Punk77

He's too inefficient. Often his runs ends up in nothing: eg he has to backtrack or he hits a crosser that's no good. . He's had a couple of good crossers that our attackers should have converted but overall he's never involved in our goals.. If you bother you can check his assist ratio, I think it's very low. Do you watch our games, or just look at the stats? I do watch the games, although he's fantastic in defense, but the choices he sometimes makes in attack irritates me.. During his three season in PL, Enrique stands with 5 assists. That is not much. Come on man, you can't possibly be saying that Enrique has only been involved in 5 goals since he's been with us? Let me guess, you're looking at the amount of 'assists' he's got for us on ESPN Soccernet? Which, if that's what he's using... Ashley Cole has 5 PL assists to his name over the past 3 years, to Jose's 4 in his 3 PL seasons. Shambles of an offensive player, eh? Good point.I forgot to check him

Brett: I've never questioned that our left side is our best side..But still Enrique makes the wrong choices in attack.. Just to make things a bit funnier..Loven has 4 assist this season ...Just one away from Enrique's total

I've gone through the official stats...Although Enrique is playing for a weaker team than backs of same class such as sagna, evra, baines and cole I still think this shows that he needs improvement in the OFFENSIVE part of the game.. The assists are probably lying a bit since they don't register if you're part of the build up that leads to the goal..So he's probably been involved in more goals..But he's not directly assisted more than 5 of them..

He's too inefficient. Often his runs ends up in nothing: eg he has to backtrack or he hits a crosser that's no good. . He's had a couple of good crossers that our attackers should have converted but overall he's never involved in our goals.. If you bother you can check his assist ratio, I think it's very low. Do you watch our games, or just look at the stats? I do watch the games, although he's fantastic in defense, the choices he sometimes makes in attack irritates me.. Enrique has 5 assists distributed over three pl seasons. That is not much.

He's too inefficient. Often his runs ends up in nothing: eg he has to backtrack or he hits a crosser that's no good. . He's had a couple of good crossers that our attackers should have converted but overall he's never involved in our goals.. If you bother you can check his assist ratio, I think it's very low.

Having a decent set of full backs can make a lot of difference to a side. Especially one that can defend and attack like Jose. Full backs are especially of value in a 4-5-1 formation because they're keeping the width. But that doesn't matter that much for Enrique since he's too inefficient in attack anyway.

As if we're in a position to attract the best in the league. But is that our aim?The english players have an inflated price. As Carr said, we have a high status in other european leagues. That we have to use to our advantage..It's possible to find good players abroad if proper groundwork is done. A contract with us will for them be relatively lucrative compared to their previous salaries. And the club has already proven through Tiote that renegotiation will take place if players do well. I cannot see the harm by following such an strategy.

But we can wave the structure good bye if me make an exception with Enrique. Then we'll risk unsettling HBA and Tiote..Do people want that?

The club doesn't want to sell him. They have to, since he's refusing to sign a new contract. Enrique is replaceable imo. He's a good lb, but not the best in the league.

That Lpool is spending stupid money doesn't necessarily mean that they're more ambitious. They paid over price on Carroll, Johnson and Paulson. Cole flopped. Is this a sound strategy? We're having a more sensible approach, but that's not the same as lack of ambitions. Everybody was satisfied with us staying up this season. The club and players have exceeded our expectations. Is not possible to positive? Can't we wait until after the transfer window before we start criticizing the clubs policy?

Going off your own logic (non-linear, I know): the club have already budgeted £40,000 pw for Enrique's current wages (or thereabouts). So surely the supposed £80,000 pay-rise only translates to committing £10million over 5 years. So the club would have to find £2million per season to keep our best left-back. You could easily give Enrique a statistical points value, which I'll randomly assign as being +6points. I.e. if he's in the squad, then he'll turn out enough times and contribute an additional six points to the team's performance. Six points is worth about 4 places in the final league standings (even more this season). Each league place is worth an additional £500,000 prize money to the club. So those six points he contributes (over A.N. Other player at LB) are worth approx £2million. Can't afford him? Good point stu. But still he's not worth £80 a week. Although your calculation is based on us not being able to find a proper replacement. If Enrique's money allows us to buy taiwo and a good right back I'm convinced that they together will give us more points than what Enrique is singlehandedly is capable of.

You're acting like the club is doomed when it comes to finding a good replacement. Its more to do with the club selling it's best players, rather than building a team around them. We should be looking to keep the likes of Enrique rather than listen to offers from the likes of Liverpool. It also means that we now have to go out and find a replacement, which will take up time and effort that should be given to finding new forwards and decent squad players. You're turning everything upside down. Everybody is blaming the club because it's not trying to keep its best players. But what should Pards do? He knows that the only way he could keep enrique is through offering him the same wages as lpool, around 80 a week. Enrique is good, but he's not worth £80 a week! We'll find continental players with the same potential that settles for 1/3 of that salary. Right now, we cannot afford to match Enrique "ambitions" (read salary). If a player refuses to sign, the club has to sell him. Do you want him to leave for free? I agree that we must build a team, but the reality of giving Enrique a lucrative contract is that our war chest is reduced accordingly. Enrique on 80 a week for 5 years= £20 mill pounds. That's over half of Carroll's money. Consequently we only have £15 mill pounds to buy a two new attackers, a rm, lm, and defensive reinforcements. Of course we'll be covered on lb for years, but Enriques new salary results in us having no money to buy a a proper backup. And we're not able to fork out good money on promising attackers. Instead we will be dependent on Carr making Tiote discoveries again, which is very unlikely. So instead of buying 5-6 very promising players this summer, we're stuck with 3-4 mediocre ones, at best. In reality then, Enrique must fill the shoes for those good players we miss out on. That will in sum leads to a weaker team, than a team without Enrique. And if Enrique is given that amount, what's stopping Barton from claiming similar wages during his contract negotiations? And maybe it will p*ss HBA off too, since he's arguably the best player in the club, but is earning probably 2/3 of Enrique. Giving one player special treatment will start a "salary spiral" that could potentially unsettle the whole player group, which is something I do not want. ...and I stopped reading. Which, incidentally, is a lot longer than I give the vast majority of your posts. Yeah of course, I'm just jabbering about..I know that it's hard for you to read post that actually try to substantiate the arguments fronted. Enrique on £80 a week is not unlikely when you consider how much mediocre players are on.. Carew earned £65 in Villa and Pedersen nets a cool £55 in Blackburn. And Bullard is on £45 in Championship.

You're acting like the club is doomed when it comes to finding a good replacement. Its more to do with the club selling it's best players, rather than building a team around them. We should be looking to keep the likes of Enrique rather than listen to offers from the likes of Liverpool. It also means that we now have to go out and find a replacement, which will take up time and effort that should be given to finding new forwards and decent squad players. You're turning everything upside down. Everybody is blaming the club because it's not trying to keep its best players. But what should Pards do? He knows that the only way he could keep enrique is through offering him the same wages as lpool, around 80 a week. Enrique is good, but he's not worth £80 a week! We'll find continental players with the same potential that settles for 1/3 of that salary. Right now, we cannot afford to match Enrique "ambitions" (read salary). If a player refuses to sign, the club has to sell him. Do you want him to leave for free? I agree that we must build a team, but the reality of giving Enrique a lucrative contract is that our war chest is reduced accordingly. Enrique on 80 a week for 5 years= £20 mill . That's over half of Carroll's money. Consequently we only have £15 mill to buy a two new attackers, a rm, lm, and defensive reinforcements. Of course we'll be covered on lb for years, but Enriques new salary results in us having no money to buy a a proper backup. What will then happen if Enrique suddenly is injured for 6 months?And we're not able to fork out good money on promising attackers. Instead we will be dependent on Carr making Tiote discoveries again, which is very unlikely. So instead of buying 5-6 very promising players this summer, we're stuck with 3-4 mediocre ones, at best. In reality then, Enrique must fill the shoes for those good players we miss out on. That will in sum leads to a weaker team, than a team without Enrique. And if Enrique is given that amount, what's stopping Barton from claiming similar wages during his contract negotiations? And maybe it will p*ss HBA off too, since he's arguably the best player in the club, but is earning probably 2/3 of Enrique. Giving one player special treatment will start a "salary spiral" that could potentially unsettle the whole player group, which is something I do not want.

In all honesty, I don't think Lpool is the only club interested in him. So hopefully there will be a bidding war..

The only way we will be able to compete with them in the battle of keeping/buying experienced pl-players is through paying similar wages. We have shown before that this is not exactly a sound strategy for success. The best way for us to beat them is through buying smarter and cheaper. As I've said, many sees the sale of Enrique as an automatic loss for the club. We're selling a good player to one of our competitors. But it's not certain that Enrique will play well in Lpool. He will be put under much more pressure. Also, we should not underestimate Jonas' contribution defensively. It's not certain that Enrique will get the similar support in Lpool. Lastly, we must remember that Lpool is paying us money which we can use to our advantage. We'll only miss Enrique as long as we fail to buy a good replacement. You're acting like the club is doomed when it comes to finding a good replacement.

This!

Neeh

I know you were joking, but I'm serious Aanholt has impressed me each time I've seen him. Sadly for him, he got Cole in his way. He got everything a modern fb needs. Pace, technique and his crossers are excellent. He was one Chelsea's best in the cup-game against us.

His passing has improved by each game after taking over for Taylor..Rock solid yesterday.

I'm more concerned about who the club have in mind as a replacement. Can honestly see us signing a Van Aanholt type player, hoping that they'll be good enough. Imo Aanholt is a good replacement. From the few games I've seen from him, he's already as good as Enrique offensively. The question is: can he cope defensively?

I've never said it will be easy, but it's possible. Unlike before, we now do our groundwork before buying any player, and we have a good network that hopefully will notice players worth purchasing.

We have progressed tremendously this season. And we got a solid transfer kitty. Most of the so called experts expected relegation. And I was happy as long as we stayed up. Now however our current positon is obviously not good enough. Who the hell expected that Nolan would score 12 goals, or that we would sign HBA or making the bargain of the century in Tiote. Isn't that progress? Colocho: You got to define progress. If you want silverware regardless of the cost (in other words: paying inflated wages, buying players we cannot afford etc.) we have not progressed. However, if you on the other hand define progress as focus on talents, a sane wage policy and good economical footing we have made huge steps compared to our previous situation. Getting our economy under control is what eventually gives us the results on the pitch. Many clubs have the opposite thought process: They believe that spending every cent on the squad that will automatically lead to results and profit. What they tend to forget is that they've initiated a spiral that will swallow each cent earned, as long as the club is not dominating the league year in and year out, which is not very likely. The only way for us to succeed is to wheel and deal for a period.. Selling Enrique for £15 mill is not a step back, unless we're not able to buy proper replacements. Hopefully that will increase our squad depth which enables us to compete for the european spots.

Why?It was the first season he really excelled since he came to the club..And he was not good in the relegation season..After all, nobody tried to buy him when we went down. Again, just how much is silly money in modern football? When at the top of his game and just as effective as say Ashley Cole, or Evra, he is 'worth' £70,000 a week wages, in my opinion. Enrique is good defensively, but he not nearly as contributing in the offensive play compared to Cole, Evra and Baines. Colinmk: Still some doubted ( I was one of them) that Enrique could cope with Pl-football. There's plenty of players that stand out in Championsip but who're utter rubbish in PL. It's not sound to give a man a new £60 000 a year contract based on POTENTIAL pl-ability.

Why?It was the first season he really excelled since he came to the club..And he was not good in the relegation season..After all, nobody tried to buy him when we went down.

Colocho: Silly money as in salary. That's the only reason why I can see Enrique wanting a move to Lpool.