Splashing the cash is not the answer or even an option. The entire globe is on the verge of an economic meltdown and nobody is immune from that reality. We are not in good shape currently and the short term prospects are somewhat concerning but getting out the cheque book is not really feasible or desirable.Honestly it feels like slow Chinese torture.
We needed a defender, it takes a season to buy 1.
Now we need a striker, it will take another season for the glaring obvious to take hold and us buy 1.
In the meantime we need some creativity, but again we will have to wait, while the media reminds us.
Who the fuck as hold of the purse strings at the club?
It seems like we have agreed in court that we wont splash the cash unnecessarily to appease "the yank owned clubs".
We came out of the court case with Pep aggressively saying to the wank 10 who stabbed us in the back " come talk on the pitch, not behind our backs".
I bet the snide fuckers are now thinking "and what?"
This is now getting a seriously bad situation for Pep, the players and club.
To say we are one of the richest clubs on the planet, and yet we struggle to beat any team in the division (apart from Burnley) is fucking scary.
Big decisions need to be made !
Well done mate. You cheered me up just a little.In the end, i'm happy enough with a point, because it was beginning to look like one of those 'just not your night' games where they would knick a goal at the end, or var would give them a stoppage time pen or something.
Sometimes, things just go against you, the own goal from a free kick that was never a foul, multiple missed chances and top top saves that on another night would have gone in. The game itself, out of context, these ones happen.
Again, we are hugely underestimating the effect fans in the stands would have had in that game, the extra pressure it would put on their defence in those last 20 minutes, the bit of belief it would give our forwards. Enough to get that winner. Let's not bullshit ourselves, we have had these games every time we won the league, we found ways to win them and it was marginal. We also had suckerpunch losses too.
The problem is has been happening a few times.
The bigger issue for me is the narrative this creates. We've already rewritten the last season, and a fair few now seem to be going into kickoff with a low expectation, and then watching the game to try confirm it.
We Are slower than we have been, we are less 'frightening'. But we still keep the posession and we still create the chances. What seems to be missing is belief and confidence. You can see it, from half an hour in, players are in despair and disbelief at missing chances as if it is the 90th minute. It almost looks as if they have convinced thenselves the goals aren't coming.
The narrative around pep will start to build too, can't hack it more than 3 years, anywhere else he'd be sacked, and that will feed into the cycle.
We need a big scoring dominant game to shed the weight, and to follow it up with a basic win. Then it might kick a bit of self belief off.
I think pep should be using torres way more, and regularly, because he is the one player currently not bogged down with this mentality. He is new to the team and league, has that fresh naivity but also that pure hope, has confidence and belief in himself, and the hunger to prove himself and justify his big move. And that will produce goals where a currently fragile sterling or mahrez will miss them.
If I were the Sheikh, I’d be getting some dubbin on me boots right now.If I were Sheikh Mansour I wouldn’t get my wallet out again after spending what the best part of £600m.
Plus in these difficult times your saying get rid of maybe 8 players, won’t happen, manager likely to go first.
The thing i have a problem with on this is he is playing exactly how he always has. Now i don't watch much spanish football, but i presume this was his type of role for athletico and i doubt he was some forward thinking, tough tackling, dynamic midfielder for them, i imagine he was exactly what he is for us for athletico. So why the hell did we spend so much money on him? From day 1 he has looked slow, very uncomfortable doing anything that requires an iota of offensiveness and on the whole very average on the ball. At first i thought he was taking time to get used to the pace of the PL, but that clearly isnt the issue. Whoever scouted him, analysed his performances for athletico, agreed he would fit our style of play and where we were heading should never have a say in transfers again.You've nailed it. Javi Garcia.
Remember when he was the fallback for De Rossi!!
We've wasted some serious money.
Because some people said he was the next Busquets and we are obsessed with trying to be Barca. We’re even copying their decline into nothingness, that’s how much we admire them.The thing i have a problem with on this is he is playing exactly how he always has. Now i don't watch much spanish football, but i presume this was his type of role for athletico and i doubt he was some forward thinking, tough tackling, dynamic midfielder for them, i imagine he was exactly what he is for us for athletico. So why the hell did we spend so much money on him? From day 1 he has looked slow, very uncomfortable doing anything that requires an iota of offensiveness and on the whole very average on the ball. At first i thought he was taking time to get used to the pace of the PL, but that clearly isnt the issue. Whoever scouted him, analysed his performances for athletico, agreed he would fit our style of play and where we were heading should never have a say in transfers again.
There was one moment last night that summed him up. In the first half Sterling broke into the box and Rodri with the ball and no one around him. He tried to clip a ball over the defense and Sterling is clean in on goal at an angle, the kind of position we used to get in 5 or 6 times a game. He just knocked the ball straight out of play for goal kick. That to me summed him up.