Hughes Transfer Strategy ?

[The Doctor]

Mark Hughes has a clear transfer strategy of attempting to have 2 players of equal quality for each position.
Can anybody argue against that as a strategy?
If in doing so he buys Premiership proven players that is an extra bonus.
The final bonus of course is that you also weaken your closest rivals by taking away one or more of their prized assets Villa/Barry, Arsenal/Toure/Adebayor, Rags/Tevez, and possibly Everton/Lescott.

OK I am a Hughes fan but his strategy looks OK to me when studying the above facts!

 

[Somud]

Re: Is Mark Hughes a coward?

pass it on, it's obviously fookin' good stuff

Baffles me how there can be anything but praise to what CITY have done

Barry, Tevez, Toure, Adebayor - all top players proven in the prem - no need for 6 -12 weeks for them to 'get used' to the style / pace etc

Put them with Robbie - an example of the need to acclimatise but now a year on- Stevie Ireland, Bridge, Given and de Jong and you have a really solid look - one that will likely address our Achilles heel - away games - then add SWP, RSC - more solidity

Then lose dependence on Elano, Petrov, Boj - all good players but either not up to the demands of the prem or not fit and you remove weaknesses / weak links

etc etc

You get a team that can challenge from the start and keep going when other teams flag because the squad is strong

Bring Lescott in and it gets better

For me the icing on the cake would have been Alonso

He might still go abroad if he feels we need 1 or 2 more - but best to try for proven class first

OK, we bought Bellamy from West Ham in January, while at the same time, Arsenal bought Arshavin from Russia for about the same price. Can we really say that we got the better deal? If we become so afraid of players from foreign leagues, we risk mediocrity.

 

[moomba]

Mark Hughes has a clear transfer strategy of attempting to have 2 players of equal quality for each position.
Can anybody argue against that as a strategy?

No, although I'm not you can have that strategy whether you look abroad or not.

If in doing so he buys Premiership proven players that is an extra bonus.

If anything, players from abroad will come cheaper, albeit with a higher risk (although we all know that prem proven players can underperform at a different club), I think you can get players from abroad with a bigger upside though.

The final bonus of course is that you also weaken your closest rivals by taking away one or more of their prized assets Villa/Barry, Arsenal/Toure/Adebayor, Rags/Tevez, and possibly Everton/Lescott.

It doesn't weaken them if you overpay to such an extent that they use the funds to buy better players.

I think one of our better deals this summer has been Barry, but who could say for certain that the £12m that we spent on Barry, which was then spent on Delph won't turn out to be a good deal for Villa too.

Can anyone say for certain that the £20m+ we give Moyes for Lescott (if the deal does happen) won't be put to use by Moyes to buy two or three players, and actually strengthen the Everton squad.

 

[mrbelfry]

Haven't we tried as a mid-table prem team to buy Kaka, Eto'o and England captain Terry? haven't we also enquired about Buffon, Villa and Silva?

to call anyone at City a coward for who we've targeted with Hughes on board is well far from the mark.

Good overseas foreign player = Jo @ 19m
Good proven prem striker = Ade @ 20m. who would you rather have in the team this year

 

[johnny crossan]

Re: Is Mark Hughes a coward?

OK, we bought Bellamy from West Ham in January, while at the same time, Arsenal bought Arshavin from Russia for about the same price. Can we really say that we got the better deal? If we become so afraid of players from foreign leagues, we risk mediocrity.

Another telling point

 

[The Fat el Hombre]

Haven't we tried as a mid-table prem team to buy Kaka, Eto'o and England captain Terry? haven't we also enquired about Buffon, Villa and Silva?

to call anyone at City a coward for who we've targeted with Hughes on board is well far from the mark.

Good overseas foreign player = Jo @ 19m
Good proven prem striker = Ade @ 20m. who would you rather have in the team this year

Kompany £6 million or Kolo Toure £16 million

There will be some good deals abroad and some good deals from the prem. We seem to be running out of prem options now and appear to be scraping the bottom of the barrel

 

[Balti]

The business we have conducted has been superb imo and exceeded my expectations. We have bought in players who were realistic targets that would improve us and take us forward. The time for the Kaka's is still at some point in the glorious future. MH has shown he can bring in quality from abroad in NDJ/ VK. He is building a solid base of proven Prem experience and quality right now. I can't see how we could have done much better tbh.

 

[Cheltblue]

Personaly think the originator of this thread has a point.

MH says he relies on his natural instinct with players once he sees them and then uses backup data to make sure they have the right carachter.

Does this mean players abroad don't fit this startegy.

From reading the threads people have already stressed their concern over Toure , RSC (injuries etc), Adebayor (attitude)

If he doesn't get Lescott then do you think the other players we are linked with (Bassong , Distin) would not be as bigger risk as say an Alves.

If things don't start well i expect you'll all be saying why didn't we go for better players available abroad.

Not me mate, i have been happy to let him do what he feels is right.

I just wont be accepting one of his myriad of excuses this season if things go pear shaped. He stands and falls by the results his transfer strategy delivers.

 

[AntonDonJuan]

Haven't we tried as a mid-table prem team to buy Kaka, Eto'o and England captain Terry? haven't we also enquired about Buffon, Villa and Silva?

to call anyone at City a coward for who we've targeted with Hughes on board is well far from the mark.

Good overseas foreign player = Jo @ 19m
Good proven prem striker = Ade @ 20m. who would you rather have in the team this year

Kompany £6 million or Kolo Toure £16 million

There will be some good deals abroad and some good deals from the prem. We seem to be running out of prem options now and appear to be scraping the bottom of the barrel

Good point.

There are only so many Prem proven players we will come to us that will actually improve us. Toure was scraping the barrel, he improves us but not drastically. Hughes looks like a plays the percentages, afraid to take a risk on a player. If he brings in 5 proven Prem players and 2 gambles from overseas that would do me. But by looking only at the Prem, because he is scared of losing his job by players not starting the season well, he risks bringing in players of lesser quality than are actually available.

 

[mrbelfry]

Haven't we tried as a mid-table prem team to buy Kaka, Eto'o and England captain Terry? haven't we also enquired about Buffon, Villa and Silva?

to call anyone at City a coward for who we've targeted with Hughes on board is well far from the mark.

Good overseas foreign player = Jo @ 19m
Good proven prem striker = Ade @ 20m. who would you rather have in the team this year

Kompany £6 million or Kolo Toure £16 million

There will be some good deals abroad and some good deals from the prem. We seem to be running out of prem options now and appear to be scraping the bottom of the barrel

So Hughes has bought good foreign and good prem based players making the OP irrelevant . When we start targetting titus bramble then the barrel is being scraped