Hughes Transfer Strategy ?

[Fuzzmaster101]

The Objective, presumabley, is to win the World Club Championship ..

I think our primary objective is to win the Premiership and then eventually the Champions League. The world Club championship is a farsical tournament of mostly worldwide unknowns unless one of the bigger South American clubs get in. Last season I believe it was some tiny club from Ecuador! My view is every ambitious team's first priority is to win it's own domestic league, if you can't do that then Champions league is a pretty hollow win. How can you be the best team in Europe if you're not even the best team in your own country? The answer is you can't be.

It's why the World Cup is sometimes won by a team that isn't the best in the world. See Italy in 2006. In a cup competition (as the Chumps League is, despite it's title and the pathetic 6 game league section where 9 out of 10 times the two fancied teams go through) anything can happen. Portsmouth won the FA cup two seasons ago, were they the best team in England?

Ask a Liverpool fan where it's at. The Premiership is the main prize every year, hopefully you can win one or two others too. World Club Championship is rank bottom!

 

[dcye]

The Objective, presumabley, is to win the World Club Championship ..

I think our primary objective is to win the Premiership and then eventually the Champions League. The world Club championship is a farsical tournament of mostly worldwide unknowns unless one of the bigger South American clubs get in.

To even get into the WCC you need to win the CL, that's what his point was.

 

[Bonol]

think it's the formation that catches us out at times as it doesn't protect our back four on occasions.

Spot on mate, when we lose the ball an area in front of our back four opens up like the red sea, Toure got a taste of it at Rangers the other night, he looked shell shocked.

 

[spamalot]

Hughes obviously thinks the current squad will get him top 6 which Sheikh Mansour wants, i think he will go abroad eventually..............

 

[Mike D]

We see all the time how the top 4 clubs buy fantastic players from abroad. Arshavin, Vidic, Skrtel, Torres, Essien, Drogba, Alonso, van Persie etc all came from abroad. Mark Hughes on the other hand tries to get players from the Premier League, but the best ones are out of reach (Terry etc). Shouldn't Mark Hughes soon start try to go for great players without Premiership experience or is he so afraid of losing his job that he tries to minimize any risk which in the end might be the biggest risk?

What is buying is proven premiership workers players who will put a shift in they are the players that suite his style. Hughes can't afford to take risk when you are defying all logic to be in such a privlaged position you can hardly start gambling on unknown quanties when you are job is on the line.

 

[TEVEZ19]

We took that risk with jo and samaras and they are terrible, so why not go for proven talent etc gareth barry they have wat it takes to play in this league.

 

[The Fat el Hombre]

We took that risk with jo and samaras and they are terrible, so why not go for proven talent etc gareth barry they have wat it takes to play in this league.

We also took risks on Kompany, Zabaleta and Robinho. Other 'risks' from other clubs in recent years have included the likes of Torres, vidic, evra, Alonso, Mascherano, Arteta, Arshavin etc. The point is that there aren't really any supposedly prem proven players available now that will considerably improve our squad. We've got huge funds and the sky is the limit except Hughes is so far refusing to take a chance and is only willing to work well within his comfort zone

 

[Cheltblue]

We took that risk with jo and samaras and they are terrible, so why not go for proven talent etc gareth barry they have wat it takes to play in this league.

We also took risks on Kompany, Zabaleta and Robinho. Other 'risks' from other clubs in recent years have included the likes of Torres, vidic, evra, Alonso, Mascherano, Arteta, Arshavin etc. The point is that there aren't really any supposedly prem proven players available now that will considerably improve our squad. We've got huge funds and the sky is the limit except Hughes is so far refusing to take a chance and is only willing to work well within his comfort zone

We have a Champions League infrastructure with a manager who thinks mid-Premier League!

 

[Neil McNab]

We see all the time how the top 4 clubs buy fantastic players from abroad. Arshavin, Vidic, Skrtel, Torres, Essien, Drogba, Alonso, van Persie etc all came from abroad. Mark Hughes on the other hand tries to get players from the Premier League, but the best ones are out of reach (Terry etc). Shouldn't Mark Hughes soon start try to go for great players without Premiership experience or is he so afraid of losing his job that he tries to minimize any risk which in the end might be the biggest risk?

What is buying is proven premiership workers players who will put a shift in they are the players that suite his style. Hughes can't afford to take risk when you are defying all logic to be in such a privlaged position you can hardly start gambling on unknown quanties when you are job is on the line.

Wrong in my opinion as most of MH's signings are proven in the premiership but not in a good way. So we know that Toure is injury prone and past his best, we know that Adebayor needs 10 chances to score, we know that Tevez doesn't score many and we know that Roque Santa Cruz will spend most the season nursing his knee. Barry apart this summers signings have largely been top 4 clubs cast off's and wn't get us beyond the clus that have rejected them. The only way to overtake the top 4 is to buy the best young talent around and take a gamble on foreign recruits. Ireland, Robinho and Barry will be our stand out performers this season as Tevez huffs and puffs a lot and the rest turn out to be Benjani's.......

Hope I'm wrong but 7th is best I can see this lot reaching!

 

[Braggster]

I don't agree, Neil Mcnab. Tevez is much, much more than a 'huffer and puffer'. 3 times South American player of the year, top Argentine international, and just ask rag fans what they thought of him after 2007/08 season. He is dynamic, skilful, a real impact player, a difference maker, added to which he puts in prodigious work. Not to mention that it was certainly the case that the likes of Chelsea and Liverpool were interested in him. Don't be fooled by last season, when sur baconface deliberately sidelined him to accomodate Berbatov and to engineer a situation where he didn't get forced into paying the £25m which they couldn't afford.

Adebayor, well, Wenger turned down £25m from Meeelan last summer, and really (IMO) only sold because of a combination of Arsenal's financial constraints, the fact that Ade's head had been turned, that the fans turned against him, and also that Bendtner is maturing nicely. But to call him a 'cast off' is going too far.

Touré, some people think he is over the hill. Personally I doubt it, aged 28. I think Wenger sold him because centre halves play in partnerships, not individually, and the Gallas-Touré partnership was not right, and no-one would offer good money for Gallas. Doesn't mean Touré is crap though.

Roque, well, obviously he is injury prone but luckily for us we can rest him when needed and use him judiciously, a luxury most clubs don't have. He was a player that has interested Redknapp, Wenger and (allegedly) sur baconface in the recent past, so perhaps he's not quite so crap as some of the savants on here and in the media would have you believe...

Barry, we can agree on. Simply oozes class. I think Hughes has bought very well, even though his pursuit of Lescott and Terry has perhaps left it a bit late to get a decent CB to play next to Touré. We are well set, and should seriously push the top 4. If we don't do so, then Hughes will be out, and deservedly so. There's no excuse with this squad.