We buy cheaper and younger than others and so the odds of them ever making the first team are very long. Wilmot had barely featured for Stevenage, Bachman was released by stoke, Dahlberg cost peanuts. Others buy prospects for £10m+, we just can't do that.
I suggest if the lad left Man City because he ‘just wanted to play, then he’s joined the wrong club. The 2 current starters are largely unmoveable and he will likely have Quina, Cleverly and probably Chalobah in front of him. And even Hughes if he’s pushed central due to a winger arriving. He’ll get more games for the U23’s than the first team. That’s not a criticism of signing him. But the first team squad needs more than that.
Then, and I've said this before, that the club should stop talking a big game about progression, Europe, winning trophies. If the ambition from the club and fans like you is to finish mid table then act like it.
But thing is, it's not assurance of being 9th every season. It's for this season possibly. Then another massive chunk needs to be dropped next summer to keep them going. I don't buy into the 'Ponzo is a genious' type arguments that do the rounds. And the model and amazing scouting network is almost completely down to good PR and people wanting to believe in it. But we do well with what we've got.
The clubs stated business model is to sell our best players. In the words of Duxbury, if we don't sell our best players for a huge profit then they aren't doing their job right. So to keep players is at a detriment to the club - in their words. To talk up a supposed successful summer with the fact we haven't sold players is a sign of insane desperation. To compare some unknown and unwanted Man City kid to Jadon Sancho is an equal level of insanity. No one had ever heard of him, let alone rated him. Sancho was highly rated for years, even when he was in our youth setup.
Dawson is a good solid signing. But if we fail to add to that it will have been a terrible window once again. Dreadful players like Sema, Success and Masina are an injury away from being regulars. The strike force is still built around Deeney. On the departure side we can’t get anyone to take our deadwood like Prodl and Okaka, so they will probably be reintegrated into the squad because there is nothing else to do with them! We’re hardly moving forwards. The recruitment team are impotent both in bringing in affordable 1st team talent and disposing of duds.
The fact we haven’t sold anyone is a big plus among the gloom I agree and will likely keep us safe for one more year. Just hope that doesn’t change next week!!
Maybe Sancho was the wrong example but it's more that young players have seen what players like Sancho do to progress in the game. Although highly rated, he didn't seem close to the first team yet went to Dortmund and is now an England regular. Not selling our best players is not insane desperation at all. We could have easily lost Doucoure or Delefeou or both this summer but they would then need to be replaced which is not so easy. They are proven top class players and are hugely integral to the team. I suspect the reason why we took the Dodi money was so we didn't have to sell any of the first team. I would very surprised if they have ever said to keep players is at a detriment to the club. Yes we need to sell players to balance the books but we know that and it's part of how they sell the club to young players, if you help this club become successful, then when the time comes, we will help you get the move to a bigger club
Or people could just stop being butthurt because they believe(d) the sales pitch? We could spend £100m and still finish mid table. Or £200m. Or £2m. I don't really think there's an amount of money the owners could spend to guarantee breaking into the top 4 or to make a genuine title run. So we're left arguing over which flavour of midtable mediocrity people want to accept. My only real ambition for the team to do the best it can. I'm enough of a realist to know (a) a team has to be really, really, god awfully terrible to get relegated from this league and (b) even if we do have a well above par season, it'll be a one off. The same applies to the transfer window. There will be summers where for, whatever reason, competition never quite comes to frutition and Gino bags 4 or 5 prime targets. Other years we're going to be muscled out. That isn't going to change under these owners.
I'd be interested to see whether we've paid out more in fees for players who've not played for us (and won't in the immediate future, or indeed ever, in some cases) rather than players brought in to actually strengthen our first team. Aside from Dawson, our first 11 is mostly players who've been here for a number of years. Dawson sounds OKish but doesn't seem likely to make us noticeably better as a team. I think the last time we improved our first team was with Deolefeu. Before that? It's all just shuffling players around to make a few quid like a football club Arthur Daley. I genuinely believe Gino is happier with the Lukebakio type of deals - trading players like horseflesh, without any actual influence on the footballing side he owns.
It's a valid point. We're all hoping we get a couple of new players through the door but equally we should be hoping we don't lose one or two!
But that’s a false selling point as I’ve pointed out above. We don’t give these young players many opportunities to get a run of games. It’s a myth.
Realist ? Wrong. The team has be bloody good to stay in this league, bloody excellent to finish top half, and bloody outstanding to finish top 6, and the bar gets raised every year. "Really, really, god awful teams" are in Div2.
Our scouting network is ********. It is no better or worse than any other. Who have we signed, in our first team, that we unearthed from some hidden backwater, that wasn't on the radar of every similar club?
And whilst teams around us are desperate to improve, we are happy with kicking around midtable losing cup finals 6-0. The club knows all the dads are happy with that, so are playing it perfectly. As long as that sweet sweet TV money rolls in, all the better. Italian Mike Ashley.
They have to be good enough but I think that's what we are concentrating on now. Richarlison was clearly good enough and when the time came (probably earlier than expected) we helped get him a move to where he wanted to go and did very well out of it. Some won't be as quick as that. Players like Wilmot and Dahlberg are probably seen as more long term where as Pedro and possibly Cucho could end up like Richarlison if the hype is to be believed. I can't think of a youngster we haven't given an opportunity to that were good enough recently. Maybe Quina could have played a little bit more but that's about it
You mean the same Doucoure who was kept out on loan at Granada and then ignored for the first team for months upon his return and tried to be binned off to Lorient?
There are still so many variables to the season ahead. A week in the transfer window can be a long time, we could be hours away from 2 or 3 great signings. Of course, this could be it for our business - a cynic would read between the lines of recent interviews with the manager and some of the fringe players and say we are indeed finished in our transfer dealings. Our starting team is decent, let’s not forget the majority of last season, we outplayed many teams, even top 6 teams on occasions, first two thirds of the season i would sit there feeling comfortable about how we were playing. But people are correct about some of the back up to that team. Unless Javi can do some great coaching of these individuals we could struggle without another good season on the injury front. It feels a little in the balance, but I’m in the ‘we’ll be ok camp’
How long ago was that? If we look at last season's key first team players, it starts becoming abundantly clear that we haven't made many signings which actually improve us over the past 5 or 6 windows. As I say, Deolefeu was a great signing. Seen as a risk by some because of inconsistency, but we'd seen enough on loan to see he could be a game changer for us. Other than that it's the likes of Sema, Masina, Quina etc. pretty weak if you ask me. One more season in the top flight is the best we can really hope for now. We've peaked and its all downhill from here.
It depends what level you are talking about. Doucs will get his move, Richie got his move, Deulofeu will probably get his move, Pedro will get his move, the other kids need to impress to get a run in the team. We can't just throw Wilmot, Quina, Oulare, etc in unless they impress the coach sufficiently to warrant a place in the 11.
That was a Mazzari thing and we know all how much of a pillock he was. He was kept on at Granada to help them stave off relegation as at that point we were fine but he was certainly brought to the club to improve the first team which what was the original question
Seems a bit of a childish way of putting it. I want a massive house, two sports cars, a holiday home in Barbados and to jack my job in so I can enjoy it all. I'm doing everything I can to achieve those goals. I own a house, we have two very average cars and once went on holiday to Barbados, so I'm doing my best. Am I lying when I say those are my aims? Or would you be just a little bit silly if you believed it was actually going to happen? I don't feel lied to by the owners but then I don't take everything they say as gospel. I'm not saying you do either, by the way. Some do. I'd rather just take it as it comes.
But that’s my point. The City player has joined us supposedly because he felt he was ready for games. I think it’s unlikely in the immediate future he gets that here. So how long before we become the small version of City in this story? How long before Quina gets frustrated at his lack of games? How long before Dahlberg? It’s okay to say they aren’t ready but what if they feel like they are? They will want to move on. Look at our regular starting line-up - the average age is high and there is no youth in it outside of Hughes. The Richarlison move is an interesting one. Because I think some will say we were the gateway to that move - but I don’t think Everton was the dream, he just followed Silva. But I digress - I think if things stay as they are at Watford, an increasing amount of these young players will see him as an anomaly rather than the regular - they will see we don’t really promote youth, we just hoard it. And they will go elsewhere.
Clearly I mean within the context of 19 other Premier League teams. Look at what's survived in recent seasons and how. The average number of points needed to stay up has trended downwards. My point is you've got to be consistently bad across a whole season to go down. We've phoned in half a season a couple of times and never touched the relegation zone. People often panic about the quality of others, this mythological bar getting raised every year, the idea it's a brutal slugfest every round of fixtures. Every year like last season, where two teams accumulate a crap load of points, means the amount needed for survival drops. Even if we have a poor year, and get mired in the relegation fight, there's too much in this squad to see us adrift by Christmas.
Very, very, very happy finishing 11th and getting to a cup final. You think a club of our side should be disappointed with that and throwing cash they don't have to right that wrong ? Where do you think we should be finishing ?
Yep. It’s a myth by and large. That’s not to say it’s poor. But I don’t see it as being any more successful in current times than most other clubs.
Sema I agree with but for £1m it was probably worth a punt. Quina was for the future and looked pretty decent when he played and would hopefully kick on this season. Masina I don't think is as bad as people make out. It doesn't help that he doesn't get a run in the team but he did make Holebas a much better player last season. A lot of players we buy improve us. Cleverly did when he joined, so did Pereyra, so did Foster but what people seem to want is a marquee signing like Sarr if he joins. I think our success last season was about the unity of the whole squad which is why buying players to slowly improve the squad like Dawson maybe a better way to go than spending £30m on somebody most of us have never heard of. I would say that this is the way we've done things since getting to the Premier League and it's worked. We are far better squad than we first got promoted yet we haven't been silly with money. There may come a time when unless you have a bottomless pit of money you can't compete but we're not there yet
The points totals don't improve but the quality needed to get those points improves !! Who will be this year's Fulham, Cardiff & huddersfield ? Which are the 3 "really really god awful teams" and why are we better than them ? Norwich maybe ? Sheff Utd just because they were promoted ? Burnley ....well, because they're Burnley ?
