Alexis Sanchez

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Dax777 said:
Not really. We had Komps, MDM, and Nastasic. We did not 'need' a CB any more than we did a game changer.

We lost Lescott a backup at CB and Negredo do a starter at striker. It was just a period of tunnel vision, that you couldn't get folks to see what was in front of their eyes.

The claim of being top heavy, couldn't have been further from the truth. It was no surprise we went strikerless for 6 weeks early in that season. Sanchez was the right choice then, we simply murked it up then.

FFP should havE caused us to ignore a want on defense for a want in attack. Because the attacker was a far better and more impact player.
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Nastasic.

Ok.
 
Cityisland said:
Disagree, but ok.

Nasty has been used sparingly and was not an established/ trusted starter from the previous campaign. MDM was getting on a bit at that point and offered depth to the squad.

I dont think that this, with Kompany , who hadnt managed 30 premier league starts the two seasons prior to that, was enough. I can see why another CB was prioritized.

I dont see how you can ignore defense. Scoring goals was not an issue the previous season - didnt we score 150 odd?

Defense had to be the priority especially with Lescott leaving.
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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?
 
Rolee said:
We couldn't do it because of the wage sanction
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Yes, we couldn't do both. We could do one or the other. I argued we should have done Sanchez over Mangala. He would be a starter and Mangala was not going to bench either Komp or Demi as starter. So we were spending heavily in a restricted year on the future, rather than consolidating our advantage by spending on the present.

Sanchez would have been spending on the 1st 11. Mangala was spending on the future. Burdened with a restriction that stopped you from doing both for a short period, common sense suggested we should have done the former and saved the latter for later.
 
Neville Kneville said:
Nastasic.

Ok.
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It makes no difference whether you or I rated Nastacic. Its simply that he represented exactly what Mangala was when we bought him. A young defensive prospect. Neither have amounted to much yet. We had veteran starters and a prospect as backup. We gave up one prospect to get another more expensive prospect as the backup rather than buying a world class starter we had tried to get 2 years before.

It was a mind boggling decision then and still is now. Even more so because almost everyone here agreed with it. And as we are about to pay 15 million more for an older version of that player 2 years later while the backup CB has been moved on, its funny many still believe it was the right decision.
 
Dax777 said:
Yes, we couldn't do both. We could do one or the other. I argued we should have done Sanchez over Mangala. He would be a starter and Mangala was not going to bench either Komp or Demi as starter. So we were spending heavily in a restricted year on the future, rather than consolidating our advantage by spending on the present.

Sanchez would have been spending on the 1st 11. Mangala was spending on the future. Burdened with a restriction that stopped you from doing both for a short period, common sense suggested we should have done the former and saved the latter for later.
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We scored 10 more goals than Chelsea & finished 8 points behind.

Mangala played the same number of games, as Kompany. Demichelis ended up playing 40 games that season. Had he got injured, as could easily have happened, God knows where we would have finished up.

Whether people like it or not, there comes a time when you have no choice but to at least try & fix the defence..
 
Dax777 said:
Yes, we couldn't do both. We could do one or the other. I argued we should have done Sanchez over Mangala. He would be a starter and Mangala was not going to bench either Komp or Demi as starter. So we were spending heavily in a restricted year on the future, rather than consolidating our advantage by spending on the present.

Sanchez would have been spending on the 1st 11. Mangala was spending on the future. Burdened with a restriction that stopped you from doing both for a short period, common sense suggested we should have done the former and saved the latter for later.
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I dunno Dax, I reckon we would've had to get rid of a high earner to make room for Sanchez ' wage at the time.
 
Dax777 said:
It makes no difference whether you or I rated Nastacic. Its simply that he represented exactly what Mangala was when we bought him. A young defensive prospect. Neither have amounted to much yet. We had veteran starters and a prospect as backup. We gave up one prospect to get another more expensive prospect as the backup rather than buying a world class starter we had tried to get 2 years before.

It was a mind boggling decision then and still is now. Even more so because almost everyone here agreed with it. And as we are about to pay 15 million more for an older version of that player 2 years later while the backup CB has been moved on, its funny many still believe it was the right decision.
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That's all with hindsight. Mangala didn't work out so of course on the surface it adds weight to your argument. At the time we looked pretty decent going forwards and we're looking increasingly dodgy at the back, it wasn't unreasonable for us to try to improve the centre of defence. Your gripe should be with the scouts etc who identified Mangala not the thinking behind which imbalance in the squad needed addressing most urgently.
Personally I would put buying a centre back ahead of signing Sanchez again this summer. Don't get me wrong, I'd be thrilled if we get Sanchez but definitely not at the expense of getting a decent defender. We already have title winning attacking options but we are one injury to kompany away from not winning the title. Buy Sanchez and we will still have title winning attacking options and still be one injury to kompany away from not winning it. Buy a decent centre back and it actually addresses a very obvious potential problem in the squad.
 
Dax777 said:
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?
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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.
 
lasereyes said:
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.
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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.
 
Stoned Rose said:
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.
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I hope you two are watching celebrity pointless, you'll be creaming your pants.
 
Dax777 said:
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.
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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.

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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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