2020/21 Marcel Brands

[Bluestar]

I find it very hard to believe that Ancelotti requested a complete lack of cover in several key areas.

The part you’re missing in your assessments is money. I think that each year we have covered the top three or four priorities. That’s about what we have the money to do. There have been other needs but they are secondary.

For example, this season we decided to go with two right backs, but Coleman has suffered injury and JJK was injured / not good enough. We decided to give JJK a go and didn’t sign Sidebe. We tried to make the space for a younger player but it didn’t work out. We didn’t have the money for another right back. Simples. Plus we avoided Sidebe on a long contract. We can fill the place properly this summer, rather than having another average player on a long contract.
This process is painful now but better in the long run.

 

[ArtetaMoney]

Hopefully the ban on people going abroad means this fraud won't have the chance to put a few weeks of holiday in between June and July, like he usually does.

I'm looking forward to the excuses if he stays and we fail to sign players in positions we need, if I was to guess now I think his ongoing contract talks will be a good one for people to use.

 

[Simon Buttle]

Hopefully the ban on people going abroad means this fraud won't have the chance to put a few weeks of holiday in between June and July, like he usually does.

I'm looking forward to the excuses if he stays and we fail to sign players in positions we need, if I was to guess now I think his ongoing contract talks will be a good one for people to use.

Id have thought he would be off watching various games in the Euros tbh

 

[ArtetaMoney]

Id have thought he would be off watching various games in the Euros tbh

I feel like your expectations of our well paid DoF are far too high.

 

[Toffeelover]

I feel like your expectations of our well paid DoF are far too high.

And yours are too low.

 

[Jimishorts]

Our squad has improved from the day he walked into the door to now.

Nobody can dispute that.

@davek “hold my beer”

 

[Carlito]

The part you’re missing in your assessments is money. I think that each year we have covered the top three or four priorities. That’s about what we have the money to do. There have been other needs but they are secondary.

For example, this season we decided to go with two right backs, but Coleman has suffered injury and JJK was injured / not good enough. We decided to give JJK a go and didn’t sign Sidebe. We tried to make the space for a younger player but it didn’t work out. We didn’t have the money for another right back. Simples. Plus we avoided Sidebe on a long contract. We can fill the place properly this summer, rather than having another average player on a long contract.
This process is painful now but better in the long run.

These arguments don't wash when the club is regularly buying players who don't play, with King being the latest.

That's five left-sided midfielders on the books now, by the way. Yet there's apparently no scope to sign a right-back from anywhere in the world, even though it's been four years since Coleman suffered the injury that finished him as a top player.

 

[ArtetaMoney]

And yours are too low.

I expect us to have enough players to name a decent enough matchday squad, despite a few injuries.

Those low expectations have been too difficult to meet for a DoF who is one of the highest paid in Europe.

 

[Martin Alvito]

@davek “hold my beer”

@davek and others would argue that the squad has not improved enough given the resources expended. Their position boils down to: if our net transfer expenditure over three years is nearly 200 million pounds, we'd better end up with a functional squad by the time we're done. If we don't, the DoF is to blame.

The counterargument is that he bought most of our current best XI, has made what appears to be a couple of low risk, high upside youth buys, has a high hit rate as this business goes and it is difficult to fault him for the specific failures attributable to injury (unless you count Rodriguez a failure, given his well-known injury history). I don't think anyone's disputing that the Iwobi and Delph buys were failures attributable to Brands at this point.

The dispute is ultimately one of process-oriented judgment as opposed to outcome-oriented judgment, which is why we go round and round on it. Both sides can make a case given their premises, so what's really in dispute is how a DoF's performance should be evaluated.

 

[Goat]

@davek and others would argue that the squad has not improved enough given the resources expended.

Thats cos people always stick Walshs signings in the mix.

 

[Bluestar]

These arguments don't wash when the club is regularly buying players who don't play, with King being the latest.

That's five left-sided midfielders on the books now, by the way. Yet there's apparently no scope to sign a right-back from anywhere in the world, even though it's been four years since Coleman suffered the injury that finished him as a top player.

We did bring in Sidebe last season, and we clearly decided to give JJK a go this season. We’ve just put the capital spend elsewhere.

No doubt if we had spent big on a right back, we would have compromised somewhere else and we would be complaining about a different gap.

King is another example of a compromise. A stop gap, but at least he won’t become another anchor holding us down. He is exactly the type of signing that has caused the rut we’re in.

 

[The binman chronicles]

Thats cos people always stick Walshs signings in the mix.

It's akin to someone taking over the helm of the titanic after it hit the iceberg and the passengers not only demanding to be saved but for it to be raised from the bottom of the ocean, fixed up and get to New York in record time.

 

[TheSecondComing]

Our squad has improved.... but the real test is has our placing in the league improved?

So far no sooooooo he’s been a failure

 

[Goat]

Our squad has improved.... but the real test is has our placing in the league improved?

So far no sooooooo he’s been a failure

Its not his job to finish higher in the league, that's why we employ managers and he doesn't pick the side.

Its his job to improve the squad and you've already admitted he has, so welcome a board.

 

[Carlito]

We did bring in Sidebe last season, and we clearly decided to give JJK a go this season. We’ve just put the capital spend elsewhere.

No doubt if we had spent big on a right back, we would have compromised somewhere else and we would be complaining about a different gap.

King is another example of a compromise. A stop gap, but at least he won’t become another anchor holding us down. He is exactly the type of signing that has caused the rut we’re in.

I don't think we're ever going to agree on this, are we? I mean, Kenny played 77 minutes of league football before being sent out on loan again, so if the plan was to give him a go as backup, it wasn't put together with much conviction.

Maybe I just don't understand the DoF model, but I thought that one of the big benefits would be him overseeing an expansive scouting network, so I don't think it's unfair to expect to have cover across the park, even if it's cheap. For example, I have no issue with Nkounkou being the reserve left-back, but if the manager isn't interested in blooding youth players, it means that there's effectively no cover in that position. Is Brands not aware of how Ancelotti operates?

Also, the fact that some of the poorer signings aren't staying as long as others is a very low bar, and it seems a bit rich to talk about 'anchors' when top-earner Bernard (Brands's own signing) was blocked from leaving in the summer, and second-top Sigurdsson is getting a new contract. We've spent years being told that we have to wait until Walsh's players are gone, but I'm not sure that it'll be any easier to shift the likes of Delph and Iwobi.