I think the job they did of dismantling that team was far more impressive a feat than the one to build it in the first place.
3 RB’s didn’t make sense so it was obvious 1 would go, so I’ve no issue there. Personally I think it should have been Ngakia, and I was expecting Ferreira to be first choice. But we don’t know the full details surrounding the decision, I’d argue this one doesn’t seem to be financial. So, as a loan move on its own merit and all other Pozzo stuff to one side, it’s a bit of a surprise, a little disappointing, but not much more than that.
This is another joke of a transfer, but I distinctly remember Ferreira ducking out of multiple headers when he played. Seem to remember no one was sure why we'd paid £2m for him. Ultimately, it's just yet another weird bit of business that makes no sense from start to finish.
Uff the club have just tweeted to say 4 of the Junior Hornets who attended yesterday’s Fun Day have today been loaned to Udinese for the season. Things are getting out of hand now.
Yes agree a new owner would be good if they were going to reverse the direction of travel by investing £ms to chase promotion. Otherwise any new owner would be resigned to doing the same, trying to balance the books based on champ income.
TBF he has no choice but to balance the books for life in the champ which means a drop in quality. A new owner would do the same unless they were prepared and able to invest significantly to chase promotion.
FFP actually makes it very hard to do that, plenty of owners far richer than ours in the league that can’t do it because the risk of failing is too great. The best time to do it is when you’re in receipt of parachute payments, unfortunately due to gross mismanagement of the club we aren’t in a position to take advantage while we’re still receiving them.
Yes I agree though investing parachute payments is a gamble and means if you fail to win promotion you have to cut deep and fast. Many ex prem clubs have hit financial issues as they adapt aftre failing to bounce back up. We gambled by keeping Sarr & Pedro and it backfired due to the unbalanced and unmotivated squad. However this day was always going to come, even if we'd been promoted we wouldn't have stayed up. The Pozzos aren't rich enough, and are no longer clever enough to keep us in the prem. I believe FFP allows a club to make losses and do some limited investment doesn't it, just not ridiculously so .???...I don't know and haven't checked !
Yes it just is. Selling players is easier than building a decent squad over time when you're being outspent by all around you. Auctioning off players is much easier, though as we've found with Sarr sometimes you don't get the price you want....
I’m taking more about spending all summer chasing a player you paid €35m for, when the manger you have just given a four year deal to but have recently admitted you had doubts about didn’t want for his team, which subsequently left other areas of the team chronically short. Sacking them after four games, rehiring someone you already sacked, then sacking the next manager with two games to go. That’s absolutely breathtaking skill, if you’re sole aim was to dismantle that excellent team as quickly as possible and far more difficult to achieve than building it in the first place, if you work on the basis that wasn’t actually the intention.
I do understand your point, but how can we trust a man who has built this level of debt around the club? We’ve received millions and millions from 7 years in the Prem, plus all the recent player sales. Must be around 1 billion in income over the past 10 years. How come we have so much debt when so much money has come in? It shows me the guy is a chancer and his not very smart. A shrewd businessman would have made this income work and would have strengthened the club from top to bottom. He left the academy alone, the stadium was tarted up with a cheap stand and big black tiles covering up the brickwork, the training ground is leased. After 11 years of ownership, with all that income, we shouldn’t be where we are now. I’m sure people will come back with excuses for him, but I’m judging the position he has led us to. Look at our debt, look at our current squad. 2019 is the distant past which has no bearing on the present.
Yes I agree with most of your points. TBF the debt will be vastly reduced now, as the quality of the squad has vastly reduced. 2019 is relevant in that it shows where we have fallen from and set the expectations of where we could still be if we had continued to perform as we had done for the first 7 years. If we'd spent the last 10 years or so in League one we'd be feeling a lot happier today, as no doubt Ipswich fans are. Whatever magic the Pozzo model had, it's pretty clear they've lost it.
Lets see how often he plays. He is also possibly more suited to Serie A than the rough and tumble of The Championship.
I think we had a bit of luck there. There was nothing to say the likes of Abdi, Vydra, Forestieri, Battochio etc would take to The Championship like they did. I would also say Udinese were stronger back then
Or… maybe good players will flourish in an inferior league more often than not, sure they might take time to adapt, but a good player is a good player. Of course if your life’s work is making excuses for everything the owner of your football club does, you may see it differently to suit.
Pudil, Ekstrand, Cassetti and Abdi were full internationals for decent teams, and Abdi was a semi-regular in a good Udinese team, it's always unknown how players will adapt to a new country (especially old players like Cassetti!), but they certainly had the pedigree to succeed in the Championship. Granted, there was little to suggest Forestieri, Vydra and Batocchio (and to a lesser extent Anya and Chalobah) would hit the ground running like they did!
Just to be clear, I have said this before, I would rather Gino left. I don't make excuses for the position we find ourselves in but this is a thread about Ferreira leaving on loan. I would have preferred him to stay and let Ngakia go but football isn't as easy as that. His move away has apparently been on the cards for a while so maybe he has instigated it. Maybe he wanted a move away. Maybe the option of Serie A (don't know if he'll play much) over The Championship appealed to him. Maybe VI has told him he's not first choice which is the reason he wants to go. Maybe his salary is higher than Ngakia and Andrews and we need to cut costs which I think we all know we do. He's better than Ngakia but there are many possible reasons for him going but I still don't get why everybody is upset about a player who ducked out of headers and was weak in the tackle has left. He was ok going forward but that's about it If we sold Asprilla for £5m to Brighton I would absolutely be furious but he has the ability to be a top level player. Ferreira in my opinion is just a bog standard full back who is not a great loss
I hadn't realised how much football those guys had played. There is still a fair amount of luck involved and especially as you say with Vydra, FF, Batocchio, Anya and Chalobah. It helped that Udinese were much stronger back then. Not sure what they currently have available for us but I'm sure there will be one or two arrivals from them over the next couple of weeks
You could say we were lucky then with how well those players adapted (and even so, there were plenty of new signings who didn't adapt well!), the next season we certainly didn't have that same luck with new players hitting the ground running. Do they have a defensive midfielder or perhaps a striker they can send us? They certainly have full-backs although that seems a moot point!
One potential factor you've missed there is that he seems much better at attacking than defending, and Udinese play with wing-backs, which may suit him more.
I just remembered another likely key reason why we reversed course on this signing this summer - the new rules on English clubs being allowed to sign players who don't qualify for a work permit were only just brought in, and incentivise the playing of England Qualifying Players if we want to be able to make such signings. The wheeling and dealing Pozzos probably do. Therefore, in order to even be able to sign 1 player next season who doesn't otherwise qualify for a work permit, we'll need to play an average of 2.2 out of 11 players across the season. Both of our right backs being English helps towards that, as does both of our left backs. For the remaining 1/5th of a player it could be why we seem likely to give TDB plenty of minutes. If Ferreira had been our starting right back, or even backup right back, we'd probably struggle to average out 2.2 English players across the season. When we signed him in January, this rule change wasn't necessarily happening or going to be an issue.
