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2022/23 Kevin Thelwell

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Toffe3m4n said:
Has literally had one window where he's improved the squad and, based on the paper mill at least, has been identifying some really good players in general so far.

Can we not just give things a proper chance ffs?? lol
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No he hasn't

He couldn't have spent the Richarlison money much worse. We had 60m to go and replace his goals and instead we signed a load of rubbish midfielders who can't pass, tackle or shoot. £60m to reinvest and we end up with McNeil and Maupay? That's inexcusable.

Why would we want to give someone so bad another window? Fans could see he was making big errors, so how does that fill anyone with any confidence.
 
Toffe3m4n said:
Has literally had one window where he's improved the squad and, based on the paper mill at least, has been identifying some really good players in general so far.

Can we not just give things a proper chance ffs?? lol
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I agree that he needs a chance to have an impact, but there's very little evidence to back up the idea that he's improved the squad.
 
ToffeeTim said:
No he hasn't

He couldn't have spent the Richarlison money much worse. We had 60m to go and replace his goals and instead we signed a load of rubbish midfielders who can't pass, tackle or shoot. £60m to reinvest and we end up with McNeil and Maupay? That's inexcusable.

Why would we want to give someone so bad another window? Fans could see he was making big errors, so how does that fill anyone with any confidence.
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Lanolin said:
I agree that he needs a chance to have an impact, but there's very little evidence to back up the idea that he's improved the squad.
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Both nuts takes lol

I can agree that McNeil & Maupay have largely flattered to deceive given the circumstances, but to write off young Onana and suggest that Tarkowski & Coady weren't extremely good signings is just flat out disingenuous. I also still think bringing Gana back was a good move despite him being poor this month.
 
Toffe3m4n said:
Both nuts takes lol

I can agree that McNeil & Maupay have largely flattered to deceive given the circumstances, but to write off young Onana and suggest that Tarkowski & Coady weren't extremely good signings is just flat out disingenuous. I also still think bringing Gana back was a good move despite him being poor this month.
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I haven't written off Coady or Tarkowski. They are the two signings I like a lot, and I've wanted Tarkowski for years. But one was free and the other a loan.

We had the £60m to reinvest in other areas and couldn't have spent it any worse.

Onana is not ready to play regularly in this league and is a long term project. To spend 30m on a player who needs lots of time was not smart with our tight finances.

Gueye is just a sentimental decision and his performances are rubbish. Garner doesn't even play and then got hurt after 1 start. What a pointless signing.

And that's before we even get to McNeil and Maupay. 2 totally bizarre signings.

The argument the squad is improved doesn't stack up. The only area the team has clearly improved is at centre half. Midfield is still very poor, might be marginally better, but certainly nothing significant. Up top we have regressed enormously and that's where games are won and lost. Overall, we are a far far worse team without Richarlison. We may as well have kept an unhappy player if this was the hap hazard way we intended to reinvest the money.
 
ToffeeTim said:
I haven't written off Coady or Tarkowski. They are the two signings I like a lot, and I've wanted Tarkowski for years. But one was free and the other a loan.

We had the £60m to reinvest in other areas and couldn't have spent it any worse.

Onana is not ready to play regularly in this league and is a long term project. To spend 30m on a player who needs lots of time was not smart with our tight finances.

Gueye is just a sentimental decision and his performances are rubbish. Garner doesn't even play and then got hurt after 1 start. What a pointless signing.

And that's before we even get to McNeil and Maupay. 2 totally bizarre signings.

The argument the squad is improved doesn't stack up. The only area the team has clearly improved is at centre half. Midfield is still very poor, might be marginally better, but certainly nothing significant. Up top we have regressed enormously and that's where games are won and lost. Overall, we are a far far worse team without Richarlison. We may as well have kept an unhappy player if this was the hap hazard way we intended to reinvest the money.
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We didn't have 60m to reinvest though.

A) it was 50m up front wasn't it?
B) we had to sell to balance the books, which is why it was only 50m and rushed through. By issue of needing it to balance the books, it means that at least part of it, had to fill that hole, so we couldn't reinvest all of it (and is the reason we had to make deals like onana with 8m up front mcneil with 4m up front).
 

ToffeeTim said:
I haven't written off Coady or Tarkowski. They are the two signings I like a lot, and I've wanted Tarkowski for years. But one was free and the other a loan.

We had the £60m to reinvest in other areas and couldn't have spent it any worse.

Onana is not ready to play regularly in this league and is a long term project. To spend 30m on a player who needs lots of time was not smart with our tight finances.

Gueye is just a sentimental decision and his performances are rubbish. Garner doesn't even play and then got hurt after 1 start. What a pointless signing.

And that's before we even get to McNeil and Maupay. 2 totally bizarre signings.

The argument the squad is improved doesn't stack up. The only area the team has clearly improved is at centre half. Midfield is still very poor, might be marginally better, but certainly nothing significant. Up top we have regressed enormously and that's where games are won and lost. Overall, we are a far far worse team without Richarlison. We may as well have kept an unhappy player if this was the hap hazard way we intended to reinvest the money.
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I firmly believe that he made moves in the summer to further bulster the attacking options but ultimately time & cost played a big part. Getting Kudus through the door before Ajax pulled the plug could've transformed us for instance, but it wasn't to be. Can't fault Thelwell there IMO.

No one really knows how much of the Richarlison money was reinvested directly back into the squad given our financial situation. It's clear the plan in the summer was to buy 2-3 new players for each area of the pitch that would be upgrades on the outgoings (i.e. not to directly replace Richarlison) and I still believe he succeeded by and large - just the Kudus thing and the Dom injury basically saw us looking very light up top at the start of the season and we've never really gotten going from an attacking perspective since. I think both he & Lampard also expected goals to be spread out a bit more but evidently they've probably expected too much of Gordon & Gray in particular.

I keep saying on here Tim that January is massive. Ask me again his stance on him once that window is shut - if naff all happens and we continue to struggle then my view is of course going to change. All I'm saying is that he's had one summer where he's made some encouraging signings - just because things have gone south over the last month doesn't mean he should be punted yet.
 
Toffe3m4n said:
Both nuts takes lol

I can agree that McNeil & Maupay have largely flattered to deceive given the circumstances, but to write off young Onana and suggest that Tarkowski & Coady weren't extremely good signings is just flat out disingenuous. I also still think bringing Gana back was a good move despite him being poor this month.
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Well speaking of nuts takes, neither of us said anything remotely like what you're suggesting.

I'm just saying that at this moment in time it's very difficult to say that the squad has improved. Results certainly haven't, and neither has the style of play, so I'm not entirely sure what metric you're using to say it's improved.
 
Marius57 said:
We didn't have 60m to reinvest though.

A) it was 50m up front wasn't it?
B) we had to sell to balance the books, which is why it was only 50m and rushed through. By issue of needing it to balance the books, it means that at least part of it, had to fill that hole, so we couldn't reinvest all of it (and is the reason we had to make deals like onana with 8m up front mcneil with 4m up front).
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Up front fees aren't what matters for financial fair play
 
ToffeeTim said:
No he hasn't

He couldn't have spent the Richarlison money much worse. We had 60m to go and replace his goals and instead we signed a load of rubbish midfielders who can't pass, tackle or shoot. £60m to reinvest and we end up with McNeil and Maupay? That's inexcusable.

Why would we want to give someone so bad another window? Fans could see he was making big errors, so how does that fill anyone with any confidence.
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To be fair they have both scored more than Richarlison this season...

Scored more than he had at this point last season too.

Richarlison offered more than just goals of course.
 

ForeverBlue92 said:
The manager clearly thought Dominic Calvert-Lewin could stay fit and have Maupay as someone to come off the bench for the last 10-15 mins and be a nuisance with his pressing.

Also worth remembering Thelwell loves 352 so maybe signed him with that formation in mind until Lampard switched from 3 at the back to the 433.

God knows but one things for certain at £15 millions he isn't a "bad signing" in the right set up. Currently we're failing to get the best outta him imo.
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Eh? Calvert-Lewin was injured when we brought in Maupay. He was literally brought in to go straight into the team, as happened. Your mate ‘big Kev’ had a mare here.
 

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