Catastrophic transfers are killing us.

[eyalluvitt]

Time to start acting like a big club in the market again.

When your the 11th highest spenders you eventually become the 11th placed team

 

[mexico1970]

When your the 11th highest spenders you eventually become the 11th placed team

I reckon our owner or chairman stopped blowing the cunts out of the water to appease the fuckers who continue to lie about us, and whilst we acquiesce they stick the boot in even more.

 

[St Helens Blue (Exiled)]

Agree with op.

 

[BuzLightyear]

I think you can put grealish into the hasn't worked out category as well.

Yes but v Forest in our ONLY recent win, he showed that central midfield is where he should have been playing. Never a wide player because he never beats a player or crosses successfully. He does keep the ball well by always cutting inside but rarely has an assist or score himself. Pep likes those who keep the ball and therefore Jack was usually preferred to more creative players such as Doku who, whilst beating players, he also loses the ball. Another reason why Jack always cuts inside, is because he knows central midfield is where he should be playing. It's his true home. Not stuck out on the wing. : o )

 

[doobyedoobye]

Would have been very interesting to have been a fly on the wall of the boards transfer meetings over the past 18 months.. Keeping hold of multiple players who were strongly considering leaving was clearly a considered strategy and I wonder why..

 

[oldius]

The frustration writ large in the OP's post is understandable. We are not winning, and that is crucial to the feelings expressed here and in the media. We are a target because of our success, and sudden relative failure.

With the exception of Palmer and possibly Lavia, none of the players mentioned would have been regulars in our team over the last decade. Frimpong left five years ago, at the heart of our success. Morgan Rogers had three loan spells and certainly was not listed as one who got away until now. Tommy Doyle is not a regular PL player, even though many of us yearned for his success.

In our current squad, with Rodri, Bobb, Stones, Walker, Grealish and Dias missing, there would be a chance for some of those players, at their current level (years after they left us) to get a game or two. This is because of injury. In addition to the names mentioned, we have also seen Foden injured and ill, KDB the same, Doku absent, Kovacic absent, and so on.

We are judging against that backdrop, with hindsight, and nearly all of the players mentioned in the OP's post would barely have got a look in at any point in the last decade. Now, one single good moment by one of those players (yesterday Tommy Doyle, for example) on their pitch is being used to castigate owners who have delivered unbroken success, until now.

We have made one clear mistake in the transfer market with the purchase of Kalvin, who proved not up to the job. Now, we are scapegoating others who have been part of arguably the greatest domestic team in history, and one of the world's best for ten years, even players from our own academy!

We can improve in our use of using academy players with gradually increasing minutes, of course, but we will ALWAYS lose some whose ambition lies beyond what we are willing to offer them - I don't hear anyone bemoaning the departure of Carlos Borges, for example.

Judging our team at this moment is difficult because we have a small squad that has been hit with the worst injury list (of ours) in a decade. The injuries have generally been in central midfield and central defence and that has made us porous and vulnerable to rapid counters. We all feel it, and we all know that some of our team have not been able to deal with that. We also know that they have delivered greatness in the past, and could well do so again. Our team has been under the threat of sanction for several years and that could have influenced our player purchasing power. We will see when the judgement is finally delivered. Stick with it, don't scapegoat players, and let's see what January (and beyond) brings.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

When your the 11th highest spenders you eventually become the 11th placed team

Explain the rags then.

In reality, it's not transfer fees that matter, it's wages. They have always been the main cost that correlates with success.

 

[blue by birth]

Mixed up Savinho fee with Nunes... corrected

No worries mate I wasn't having a pop at you .

 

[Mancity1980]

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 can’t argue with any of that, particularly the Rodri warnings. The 74 games he played without defeat contrasted with losing most of the 5 games he was missing was stark. Begiristain had a great transfer record for 10 years and only has this January window to go before he leaves, let’s see how Viana gets on (I have a feeling he will have some secret influence over the next month).

 

[melrose40yarder]

When your the 11th highest spenders you eventually become the 11th placed team

Correct