Cheick Tioté (1986–2017)

[Guest malandro]

How can you blame Carr for Tiote's dip in form in his third season?

 

Is he the reason for Cisse and Cabaye's poor form this season too?

 

Obviously f*** all to do with the manager.

 

I'm not. I'm asking if the reason Tiote cost £3m is because there are issues with his game that weren't quickly apparent, and not because GC was the only scout in Europe who recognised his hidden brilliance.

 

It's an import question because the club's transfer policy is heavily dependent on GC and his much hyped (and possibly exaggerated) ability to spot the potential in players lesser scouts can't.

 

[Guest tollemache]

I don't see how you can do a better job as a scout than find a player for £3m who subsequently sets the league alight and finds himself linked with big money moves to top clubs. If the brief is to find players with great resale value, that's about as good as it gets. If the brief had been to find superstars no matter what their value, then you'd have some justification for quibbling over the signing of Tiote, but it wasn't. He could play like dogshite for the rest of the season and we'd almost certainly still make a decent profit on him.

 

Or do you think it's fair to demand more of Carr? That he should sign players for under £5m whose form never ever dips? We don't know exactly how much Cabaye cost, but that's a Champions League-standard playmaker... I mean, he's clearly done an absolutely superb job

[Guest malandro]

I'm not criticising GC. I'm questioning if his ability has been overhyped. As you say if selling players for more than we pay for them is the club's only objective he's done a good job, but there's more to scouting than being able to spot a bargain. Bringing in Chopra on a free and selling him for £500k might generate a transfer profit but wouldn't be of any benefit to building a good team, in the same way bringing in Oberton and Marveux has been a waste of time....

 

Tiote is a one trick pony. His passing ability is poor. His shooting is poor. All he can do is break up play and he can't even manage that without getting booked every other game. He also still hasn't learnt to stop taking risks around his own penalty area, which suggests he plays the way he plays and can't adapt. He was good value at £3m and the club would make a decent profit if they sold him next month, but in terms of building a competitive team that plays attractive football he isn't good enough.

 

[Guest tollemache]

Disagree. He's shown he's a really good player, he's just not playing well at the moment. There was nothing at all wrong with his distribution last season for example. He can do it, and he has. I don't see any reason to write him off as a dud

[Guest malandro]

He's not a dud, and I never said he was. He's OK. Better than the £3m we paid for him but nowhere near as good as his hype. More Winston Palacios than Claude Makélélé. More importantly he demonstrates that no matter how good GCs bargain hunting is building a team by targeting bargains is a game of chance not a coherent strategy.

 

Interesting article in today's Journal about AP telling him to curb his aggression, or in other words telling him to stop using his biggest (and possibly only) strength to avoid getting booked.

 

[Mick]

Disagree. He's shown he's a really good player, he's just not playing well at the moment. There was nothing at all wrong with his distribution last season for example. He can do it, and he has. I don't see any reason to write him off as a dud

 

His distribution was a problem last season when he came back from injury or suspension, not that he's a poor footballer.  He does struggle though when he's been out of the team for whatever reason and this season he's still struggling and been in the team for about a month since he was injured.

[Guest micky_123]

Tiote has been absolutely hopeless this season. Reckless challenge after reckless challenge every game, as well as giving the ball away over and over again when he isn't even under pressure. He did this last season as well to a lesser extent. If one of our other midfielders has put in the performance he did against Fulham everybody would be furious.

[Guest tollemache]

He's not a dud, and I never said he was. He's OK. Better than the £3m we paid for him but nowhere near as good as his hype. More Winston Palacios than Claude Makélélé. More importantly he demonstrates that no matter how good GCs bargain hunting is building a team by targeting bargains is a game of chance not a coherent strategy.

 

Interesting article in today's Journal about AP telling him to curb his aggression, or in other words telling him to stop using his biggest (and possibly only) strength to avoid getting booked.

 

Targeting bargains is not a coherent strategy if what you want is to immediately have a superb team, but if you're good at it (which we seem to be), it's a great way to make sure you're upwardly mobile.

[Guest malandro]

In terms of team building its a farce. Consider Cisse, he may or may not rediscover some of last seasons from but he is a poor partner for Ba, who we signed because he was available on a free. Our resale value transfer strategy results in making it up as we go along team building, which isn't a basis for sustained progress.

 

We need a left back but won't sign one because we can't get a bargain. We need a CH but won't sign one because GC can't pull a rabbit out of the hat. We need a left sided midfielder but bought Marveux because his injury record made him cheap.

 

It's crap.

 

[Guest malandro]

He's not a dud, and I never said he was. He's OK. Better than the £3m we paid for him but nowhere near as good as his hype. More Winston Palacios than Claude Makélélé. More importantly he demonstrates that no matter how good GCs bargain hunting is building a team by targeting bargains is a game of chance not a coherent strategy.

 

Interesting article in today's Journal about AP telling him to curb his aggression, or in other words telling him to stop using his biggest (and possibly only) strength to avoid getting booked.

 

Targeting bargains is not a coherent strategy if what you want is to immediately have a superb team, but if you're good at it (which we seem to be), it's a great way to make sure you're upwardly mobile.

 

When we sold Carroll do you think we targeted Ba as a replacement and it was just good luck that WH got relegated making him available on a free? If WH had stayed up would we have paid top wack to get him to SJP because AP saw him as the type of player we needed to build a team that plays the type of football he wants to play? Or did the club just look at who they could get on the cheap without any thought about developing a coherent style of play?

 

[Mick]

In terms of team building its a farce. Consider Cisse, he may or may not rediscover some of last seasons from but he is a poor partner for Ba, who we signed because he was available on a free. Our resale value transfer strategy results in making it up as we go along team building, which isn't a basis for sustained progress.

 

We need a left back but won't sign one because we can't get a bargain. We need a CH but won't sign one because GC can't pull a rabbit out of the hat. We need a left sided midfielder but bought Marveux because his injury record made him cheap.

 

It's crap.

 

 

Ba and Cisse worked last season, they don't work this season because we're not playing them the same way that did work.

[Guest tollemache]

I think when we sold Carroll there's a good chance we'd already targeted Cisse, not Ba.

 

I think we signed Ba because his record suggested he'd probably score f*ckloads of goals if he was fit, and because he was free. There's no chance we'd have considered paying much of a fee for him, if any, because of his knee. I think in light of Cisse's signing it's quite likely Ba was the one glaring example of winging it but the other signings have all made some kind of sense as far as their function within the team goes.

 

Cisse they were at pains to say they'd been watching for ages (no coincidence that the fee was a bit higher). Given that Cisse came after Ba and was clearly the more considered signing, you can only conclude that either they felt he would be a good partner for Ba and were simply wrong, that he was so good he just had to be signed no matter what even though we already had Ba, that Ba remained an injury risk, or that he might leave for cheap thanks to his release clause. Maybe a bit of each. It's hard to know really... It's also hard to imagine a £9m signing like that being motivated only by resale value because unless he really took off we'd never get our money back.

 

Part of going for resale value is trying to get players for cheap, yes, but the other crucial component is that you stick to signing players you think are really really good and can become part of the team for years to come. It's not about sacrificing quality so you can save a few pennies, so I don't think Marveaux and Amalfitano were straighforward examples of plumping for a s*** player because they're cheap. I think Carr thought they had a chance of being really good.

 

I've said before that I thought missing out on Debuchy by refusing to go any higher was arguably a good sign, and that if we stuck to a sensible policy like that we'd have some dud transfer windows for sure but on the whole we'd most likely end up building something decent. It's the exact opposite of make-it-up-as-you-go-along really, in that the emphasis is on identifying good long-term bets and if you can't sign them, signing nobody and waiting til someone else comes up who fits your profile. I don't deny that there will be some rank opportunism along the way - if you see what you think is a bargain you can make a few quid on, you take it, a la Ba - but it is also about sticking to your plan. The signing of Cisse shows that if we think a player is really worth spending a bit more on, we'll do it. The fact we signed him even as Ba was banging the goals in shows that we don't necessarily care when we make the signing as long as it's a good one.

 

I think I'll be a bit concerned if there are two dud transfer windows in a row, but so far the policy we're sticking to has tended to work, bringing in Cabaye, Ba, Cisse, Ben Arfa, Tiote and Santon without making a loss. I'd be surprised if we didn't do anything in January. If we get a decent centre half for a decent price in the next window, we'll feel a lot better about not overspending on one in the last window.

 

I swear I'm not employed by the club - these are my real opinions. 

 

 

 

[JH]

How can we blame Carr?? We're going to get £60m off the Tiote sale when we sell him to Arsenal, Man U and Chelsea in January - result!

[The College Dropout]

In the midfield we have today, he's most likely going to have to try and create stuff. He'll fail at that side.

[Cajun]

In the midfield we have today, he's most likely going to have to try and create stuff. He'll fail at that side.

 

I hope Anita takings the attacking responsibility.

[Guest palnese]

What a fucking shite season he's having.

[NEEJ]

Fucking liability.

[54]

Thought he's been doing well today.

[Andymc1]

Thought he's been doing well today.

 

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[Dyeyzzon]

Tackling and Work rate -

Concentration -

[Guest palnese]

He's been poor imo.

[Geordie Ahmed]

Thought he's been doing well today.

 

Agreed, lost the ball a couple of times BUT has won a fair few tackles, needs to stop the Hollywood balls

 

[Tooj]

Fuck off shooting man.

[Guest tollemache]

It does upset me when he shoots

[durhamunigeordie]

Just needs to do what he does best and stop trying to be creative.