Carlito
Player Valuation: £40m
What a tremendous pro Eto'o was.A lot of the lack of pace was down to the draining effects of two gamer per week.
As for persisting with the same failing players - this is why...
I still miss him.
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I still miss him.
Jayhow15
Player Valuation: £35m
Superb !
Carlito
Player Valuation: £40m
Haha - a much more polite way of describing Bill and the boys than I'm used to seeing.
njligernj
Player Valuation: £15m
Almost impossible to respond to that utter nonsense without swearing but I will try.
He's essentially wanting RM to adopt Phil Neville's "top half finish is a great accomplishment" philosophy.
At this point there is really no excuse for not realizing the fantastic lie of sell to buy in the Prem.
A 30m sale for a Portuguese team (where that amount might constitute 20% of ALL transfer spending for the ENTIRE LEAGUE) and the sold player leaves the country is not the same as getting 30m selling to a team in the Prem (where that amount might be 20% of just Man U's transfer spending ALONE) and the player also strengthens a rival. We wouldn't even need to sell to buy in Portugal FFS. People need to stop bringing it up ... it's so colossally different a situation you might as well bring up what happens in cricket.
We're dealing with teams spending HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS and we're going to catch up by selling THEM our best players?!?!?!?!?!? It's so utterly, utterly stupid I'm over the "reasonable people can disagree" stage. If you think this can work you don't have a good brain. Confine yourself to a warm, dark space and see out your days without bothering the rest of us please.
RS with Suarez almost win the league; with a bag of money don't even qualify for the CL.
Spurs with Bale get CL qualification; with a bag of money don't even qualify for the CL.
Yeah there are a few examples of teams selling a player and "doing well the next year." Great.
It doesn't work. It hasn't worked for anyone. You have a few teams who sold with a decent season here and there (including us after Rooney) but no sustained success at the CL level. Could West Brom sell someone for 50m and move to being a more stable Prem club? Sure why not. But they won't get the CL. West Brom have 50m and offer us 50m for Stones ... will Stones go there? Of course not. Neither will anyone truly great at football. So what's the point? You then buy potential you can sell again. Half don't work out of course and the other half lets you start the whole cycle over again. Where does it end?
If we ranked players out of 10 for the sake of argument:
A bunch of 6's and 7's won't get you the CL. You need some 8's and 9's (and the odd 10 if you get lucky doesn't hurt). We already have a crap-load of 6's and 7's. Selling a potential 9 or 10 to get more 6's and 7's isn't going to help anything. We'll have a deeper squad and be able to really cement that 7th or 8th spot if we get a bad run of injuries but that's our ceiling if we sell to buy and don't reach for targets like Lukaku.
So with ten minutes to go in a game instead of watching a 5 in McGeady warm up we get a 7 coming on as a sub. It's better sure but it's not "having Stones and Lukaku playing the full 90" better.
He actually has the unmitigated gall to suggest a few teams we should emulate and those teams haven't won a bloody thing. " 'Buy low, sell high' has become the motto for Southampton, Swansea and Stoke." he says.
Why in gods name would we copy those no-marks? As I said, you can do it to a point but there is a glass ceiling. We hit it 10 years ago and those clubs haven't even hit it yet (possibly Southampton have hit the new glass ceiling which is lower than before -- 7th is the new 5th).
If you have a bunch of 5's then yeah maybe sell an 8 and get some 6's and 7's. But if you're already a team full of 7's just piling more 7's onto the bench isn't going to do a damn thing to help.
We can let a Fellaini go but at some point we have to take a stand and load up with 8+ talent if we want to compete. We can't buy 8+ players (loanees who fall in love with us aside) so when we grow it we can't just throw it all away for some magic beans.
(... and yes I am all sixes and sevens about this myself.)
The last truly dumb, dumb, dumb part of this argument is simple: nobody has really tried this. How do you know it won't work? Arguably the only non-rich club to keep their star is the RS. Yes they have way more money than we do but they aren't oil rich. They kept Gerrard and they won stuff.
I don't have a crystal ball but let me ask you this: you go back in a time machine and have the chance to press a button that sells Gerrard before the RS won anything with him. They'll get a huge load of money (far more than he'd actually have been worth at the time -- like 50m).
Who would not press that button because they think they'd win more after spending the 50m than they did with Gerrard?
Bollocks if you don't all press that button and give them the 50m.
So why press the button on our team?
sportbillyblue
Player Valuation: £8m
indeed .. he doesn't inspire confidence in the t/f market
Elong
The fire rises
Fellaini sale. I can educate you some more whenever you're ready.
Elong
The fire rises
Bought one of the most talented young strikers in Europe with money from the sale of Fellaini? Please....
efcfanwirral
Player Valuation: £25m
That is pretty funny to be fair...
There will be no fate. He's taken in the most sentimental man in the world, he'll last the season however bad it gets
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
This will be the season we finally defuse the ticking demographic time bomb that Moyes bequeathed to the club with that ageing squad of his.
Deulofeu and Cleverley already bring down the average age, and so too will the departure of Alcarez and Distin to be replaced by much younger player(s). Browing and Galloway are on the way to becoming established first teamers. Add to that the youngsters he's intent on blooding (McAleny, Pennington, Dowell, Robinson) maybe even one of these can get a game here and there this season and phase out our reliance on players in their 30s like Pienaar and Osman.
Many of us felt he should have at least made a start on this last summer, but it looks like he's rising to the challenge this summer.
Deulofeu and Cleverley already bring down the average age, and so too will the departure of Alcarez and Distin to be replaced by much younger player(s). Browing and Galloway are on the way to becoming established first teamers. Add to that the youngsters he's intent on blooding (McAleny, Pennington, Dowell, Robinson) maybe even one of these can get a game here and there this season and phase out our reliance on players in their 30s like Pienaar and Osman.
Many of us felt he should have at least made a start on this last summer, but it looks like he's rising to the challenge this summer.
kinell nilgernj, thanks for summing it up there on the Storey article.
I agree with the part that says Roberto tends to be a bit daft or naive in media cases, but the team's transfer philosophy and focus on young and old is excellent. It's all good. It's just the tactics and results and reduction of hamstring injuries we need.
also, i said this a few weeks ago: MCaleny nailed on to appear against watford.
I agree with the part that says Roberto tends to be a bit daft or naive in media cases, but the team's transfer philosophy and focus on young and old is excellent. It's all good. It's just the tactics and results and reduction of hamstring injuries we need.
also, i said this a few weeks ago: MCaleny nailed on to appear against watford.
ijjysmith
Calm
Agree here mate.
I've had concerns about our youth teams though. Like are they actually any good? I don't see us in the u21 final much these days. It's usually Chelsea which is quite ironic when you look at them not giving their youngsters a chance.
Dunno, are our young players really that good?
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
I wouldn't be too fixated on good youth teams and them getting their hands on silverware. It's only a delivery system for coughing up one or two players for the first team every few years. I dont see a problem with it.
something something leon osman something something tony hibbert something something milk cup
toffeejack
Player Valuation: £100m
this basically. our youth teams are usually made up of players much younger than those they're playing against. basically what would you rather? a team of good u21's who play well as a team, win the league but have no genuine individual quality or a bad team with 2 stars who will later be prem players? they can't win everything on their own.
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