The Europeometer™ (2023/24)

[Ronaldo]

5 hours ago, The College Dropout said:

And finished 16th. 
 

I don’t look at this squad and think ‘top 6 no excuses’. It’s too thin.  Not enough quality. Some bad luck with injuries and/or an extended European campaign and we could easily finish behind 6 or 7 other clubs without doing too much wrong. 

That’s the point surely. We finished 4th way ahead of Villa and Brighton etc last season and they’ve got more matches too. Spurs have lost their best player. The whole point of the transfer window was to prepare for those additional fixtures and try to consolidate our place, surely? If we finish 7th or 8th the owner will ask why the money was spent as it was on players who thus far aren’t able / being allowed to contribute. 

[madras]

2 hours ago, Ronaldo said:

That’s the point surely. We finished 4th way ahead of Villa and Brighton etc last season and they’ve got more matches too. Spurs have lost their best player. The whole point of the transfer window was to prepare for those additional fixtures and try to consolidate our place, surely? If we finish 7th or 8th the owner will ask why the money was spent as it was on players who thus far aren’t able / being allowed to contribute. 

Way ahead ? From when Emery arrived at Villa I think they were equal if not better points wise. That was skewed by Gerrard being so bad and it's easier to rotate/rest players V the current Ajax and Alkmaar teams than Dortmund or PSG.

[r0cafella]

4 minutes ago, madras said:

Way ahead ? From when Emery arrived at Villa I think they were equal if not better points wise. That was skewed by Gerrard being so bad and it's easier to rotate/rest players V the current Ajax and Alkmaar teams than Dortmund or PSG.

Villa is an interesting case, I really feel we made a mistake passing up on Diaby and Kamara. Kamara on a free was a no brainer. 

[Lush Vlad]

Think Kamara is on decent wages? Might be able to pay certain players that now. But I don’t think we were in a position to at the time. £150k a week he’s reportedly on? 
 

I hear ya, though. A lot of the players we were constantly linked with are now looking really good. Szob, Maddison, Diaby….. Whilst we have Barnes injured and Tonali banned for the season. 

[r0cafella]

1 minute ago, Lush Vlad said:

Think Kamara is on decent wages? Might be able to pay certain players that now. But I don’t think we were in a position to at the time. £150k a week he’s reportedly on? 
 

I hear ya, though. A lot of the players we were constantly linked with are now looking really good. Szob, Maddison, Diaby….. Whilst we have Barnes injured and Tonali banned for the season. 

Absolutely he’s on decent wages, he commands the premium by running his contract down. I mean we’ve paid Tonali the same as what Villa have paid Kamara and given ours also cost us a massive fee I’m not sure why it would have been stumbling block. 
 

And I’m not criticising the club here, it’s just in order to bridge the gap we have to be creative. 

[SUPERTOON]

1 hour ago, r0cafella said:

Villa is an interesting case, I really feel we made a mistake passing up on Diaby and Kamara. Kamara on a free was a no brainer. 

Diaby looks great, I think Emery has moved him more central though to negate his lack of defensive work.

[SUPERTOON]

3 hours ago, Ronaldo said:

That’s the point surely. We finished 4th way ahead of Villa and Brighton etc last season and they’ve got more matches too. Spurs have lost their best player. The whole point of the transfer window was to prepare for those additional fixtures and try to consolidate our place, surely? If we finish 7th or 8th the owner will ask why the money was spent as it was on players who thus far aren’t able / being allowed to contribute. 

You can’t compare villa playing in the conference league to us playing in the champions league.

[r0cafella]

2 minutes ago, SUPERTOON said:

Diaby looks great, I think Emery has moved him more central though to negate his lack of defensive work.

Absolutely but I also like villas approach, they bought players who come in and improve the fire 11, it’s the way to go imo. 

[Lush Vlad]

1 minute ago, r0cafella said:

Absolutely he’s on decent wages, he commands the premium by running his contract down. I mean we’ve paid Tonali the same as what Villa have paid Kamara and given ours also cost us a massive fee I’m not sure why it would have been stumbling block. 
 

And I’m not criticising the club here, it’s just in order to bridge the gap we have to be creative. 

Didn’t Kamara sign at the start of last season? Not sure it is comparable to this season’s window myself. Seems like it would have meant breaking the wage structure pretty early on after the takeover. He would have been our highest earner by some way if the numbers are even remotely accurate. 
 

I think you can question the policy this window a bit, for sure. But I don’t think Kamara from last season feels like one that got away, personally. 

[SUPERTOON]

2 minutes ago, r0cafella said:

Absolutely but I also like villas approach, they bought players who come in and improve the fire 11, it’s the way to go imo. 

Yep, definitely agree with that although I think they had a better squad with than us, it was just being ruined by Gerrard. We had a lot more work to do to improve the depth of our squad than them.

 

 

[r0cafella]

2 minutes ago, Lush Vlad said:

Didn’t Kamara sign at the start of last season? Not sure it is comparable to this season’s window myself. Seems like it would have meant breaking the wage structure pretty early on after the takeover. He would have been our highest earner by some way if the numbers are even remotely accurate. 
 

I think you can question the policy this window a bit, for sure. But I don’t think Kamara from last season feels like one that got away, personally. 

It was an example of missing out on opportunities to improve our first 11, he’s a great example because he was free. And we lost out to Villa who can afford his wages but we can’t?

[The Prophet]

You can't really account for your two most expensive signings receiving a ban for activities outside of your control and breaking their foot accelerating.

 

 

Edited October 29, 2023 by The Prophet

[nufcnick]

22 minutes ago, r0cafella said:

It was an example of missing out on opportunities to improve our first 11, he’s a great example because he was free. And we lost out to Villa who can afford his wages but we can’t?

It wasn’t that we couldn’t afford his wages, we weren’t willing to shatter our wage structure for him(other players would have came for pay rises, if we paid him £150k a week). we had no guarantees that we could get out of the shitty sponsorship contracts that the fat parasite left us with or qualify for Europe, we have £14m of amortisations + wages dropping of next year plus new sponsorships starting, which should mean we can spend in January(2 x £30m players I’m my fat packet maths is correct) and a further £43m +wages dropping off the following January. 
 

wouldn’t surprise me if we do go all out for Calvin Philips in January with an option and a striker. 

 

 

Edited October 29, 2023 by nufcnick

[r0cafella]

1 minute ago, nufcnick said:

It wasn’t that we couldn’t afford his wages, we weren’t willing to shatter our wage structure for him(other players would have came for pay rises, if we paid him £150k a week). we had no guarantees that we could get out of the shitty sponsorship contracts that the fat parasite left us with or qualify for Europe, we have £14m of amortisations + wages dropping of next year plus new sponsorships starting, which should mean we can spend in January(2 x £30m players I’m my fat packet maths is correct) and a further £43m +wages dropping off the following January. 

He was free, his salary was say 30k per week above our structure, if you actually factor in Bruno’s salary plus transfer fee amortisation the package we bought him for is the same ball park. 
 

So not only would he have improved us, he would have also been an absolute no brainer as worst comes to worst he doesn’t work out and you flip him for both a real and FFP profit. 
 

We have to improve our player trading, it’s this what has allowed chelsea to spend a billion (no I don’t want is to become like Chelsea just illustrating a point). 
 

[The Prophet]

Tactically and transfer wise, the only thing I'm unsure about is the decision to play without a number six (or four if you prefer). I appreciate Howe's vision is to play with three dynamic all rounders and it could well end up working for us, but the very best sides in the world play with a variation of that position. You only have to go back to Wednesday where a midfielder drifting into the space between the defence and midfield hurt us, despite it being an excellent goal.

[KingArthur]

I still think people expect too much too soon. Like complaining about getting Livramento and Hall. We are building for the future, not the present. We are expecting to be at the very top in 4-5 years time, not every year after one UCL-place. Our squad is way too thin and way too weak. We need 3,4 or 5 signings like Tonali or Bruno or Botman. Top teams have wage bill 2-3 times bigger than us, of course they are going to attract better players. 

We are not getting top 4 this season, but we will be about top 6-7 with Villa and ManU. And that is fine, that does not mean we have not progressed. We have.

[r0cafella]

2 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

Tactically and transfer wise, the only thing I'm unsure about is the decision to play without a number six (or four if you prefer). I appreciate Howe's vision is to play with three dynamic all rounders and it could well end up working for us, but the very best sides in the world play with a variation of that position. You only have to go back to Wednesday where a midfielder drifting into the space between the defence and midfield hurt us, despite it being an excellent goal.

Good post.

 

I think the system clearly works very well when we are fresh, and everyone understands the role. The hiccups come when we are beading players in or the fatigue sets in. I can see how on paper, what we did makes a ton of sense. Tonali rotates with Longstaff, Willock rotates with Joelinton and we always have legs in midfield to maintain the high energy style which has given us so much success. 

 

I could be wrong and I'm lazy to check but I'm pretty sure we haven't played a game this season where we haven't had at least two of our central midfielders out. 

[nufcnick]

8 minutes ago, r0cafella said:

He was free, his salary was say 30k per week above our structure, if you actually factor in Bruno’s salary plus transfer fee amortisation the package we bought him for is the same ball park. 
 

So not only would he have improved us, he would have also been an absolute no brainer as worst comes to worst he doesn’t work out and you flip him for both a real and FFP profit. 
 

We have to improve our player trading, it’s this what has allowed chelsea to spend a billion (no I don’t want is to become like Chelsea just illustrating a point). 
 

Chelsea’s Academy and manipulation of the rules(a loophole which have now been closed) is what has allowed them to spend over a billion pounds, not their previous player trading 

[r0cafella]

1 minute ago, nufcnick said:

Chelsea’s Academy and manipulation of the rules(a loophole which have now been closed) is what has allowed them to spend over a billion pounds, not their previous player trading 

Err, Academy players being sold? So player trading yeah? 

[Gawalls]

43 minutes ago, r0cafella said:

Absolutely but I also like villas approach, they bought players who come in and improve the fire 11, it’s the way to go imo. 

We’ve gone that as well since Howe came in with tripps, botman, burn, Bruno, Gordon, isak, barnes - they were all bought for first team improvement with only a couple for long term.

[nufcnick]

1 minute ago, r0cafella said:

Err, Academy players being sold? So player trading yeah? 

So we need to get our academy in order then to produce the players to then sell on

[Gawalls]

11 minutes ago, KingArthur said:

I still think people expect too much too soon. Like complaining about getting Livramento and Hall. We are building for the future, not the present. We are expecting to be at the very top in 4-5 years time, not every year after one UCL-place. Our squad is way too thin and way too weak. We need 3,4 or 5 signings like Tonali or Bruno or Botman. Top teams have wage bill 2-3 times bigger than us, of course they are going to attract better players. 

We are not getting top 4 this season, but we will be about top 6-7 with Villa and ManU. And that is fine, that does not mean we have not progressed. We have.

100% spot on mate ?

[SUPERTOON]

For me last season was a miracle, I never expected us to back it up in terms of a top 4 finish this season as well due to the extra games etc. Top 7 and Europe again would be a success, and with more wiggle room regarding FFP next summer we can have another strong window and be in a much better position squad wise.

[SUPERTOON]

2 minutes ago, nufcnick said:

So we need to get our academy in order then to produce the players to then sell on

We are in the process of doing so, but we won’t see that come to fruition for years.

[NWMag]

It’s worth noting that we have more points now than we did at the same stage last season.

 

I agree there is more competition this year but that also means the points will be more spread out, so I can’t see us needing more than 70 for a top 5 finish. 
 

In terms of signings, it’s quite clear that we overachieved last year/got CL ahead of schedule, and the club are not deviating from their original strategy. 
 

we are only 10 games into the season, just calm down and enjoy the ride.