Would prefer Mina and Godfrey, Mina for height and experience, Godfrey for aggression and pace.
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Would prefer Mina and Godfrey, Mina for height and experience, Godfrey for aggression and pace.
phil_t98
Player Valuation: £6m
Keane seems to be a much better player when he plays alongside Mina, similar to how Allen plays much better when along side Decoure
The problem with this strategy is that when managers inevitably fail and get sacked, that the next manager ends up with their expensive ageing dregs and we can never get rid of them. Like Silva ended up with Schneiderlin, Walcott and Tosun, Carlo was saddled with Delph and Bernard, Benitez has been saddled with Allan. These are players bought with no resale value in order to make an instant impact, they never made that instant impact and now every one of them will have left on a free despite costing us combined about £100m. The point in having a director of football was to stop managers bringing in these short term fixes, yet we’ve allowed every manager to do it. Our player trading strategy has been appalling.
Keane would be even better playing at another club, as far away from GP as possible please.
Mina is finished here also, an absolute flop of a signing.
Decent player but the heart of a tiny door mouse.
Fair comment but I worry about the severe lack of pace in the middle with them two in and we have to give up a lot of the pitch because we have to defend deep.
kenada_blue
Welcome to Barcelonaton FC
Of course. But that isn't how you build a team, that's how you run a business. Moyes never did that and he was hamstrung with sell to buy for his whole tenure.
I get we have to do that but that's only 1 part of the game.
Again, I just disagree with the whole age thing. You buy right, age doesn't matter.
That is how you build a team in the long run. Look around at the top clubs, how many 28 year olds do they buy? Bar the very occasional exception they don’t do it, they buy younger players with the intention of having them grow into a cohesive team by the time they’re that age. Whether we like it or not, Liverpool are the perfect example of how you properly build a team, apart from Thiago they haven’t spent money on anyone over 27 under Klopp. I don’t know how you can disagree with that model tbh.
Tbf to the new lad, Digne had played in top leagues for top teams before coming here and was also a member of arguably the best international setup at the time.
If the new kid can come in and remain a steady presence whilst he gets up to speed, I’ll be happy.
phil_t98
Player Valuation: £6m
We haven’t got pace anywhere in the team, Digne not got massive pace either. We have let better players go and we have survived. Remember when Jeffers was awesome with us, Rodwell as well and they went on to do nothing. We are bigger than one player. I think if Rafael wasn’t the manager and the same thing happened they nobody would have an issue
Spot on that, if that is your strategy, the only way it's going to work is it you can afford or attract the top of the range players at their peak like, dare I say it VanDyke.
Even he was 26 when they bought him, just entering his peak and not ready to come out of it. Plus he’s a centre back who has never relied on pace, so they would always get that extra few years out of him. I’d have no problem if that was the profile of player we were spending the money on. Apart from the injuries Mina would’ve been our version of that, I don’t have any problem with that signing in theory, it’s just been incredibly unfortunate that he’s so injury prone.
First season i thought Bernard was fine played really well, then he tailed off spectacularly, but I thought that pairing did not create enough goals or score enough between them. Though this could be my memory failing me. I know I did enjoy watching Bernard play that first season, though I feel there was never enough end product no matter how pretty it looked.
Benitez was the one airing the dirty washing in the media, Digne said nothing.
He tailed off because we stopped picking him really but i agree he wasn't the answer as a first choice pick but thats not really the point instead of getting a better version of Bernard we just changed the whole thing and stopped playing that way. Silva had a lot of faults but when we were good in his first season we played football 10 times better than anything we've played since and thats when Digne was flying because he's a player who suits that style.
phil_t98
Player Valuation: £6m
To be fair for weeks Rafael said nothing and the fans were saying it was all his fault. He set the record straight that’s it
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