oldtype

Would probably turn into Albert Luque if he came here. Not like we had a great record of putting players in a position to succeed.

Not the right sort of game for Woltemade. I assume Wissa is still semi-crocked/unfit.

Cheer up lads. Osula will score the winner and we’ll be chanting his name for years.

We need chaos today. O-Shola thrives on chaos.

So we're going into this without Bruno, Gordon, and a semi-crocked Livramento. That's arguably three of our five best players. And we're missing Miley and Schar as well. This really has been low-key another devastating season injury wise

I say we do the Shola hokey-pokey chant for ninety minutes and confuse the hell out of them then.

The top set piece scoring team in the league converts them at less than 10%. Most of the league converts them at 5% or less. The reality is that scoring from corners/free kicks is pretty rare and people have overinflated expectations.

Whole point of CL football is having experiences like this, right? One of those nights where I really wish I could be in the City.

I'm not saying there won't be players who are willing to make the move, but it probably does narrow the pool enough that aggressively targeting cast-offs may not be a viable strategy. Particularly with competition from Saudi now. Willock and Hall were youth products who probably never got put on huge contracts at Arsenal or Chelsea. I'm all for targeting that profile of player, which we appear to already be doing. Someone like Reijnders on the other hand would probably break our wage structure and I understand why we would be reluctant to do that when he already has a sample of underperforming in the PL.

Issue with that is probably that cartel cast-offs come pre-loaded with cartel wages, and are typically unwilling to take the necessary pay cut to come to us.

Probably reasonable to conclude this. He'd cost an absolute mint due to his age and England status, but hasn't shown the ability to stay fit so far. Blessing and a curse for us.

Agree that we’ve seen enough of him in that position, even if it’s partially motivated by necessity due to midfield injuries. One thing I’ve noticed is that he’d basically stopped shooting at all from open play once he was moved to midfield. Even as a striker, his big weakness was that he picks and chooses his chances and basically can’t shoot at all from outside the box. If you’re going to shoehorn him into a position that takes away his goal threat entirely, then what is the point of him. One goal every 3-4 games may not be what you want from an attacking player, but it’s more than zero.

There is literally not a single club on the entire planet in any sport that "goes forwards" every single season. Which is why looking at the multi-year trajectory is the sane thing to do.

I think he (like the entire rest of the team really) plays a lot better when we have both first-choice fullbacks available. Unfortunately those games have been few and far between.

In retrospect, I would say that aside from Woltemade and Wissa, who were both obvious panic buys/overpays, I am fine with the decision-making process behind every single one of our summer signings. Even Elanga. Yes, he has been underperforming but paradoxically he was one of our first choice targets whom we had scouted for ages. We thought he would be a low-risk signing and the price of 55m is perfectly fair for a young player who already had an extensive record of producing as a PL starter. The result has been terrible so far for reasons none of us will ever fully understand, but the process was sound. Even a good process doesn't guarantee good results all of the time.

Thiaw looked completely invincible earlier in the season when we were stringing together clean sheets. He's had a shaky couple of months. That's perfectly normal and it usually all averages out in the end. You can't look at a player's worst run of games and assume that is their true form, just like you can't do the same based on their best run of games. (Same goes for Woltemade as well) On balance I'd say he's been a very good signing, especially given how little he cost.

We bought a 60m striker from Europe this season and nobody seems to be particularly enamored with him. All signings are a risk, PL signings are a lower risk. Because we have a relatively efficient transfer market at this point, that risk is priced in as a "PL premium." European players are usually cheaper (and players from South America/Asia cheaper still), but there's a reason for that.

In modern football you can only exploit undervalued markets or types of players for a certain amount of time everybody else catches up. And that period is going to get shorter and shorter. Every team has an entire office full of people crunching the numbers on this stuff now. It's impossibly hard to find hidden gems that others missed to begin with, even harder to keep doing it consistently. The way good recruiting teams are able to differentiate themselves today is going to be negotiations, relationship building, PSR management, and helping players succeed once they're already in the door.

So all we have to do is sign a new starting striker, new starting keeper. And also two additional players in other positions that are good enough to be among the five best players in our entire squad, all while complying with whatever ridiculous financial limitations that will be placed upon us? Sure, no problem

Becoming a bit of a scapegoat

As can Woltemade for that matter

I just think that in a year with no Europe five is obviously enough, and honestly Willock is overqualified as a #6 too.

And in any case, a buy back clause isn't much use if the player would rather go elsewhere.

We only played 48 games last season even with a League Cup finals run and two wins in the FA Cup. We'll play close to 60 this season even if we're eliminated in both remaining cups right away. It's a huge difference, and it doesn't make sense to spend a hundred million on someone who may only start 20 games when we face severe financial restrictions and there are so many other areas of the squad that must be addressed.

We likely won’t have Europe next year and won’t have the games to keep six starting caliber CMs happy. So aside from the fact that he’d probably choose to go to a club with higher wages and CL football anyway, it’s bad allocation of resources for us as well unless Tonali or someone else is leaving.