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Ciaran Clark (now a free agent)


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Just now, Shearergol said:

 

He cost £10.8m. Best value for money signings???

Not necessarily best value, that would probably go to Perez for me, as much as he frustrated the life out of me, but we definitely got the value out of Ritchie in the first 2 seasons and should have moved on then. If we had done he wouldn't be still here, with paceless graft and a final ball being the only things he can potentially offer.

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1 minute ago, kisearch said:

Not necessarily best value, that would probably go to Perez for me, as much as he frustrated the life out of me, but we definitely got the value out of Ritchie in the first 2 seasons and should have moved on then. If we had done he wouldn't be still here, with paceless graft and a final ball being the only things he can potentially offer.

 

And that's the point - if we spent £10m on him, got two good seasons out of him and then got rid of him, we'd all consider him an excellent signing. However, the last 3 years he's been rubbish, there's no way we can consider a £10m player in the championship amazing value for money when he's still here stinking up the place. 

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Bit amazed that it's seen as a controversial take tbh. Again, I'm not saying he's top of the pile, and Bellamy/Robert would obviously come way above thanks to their impact. And you've got the likes of Perez, Ba, HBA and probably Cabaye who also beat him if only for the fact that they were so cheap. But £10.8m is nowt and considering it's basically identical to what Robert cost 15 years earlier, then factoring in inflation, it kinda emphasises the point imo. 

 

3 minutes ago, Shearergol said:

 

And that's the point - if we spent £10m on him, got two good seasons out of him and then got rid of him, we'd all consider him an excellent signing. However, the last 3 years he's been rubbish, there's no way we can consider a £10m player in the championship amazing value for money when he's still here stinking up the place. 

 

But this is the overall point I'm making. Imo his performances over the last three seasons don't negate the impact he had initially, or take away the achievements which get him the accolade of "one of our best signings of the past 20 years."

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2 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

Bit amazed that it's seen as a controversial take tbh. Again, I'm not saying he's top of the pile, and Bellamy/Robert would obviously come way above thanks to their impact. And you've got the likes of Perez, Ba, HBA and probably Cabaye who also beat him if only for the fact that they were so cheap. But £10.8m is nowt and considering it's basically identical to what Robert cost 15 years earlier, then factoring in inflation, it kinda emphasises the point imo. 

 

 

But this is the overall point I'm making. Imo his performances over the last three seasons don't negate the impact he had initially, or take away the achievements which get him the accolade of "one of our best signings of the past 20 years."

 

We'll never agree on it, not a problem. At the time £10.80m was expensive for the league we were in (I believe the 3rd most expensive signing at the time?). I just don't think I rated him as much as you did.

 

Incidentally, I didn't realise Hendrick was once a £10m player :lol:

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No idea if Dubravka called it as his or not.  But either way, I feel like a good chunk of blame has to go towards Clark.  Whatever level you play at or watch.  You regularly see keepers call for balls and the defender will just clear their lines and make sure, if they are in a decent position to do so.  The fact it's on his head and ducks out the way at the very last second, leaving Dubravka looking a bit confused and wrong footed, is absolutely criminal.  You're just effectively letting the ball go across your 6 yard box, not knowing what is behind you.  

 

All that said, I've watched it back this morning and Dubs looks a bit hesitant, comes to his near post, seems to shout something and then just stops.  You'd like to think if there was a call for him to claim it, he would have came towards the ball and Clark would have tried to move out of his way and not just duck at the last second. 

 

Complete clusterfuck at the back yet again, though.  Gifting a goal to the best team in the country after 5 minutes.  It was game over already at that point and again, it's self-inflicted. 

 

 

Edited by Lush Vlad

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6 minutes ago, ManDoon said:

 

I don't particularly think Clark is being lazy or a bottle job thought, Ritchie definitely isn't his legs are just fucked. Clark is making errors, I don't think they are due to him not being arsed though. I don't know what it is, he was prone to it at Villa, he might have lost a yard in his legs, I'm not too sure. I don't think his mistake against City was laziness though, I think it was stupidity.  The first two times I saw him live, he should have gave away a penalty on HBA, then under Rafa he gave a stupid one away. My opinion is he's just not very good in long periods in a team.

Its obvious what has gone on - he is getting older and the game is getting quicker.   Clark was fine 5 years ago, he isn't now, and that can be said for most the squad.  Christ we bought Gayle in 2016 and if he sees out his contract he will leave in 2026 - that statement alone shows you what the new ownership is up against.  Gayle, 10 years at the club, what has he done in that time except get richer?

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On 02/12/2021 at 07:52, La Parka said:

(gomez) He was an eccentric liability. Tim Howard just played forever. 

 

 

 


Howard should have an extra one too if Paul Durkin hadn’t bottled it at Old Trafford.

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5 hours ago, Yorkie said:

Can't add anything beyond what KI said. Definitely not a joke, he was a tremendous signing for his contribution between 2016-18. £10/12/13m, whatever it was, he more than repaid in those two years. 

 

I agree. He played a massive part in getting us straight back up at the 1st time of asking. He's well past his best now but that's hardly his fault. If he's selected to play he'll always give his all. He's just not at the required level now.

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13 hours ago, kisearch said:

Likewise Ritchie. It makes me squirm a bit seeing the pelters he gets when you think back to him being a huge part of us coming up and staying up. The criticism's absolutely fair but it's 99% that he's past it/playing in the wrong position/should have been improved upon ages ago rather than him not putting the graft in.

 

 

 

 

One thing about Ritchie - and I've been as critical as anyone - you can never accuse him of throwing the towel in. Even yesterday when he was beaten at the back post, he was running like hell to get back in position and he was clearly gutted when he didn't make it. I thought him and Joelinton fought harder than anyone else in that game. 

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All these guys had their last best days under Rafa, 18-24 months ago!  Not only have they been coached down but their legs are going.  Clark was a canny player here.  We talked about Lascelles for England.  Schar, Fede, Radgie, Hayden all shined under Rafa and some before.  That was a long fucking time ago.

 

Fuck Mike Ashley and fuck anyone who doubts he fucked his own team over.

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Clark like quite a few others were signed with the objective of getting us promoted, we always thought the plan was to then start building a solid Premier League squad, not immediately but over time

 

Yet here we are 9 windows later and we still have Clark, Lascelles, Ritchie, Gayle, Hayden etc and to compound things we've added Krafth, Manquillo, Hendrick to that list

 

Clark and the others represent the Ashley ownership, it's all about doing things on the cheap

 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Geordie Ahmed said:

Clark like quite a few others were signed with the objective of getting us promoted, we always thought the plan was to then start building a solid Premier League squad, not immediately but over time

 

Yet here we are 9 windows later and we still have Clark, Lascelles, Ritchie, Gayle, Hayden etc and to compound things we've added Krafth, Manquillo, Hendrick to that list

 

Clark and the others represent the Ashley ownership, it's all about doing things on the cheap

 

 

 

 

Not sure about the last sentence, some of the players that have moved through our doors in the Ashley era, under Graham Carr in particular, have been frankly very good, or gone on to be very good. Cabaye, Tiote, Ba, Thauvin*, Debuchy, Enrique, Wijnaldum*, Sissoko* are the some that come to mind, I'm sure there's others that I've missed. Those starred obviously had quality but never showed it here for whatever reason among many at the time.

 

I would say in the past few years the quality of incoming transfer has rapidly declined, coinciding with the loss of Carr as our chief scout. I think we'd do a lot worse than just re-approaching him to be honest.

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1 minute ago, HawK said:

 

Not sure about the last sentence, some of the players that have moved through our doors in the Ashley era, under Graham Carr in particular, have been frankly very good, or gone on to be very good. Cabaye, Tiote, Ba, Thauvin*, Debuchy, Enrique, Wijnaldum*, Sissoko* are the some that come to mind, I'm sure there's others that I've missed. Those starred obviously had quality but never showed it here for whatever reason among many at the time.

 

I would say in the past few years the quality of incoming transfer has rapidly declined, coinciding with the loss of Carr as our chief scout. I think we'd do a lot worse than just re-approaching him to be honest.

 

The names you mention are from 5+ years ago, I should have been more specific in that I'm talking about the second relegation onwards

 

The contract extension for the likes of Clark, Gayle despite clearly not being of the level we need shows it was about saving money

 

Carr clearly identified some good players, him with a bigger budget would be interesting but he is 77 so not sure if he's capable of doing the same level of work 

 

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1 hour ago, Geordie Ahmed said:

 

The names you mention are from 5+ years ago, I should have been more specific in that I'm talking about the second relegation onwards

 

The contract extension for the likes of Clark, Gayle despite clearly not being of the level we need shows it was about saving money

 

Carr clearly identified some good players, him with a bigger budget would be interesting but he is 77 so not sure if he's capable of doing the same level of work 

 

 

For sure we've made some shocking decisions, especially recently, and I was putting  the point across these seem to have gotten worse since Carr has moved on. Our whole infrastructure stunk to the core, and has only gotten worse the longer Ashley has been at the helm and made more and more decisions based on saving £ or minimal investment.

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He was a poor Premier League defender when he was at his peak in a shite Villa side. The fact he’s 32 now and still getting games at this level is terrible.

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29 minutes ago, Optimistic Nut said:

He was a poor Premier League defender when he was at his peak in a shite Villa side. The fact he’s 32 now and still getting games at this level is terrible.

Sums up NUFC under Ashley full stop, the fact we still have half a Championhsip team/squad from our last promotion a few years on says it all.

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2 hours ago, Optimistic Nut said:

He was a poor Premier League defender when he was at his peak in a shite Villa side. The fact he’s 32 now and still getting games at this level is terrible.


Fourth choice in a team that got relegated. Still blows my mind

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 21/12/2021 at 06:54, Raconteur said:


Fourth choice in a team that got relegated. Still blows my mind

Tbf, it's easy to paint every player in a relegated team as shite. 

 

When you look at what was around him there wasn't any real Premier League quality. I think coming here he showed that in a low block he could be a suitable defender. At 32, he's now showing signs of decline and we should move him on. 

 

I'm hoping this new money doesn't make us ungrateful or disrespectful to some of those that performed well and are just sadly no longer up to it. In an ideal world he'd have left a year or two ago and we'd have remembered him fondly. His decision to stay was facilitated by a shite owner, nothing else. 

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