of output to where we once were.

Doku and Savinho, are young and might have a chance, but cost about £110 between them. Their delivery in terms of goals, assists and big chances is way off.

Nunes, looks like a disaster.
Phillips, total disaster.
Gundogen, very definitely hasn't worked.

Hindsight is easy, but those 5 are all part of a real reduction in quality.

Gvardiol is quality, but having a hard time....so is not delivering.

When it comes to departures we've made quite a few missteps in letting home grown quality leave, think Palmer, Lavia, Porro, Rogers, Delap maybe even Harwood-Bellis, or go a bit further back to Frimpong. We made good money, but we spent even more replacing them with worse.

Can't always get it right, and hindsight is easy, we cashed in on loads of lads (whole bunch to Southampton) and Doyle, Hamilton etc who have not emerged. But Palmer looks like a huge error.

As regards sales, Pep's policy of "unhappy players out", is the right one, and served him well. But Bernardo wanted out for a while apparently and we clung onto him. Mahrez's time was up, his age, got a good fee, but he often delivered in a way the new guys haven't. Sterling, Jesus, and Zinchenko haven't prospered elsewhere, but they'd be very useful to us now. Laporte as well, and Sane. Cancelo also is a huge upgrade on what we now have. I get it that players are moved on for different reasons, Sane wanted out, Cancelo was a mardarse, Julian wanted more game time, but some of them are big losses.

The old guard also looks broken, KDB is shattered and out of contract, Bernardo well off it, Walker finished, Stones, Ake, Dias, Akanji, all good but fragile or constantly out injured.

Fells like the squad is in a pretty bad place. I still think back that 6 months ago we played Madrid off the park over 2 legs and got mugged on penalties, so maybe I'm overreacting, but it feels like we've wasted huge sums on inferior quality, and failed to manage the age profile.

Big job for the new Sporting Director.
Click to expand...
Doku £55m..Savinho £30m..£85 total..not £110m
 
Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese said:
Between this post and the tactical genius of the match day threads I think we could get rid of pep and txiki and be better off.
Click to expand...
So we shouldn't analyze our transfers. What did I say that's wrong, other than getting Savinho's price mixed up. It's Ok to reflect on what we've bought and sold....don't lump me in with the matchday moaners:-)
 
People are doing a lot of rewriting of history at the moment.

Palmer - was nowhere near Foden's level last two seasons and best position is the same position. Played plenty of games for us. Foden was PL player of the season last year and without him we didn't win the league. We had two potentially world class number 10s and we made our choice. Good luck to Cole. Suck it up.

Lavia - has taken years of playing for Southampton to get to the point that he's a backup player for Chelsea.

Rogers - nobody can seriously say they'd have him ahead Foden, Palmer, Alvarez, Doku, Savinho. Again, has taken years to get to this position.

What did we do without these amazing young players? Oh, the treble and four in a row.

Anyone saying it should have been done differently also needs to explain how they'd also have achieved these unparalleled levels at the same time.
 
yes, recruitment is big. without right recruitment Arsenal would have never improved up to be where they came up to in last two seasons compared to where they were from constant 4th place and then few years outside of CL.

dippers now would not be anywhere if they mess up replacing their old midfield of Henderson, Fabinho, Keita. now they brought in Mcallister, Grevenbarch, Szoboszlai all kind of work horses with some good technical ability. neither if they would have hold onto Henderson, Fabinho until today while they were past it which is what we are doing now.

Villa and Newcastle done well on transfers over last 3-4 seasons and it helped them earn a CL season for them. then Newcastle mostly due to PSR was slowed down couldnt build on the momentum they had and boom and their level dropped a lot.
dont forget Villa were in Champo, not long ago.

Chelsea could be much more ahead also if they had signed a great player for 80m instead the total flop of Mudryk. they got a gem for half of that in Palmer. imagine at least another Palmer in their attack would take some stopping...

our transfers since the treble is very much off and shows Txiki did not have in him to give this squad a proper rebuild or start one.very few incomings were better than the ones they replaced. how this is great?

when we lost Kun we wanted Kane and bit of delay but ended up with Haaland. we need that kind of mentality. when we lose KDB are we ok with Morgan Gibbs White as he is decent for Forest? or are we going for the Musiala, Wirtz etc level?
 
Dobsy said:
People are doing a lot of rewriting of history at the moment.

Palmer - was nowhere near Foden's level last two seasons and best position is the same position. Played plenty of games for us. Foden was PL player of the season last year and without him we didn't win the league. We had two potentially world class number 10s and we made our choice. Good luck to Cole. Suck it up.

Lavia - has taken years of playing for Southampton to get to the point that he's a backup player for Chelsea.

Rogers - nobody can seriously say they'd have him ahead Foden, Palmer, Alvarez, Doku, Savinho. Again, has taken years to get to this position.

What did we do without these amazing young players? Oh, the treble and four in a row.

Anyone saying it should have been done differently also needs to explain how they'd also have achieved these unparalleled levels at the same time.
Click to expand...
Lavia has plenty of injuries since he has left City as well. Could easily joined our injured stars as well in the physio's room.
 
Greenandblue said:
For so long we got nearly everything right, smart acquisitions. Well-timed and lucrative departures.

But it's been a disaster recently, the last 3 seasons are bad. Not here to bash any players, and Savinho is "first season" and young, he needs time.

But we have to accept that Savinho, Nunes and Doku are very serious downgrades in terms of output to where we once were.

Doku and Savinho, are young and might have a chance, but cost about £110 between them. Their delivery in terms of goals, assists and big chances is way off.

Nunes, looks like a disaster.
Phillips, total disaster.
Gundogen, very definitely hasn't worked.

Hindsight is easy, but those 5 are all part of a real reduction in quality.

Gvardiol is quality, but having a hard time....so is not delivering.

When it comes to departures we've made quite a few missteps in letting home grown quality leave, think Palmer, Lavia, Porro, Rogers, Delap maybe even Harwood-Bellis, or go a bit further back to Frimpong. We made good money, but we spent even more replacing them with worse.

Can't always get it right, and hindsight is easy, we cashed in on loads of lads (whole bunch to Southampton) and Doyle, Hamilton etc who have not emerged. But Palmer looks like a huge error.

As regards sales, Pep's policy of "unhappy players out", is the right one, and served him well. But Bernardo wanted out for a while apparently and we clung onto him. Mahrez's time was up, his age, got a good fee, but he often delivered in a way the new guys haven't. Sterling, Jesus, and Zinchenko haven't prospered elsewhere, but they'd be very useful to us now. Laporte as well, and Sane. Cancelo also is a huge upgrade on what we now have. I get it that players are moved on for different reasons, Sane wanted out, Cancelo was a mardarse, Julian wanted more game time, but some of them are big losses.

The old guard also looks broken, KDB is shattered and out of contract, Bernardo well off it, Walker finished, Stones, Ake, Dias, Akanji, all good but fragile or constantly out injured.

Fells like the squad is in a pretty bad place. I still think back that 6 months ago we played Madrid off the park over 2 legs and got mugged on penalties, so maybe I'm overreacting, but it feels like we've wasted huge sums on inferior quality, and failed to manage the age profile.

Big job for the new Sporting Director.
Click to expand...
The point about playing Madrid off the park 6 months ago is important, as is the fact we were clear favourites going into the season. We have lost Ballon DOr winner Rodri, he is worth 2 goals a game by stopping at least one from the opposition and being integral for at least one for us for EVERY game. The whole structure of our team has collapsed, he was the keystone. The knock on effect is the loss of confidence throughout the setup. All the other elements that made us dominant are still there including Pep. I think it is safe to say this season is a writeoff, a bit like 2020, however we ended that season strongly smashing the Covid champions. If next season continues like this one with Rodri back then it’s time for a revamp, maybe without Pep. Until then I trust in the great man.
 
To be honest, I kind of understand how we've reached this point. Going into the season I thought the squad looked pretty strong, maybe just missing one midfielder for Rodri rotation/back-up.

Unfortunately it hasn't worked out that way. The old reliable heads are physically and maybe mentally shot.

The guys coming into their prime are not picking up the slack, whether it's form, injuries or just not being good enough.

You combine those two and the younger project players just don't have a stable team to develop in. None of them have stepped up to the challenge really either, despite their obvious efforts.

Hopefully short term we can make a transformative Ruben Dias type January transfer to salvage the season.

Big changes though needed in the next few windows.
 
Apart from a back up for Rodri, and one for Haaland I thought the squad was in fairly decent shape, although getting a bit long in the tooth.

I don't think anyone foresaw the current situation arising at the start of the season, though decent back ups for those two might have helped.
 
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Mancity1980 said:
The point about playing Madrid off the park 6 months ago is important, as is the fact we were clear favourites going into the season. We have lost Ballon DOr winner Rodri, he is worth 2 goals a game by stopping at least one from the opposition and being integral for at least one for us for EVERY game. The whole structure of our team has collapsed, he was the keystone. The knock on effect is the loss of confidence throughout the setup. All the other elements that made us dominant are still there including Pep. I think it is safe to say this season is a writeoff, a bit like 2020, however we ended that season strongly smashing the Covid champions. If next season continues like this one with Rodri back then it’s time for a revamp, maybe without Pep. Until then I trust in the great man.
Click to expand...

We had 5 x warnings last season that the team doesn’t function without Rodri, but we chose not to bother trying to fix it.

Who knows if Rodri will come back the same player next season?

We were the best recruiters in world football for a number of years - but Txiki has dropped bollock after bolllock since the treble. He should be nowhere near any rebuild recruitment.
 
I think it's really tough on the outgoings, but I really, truly don't think any of them except Palmer are obvious, clear as day disasters. Every single lad who gets through our academy will play for teams where they look like some of the best players on the pitch, and obviously this season it's painful as those teams are in and around us, but we need players who are the best player on the pitch in CL finals. None of them wanted to stick around for a rebuild or hoping that Rodri injured himself.

Phillips is the only unmitigated disaster. It's a disaster we are currently paying for, and will continue paying for for the rest of the season. Not replacing Alvarez was silly, everything else falls under club policy. We won't lose money on Doku, Savinho might come good, Gvardiol will emerge from this run as a better defender.

I do think the charges, Pep and Txiki's uncertainty, variations of FFP, and an all-round lukewarm transfer market, and too many games are all playing their part. And until this season if you were a youngish talent looking to develop if you joined us you'd have to hope to dislodge about 6 of the best players in the world in their positions.
 
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