Recruitment issues

[sky_blue]

No, that's wrong. Fernandinho got injured in February 2019, Gundogan replaced him and we continued to be rock solid at the back, even with Zinchenko at LB! Why? Mostly because we had Kompany and Laporte at CB.

Also Fernandinho was crap in Pep's first season to the extent that Pep had to play Toure at DM. This myth that our defensive stability was all down to Fernandinho has to die. It's silly and it is also a big reason why both Rodri and Gundogan are heavily criticised for the mistakes of the defenders.

Our defence suffered badly from several simple things: Kompany retired, Laporte got injured, Stones had personal problems and permanent injuries, Otamendi declined. Suddenly, all our CBs from 17/19 were unavailable for one or another reason and we played almost the entire 19/20 season with a makeshift defence. Yet, many on here still think it's mostly about not having Fernandinho at DM. Utterly simplistic.

Bang on. People are far too obsessed with easy narratives. It's never just down to Kompany or Laporte or Dinho, etc. It's always a collection of issues coming together in the worst possible way - almost like a perfect storm.

Kompany retired, Silva's legs were gone, Dinho had to abandon his position to play CB because Laporte got injured + Stones injured/personal problems + Nico declined, Aguero was injured most of the season (played the lowest number of minutes in nine seasons of PL), Sane injured for a season...when you look at that it's almost an achievement that this team did as well as it did. 81 points, league cup, FA cup semifinal, CL quarters. Of course, people just remember the moments. The Arsenal game in FA cup, the Lyon game in CL, the derby and they frame their opinions on those matches rather than looking at the entire season holistically. We did incredibly well to even get to those matches and have those moments.

It's the same this season. No pre-season, half the squad injured or out because of covid, Pep being forced to choose between Garcia or THB in the 2nd fucking game of the season, both strikers injured. People will say "oh this is all part of the game, Pep should do better", but it isn't. What do people think will happen if Liverpool lose Mane, VVD for a season because of injuries and Fabinho is forced to play as CB?

People call themselves supporters, but seem to be turned off at the idea of supporting the club. There's a sense of entitlement that the club owes them something. I want X and Y transfers, win every game, 4 goals and clean sheet every match, otherwise sack Pep and sell the club. Utter madness. What is the point in even watching football and supporting a club if you can't handle a minor setback? Fucking simpletons stinking up the entire forum.

 

[sky_blue]

Fucking bonkers.

Maybe its my age and lack of time on football manager type games or the latest FIFA but what the actual fuck is the xG bollocks that gets trotted out?

Meaningless fucking drivel.

It's not meaningless drivel when every top team uses it (along with a hundred other stats) to track performance.

 

[BlueDejong]

interesting...

 

[Didsbury Dave]

Bang on. People are far too obsessed with easy narratives. It's never just down to Kompany or Laporte or Dinho, etc. It's always a collection of issues coming together in the worst possible way - almost like a perfect storm.

Kompany retired, Silva's legs were gone, Dinho had to abandon his position to play CB because Laporte got injured + Stones injured/personal problems + Nico declined, Aguero was injured most of the season (played the lowest number of minutes in nine seasons of PL), Sane injured for a season...when you look at that it's almost an achievement that this team did as well as it did. 81 points, league cup, FA cup semifinal, CL quarters. Of course, people just remember the moments. The Arsenal game in FA cup, the Lyon game in CL, the derby and they frame their opinions on those matches rather than looking at the entire season holistically. We did incredibly well to even get to those matches and have those moments.

It's the same this season. No pre-season, half the squad injured or out because of covid, Pep being forced to choose between Garcia or THB in the 2nd fucking game of the season, both strikers injured. People will say "oh this is all part of the game, Pep should do better", but it isn't. What do people think will happen if Liverpool lose Mane, VVD for a season because of injuries and Fabinho is forced to play as CB?

People call themselves supporters, but seem to be turned off at the idea of supporting the club. There's a sense of entitlement that the club owes them something. I want X and Y transfers, win every game, 4 goals and clean sheet every match, otherwise sack Pep and sell the club. Utter madness. What is the point in even watching football and supporting a club if you can't handle a minor setback? Fucking simpletons stinking up the entire forum.

Some good prophesies in this post. Well done mate, amongst a sea of shite.

 

[mccity]

There are lot of these threads cropping up from September-November that are starting to look a bit bad in hindsight, to put it mildly.


Some of you probably need to learn to breathe and chill out or something.

 

[HelloCity]

interesting...

I actually stand by this thread in that I feel we need to buy a proven top level scorer to replace Aguero. We can’t afford to take a punt on someone so to speak.

At the time of making the thread we’d also only signed Ake to play centre back and were in desperate need of a top class centre back since the season had already begun.

Hopefully we do with the forward line what we’ve done with Dias and buy a top quality player.

 

[HelloCity]

Was this a harsh and maybe wrong assessment or is there an element of truth to it?

We got Dias but we do seem to struggle closing the deal for some of the bigger players.

 

[iwasthere1968]

I think we are just desperately lacking a bit of character at the minute. Our recruitment approach seems to be to get a group of nice guys in that won't rock the boat too much. But don't you wish we had a Yaya or a Tevez out there on the pitch for us today?

Would love them , who do you suggest?

 

[coolcity]

Bang on. People are far too obsessed with easy narratives. It's never just down to Kompany or Laporte or Dinho, etc. It's always a collection of issues coming together in the worst possible way - almost like a perfect storm.

Kompany retired, Silva's legs were gone, Dinho had to abandon his position to play CB because Laporte got injured + Stones injured/personal problems + Nico declined, Aguero was injured most of the season (played the lowest number of minutes in nine seasons of PL), Sane injured for a season...when you look at that it's almost an achievement that this team did as well as it did. 81 points, league cup, FA cup semifinal, CL quarters. Of course, people just remember the moments. The Arsenal game in FA cup, the Lyon game in CL, the derby and they frame their opinions on those matches rather than looking at the entire season holistically. We did incredibly well to even get to those matches and have those moments.

It's the same this season. No pre-season, half the squad injured or out because of covid, Pep being forced to choose between Garcia or THB in the 2nd fucking game of the season, both strikers injured. People will say "oh this is all part of the game, Pep should do better", but it isn't. What do people think will happen if Liverpool lose Mane, VVD for a season because of injuries and Fabinho is forced to play as CB?

People call themselves supporters, but seem to be turned off at the idea of supporting the club. There's a sense of entitlement that the club owes them something. I want X and Y transfers, win every game, 4 goals and clean sheet every match, otherwise sack Pep and sell the club. Utter madness. What is the point in even watching football and supporting a club if you can't handle a minor setback? Fucking simpletons stinking up the entire forum.

Totally agree. It's incredible to read some of the dross on here when you consider that we were three wins from winning all four trophies last season, despite not having Aguero for most of it. And it's not as though that's a one off. In fact I would be surprised if we do anything significant this season, it's been a long, hard road during the covid period and in my opinion we came through with flying colours. You can't win everything all the time no matter who you are, get over it.

 

[DontLookBackInAnger]

Was this a harsh and maybe wrong assessment or is there an element of truth to it?

We got Dias but we do seem to struggle closing the deal for some of the bigger players.

In fairness Dias was far from our first choice. Personally I will give recruitment a pass on two years ago, I think they hoped Kompany would stay and yes they went into the season light at centre-back, but what blew them out of the water was losing Laporte and Sane pretty much for the season before it started, you really can't plan for that. This summer is shaping up to be just horrific planning, I said on another thread it doesn't matter what you do for work and planning, if your plan is to have the other party do something that they don't want to do you better have a backup plan. The problem is cumulative too, we screw up bringing in a striker this summer anyone who thinks it will be easier next, I have a bridge to sell you..... People can see we can't close the deal and in the long run this will cost.... either missing out on players or paying over the odds for them.