I have a problem with a lot of footballing interviewing/media in general, because they tend to trend incredibly strongly towards the same identikit questions that are so dull and so uninteresting that they're almost designed to evoke the least interesting answer possible in response. That being said, at least they are actually asking players questions, rather than essentially inviting them to complete a paragraph from a press release their PR team is drafting. I'm utterly convinced that is club-led, though, of course. I get that it's Youtube content so it is in reality designed to appeal to very young audiences, trending towards children, but I'm curmudgeonly and forced to have this ***** advertised to me constantly on the socials I use despite only ever having watched about a combined 3 minutes of it, so I choose to complain.
He just picked up a long-term injury. Out for 6 months or so so probably puts a move to us or Udinese on ice.
I didn’t know it reduced parachute payments also. I think our last accounts show match day revenue in a normal PL season was £9m, so we’ll be that much down but with the revenue from Hive. I appreciate we can’t be exact but I think there are enough numbers out there to take an educated guess. There will be a shortfall of course, but we did make some back in player sales. My original point was that in our first season we spent £30m on transfer fees, sure wages would’ve gone up but we’ve always had a fairly decent wages to turnover ratio whilst in the PL (50% something like that?) so they certainly wouldn’t have eaten up all of the remaining cash that we didn’t spend, far from it. but either way we didn’t spend anywhere near the total amount we would’ve ultimately received that season. We were cautious back then and no doubt we’ll be cautious now, but unless we have decided on doing a Norwich there will be some money to spend.
And yes, strangely, I could tell that from your choice off the bat to suggest I was an Arsenal fan because I don't share your opinion on Troy, but the irony of that also appears lost on you amidst your attempted 'gotcha' finger-wagging.
Oh the mighty Wycombe. Well he's found his level, league 1. He wasn't good enough in the Championship so why even state he's not likely to be good enough in the Premier.
Yup - parachute payments are fixed as a percentage of the amount the bottom club receives in broadcast income and merit money.
I do agree that Deeney's footballing brain is quite good and he definitely has the ability to bring others into the game which is why it was all the more frustrating that he spent five years trying (and for the most part failing) to "bully" defences rather than backing himself to actually play football. Unfortunately, his body is now letting him down so much through injury and immobility that it's not enough anymore to play a decent pass every few games. And the "pass" to Sarr against Liverpool was pure luck, he just blasted it against a defender, it took a wicked deflection off their heel which made it stop perfectly into Sarr's path with heavy backspin. Looked great but a total fluke.
Deeney has the same amount of non penalty goals in the last calendar year as Masina (2). Also played 2126 minutes. Calendar year before that, he had 4 non penalty goals in 1884 minutes. So 6 non penalty goals in 4010 minutes which is roughly 45 games. To put that into context, it’s the same as Craig Dawson, and one fewer than Dan Gosling.
Some strikers score loads, but don’t offer you much else. Some strikers are great at hassling defenders, running channels, holding balls up and setting up teammates. Then you have Deeney, who these days can do neither. He used to be great. You guys who love him aren’t entirely delusional - there is a version of Deeney that was a useful player. Unfortunately to pretend that he is still in any way that player is laughable. If there is any chance to move him on we simply have to in order to free up £100k per week to spend on a more effective player. Realistically though nobody will want him and we’re going to have to find a way to appease him so that he doesn’t cause dressing room unrest while simultaneously trying to minimise his game time so we can stay competitive. Rock, meet hard place.
I’d like to see him play 6 injury-free games (not necessarily the full 90 minutes - sub appearances would do) in a happy team. If he was ineffectual, then I’d be content to concur that he is washed up. Happily, it won’t be down to us, but to the coaching staff, who will see him every day in training, know way more about football than us, and will also know what job he is being asked to do, to assess if he is doing it to their standards.
Vydra has been superb in two spells for us but surely not a good fit. Can only do it next to a big man in a front two and offers little as a lone striker. We've already made the mistake of signing a striker from Burnley incapable of playing up front on his own.
Whine? Harsh. I say that moving on Grey and Success is more pressing. The one or two strikers would replace them, hopefully moving Troy down the pecking order. Not trolling, logical.
Gotcha! The Arsenal comment was tongue in cheek, because this forum seems to contain a lot of “it’s all sh*t, we’re sh*t, our owners are sh*t, our players are sh*t” attitude I’ve heard over the years at Arsenal. A view that has been justified many years of my watching Watford (Bassini, Petchey, Vialli, Lee, Bassett - shudder) but which I find a little difficult to swallow after the second most successful period not only in my time watching the club but in its entire history.
None of Deeney, Gray, Success, Perica nor Pedro are good enough to be starting strikers in the Premier League. Pedro obviously gets a pass as he clearly has ability and the potential to grow into a Premier League quality forward. The other four are varying weights of millstones around our neck. If we're going to play 4-3-3 next season, we need at least two players to come in as alternatives to Pedro. If one can get ten goals next season then great but teams stay up every year with top scorers in single digits. If they're not going to be a finisher, they've got to be mobile, work hard and be able to bring others into the game. Not a single one of Deeney, Gray, Success nor Perica ticks all of those three boxes.
Tbf many professional journalists don't exactly ask hard-hitting questions. This is a bunch of kids interviewing people they have grown up idolising. Hardly a surprise really.
Of course - i doubt that anyone is projecting much income from any dead wood sales and the mistakes as with Isaac / Penaranda / Sinclair are sunk But unless you want to compound the debt position - where is the cash coming from to invest in the squad netting out the inheritance from 20/21 I suspect 20m ish - plucked from thin air i accept + loans Of the potential big financial strugglers If Muff do not get promoted then there will be a dying beast to pick at - but other than the winger - i don't see obvious quality in that squad Brentford won't have the same pressure if they fail given the sales of Benrhama and others Ditto Swansea - but maybe Grimes ? Mowatt will go and Dike won't be affordable if Barnsley fail - but they may not have the same problems Mitrovic seems to have gone backwards but Fulham have little else to consider - if Lookman is spare at Leipzig then ? Sheff Utd - not one of their squad adds anything - other than Billy Sharp of course! As for West Brom - Periera looks great but half the league will want him
That's fine, and that's what you've now said - I agree that moving all of them on is imperative, whether that is considered possible or not (as I said in here yesterday, I would certainly consider moving on Deeney before Gray, despite Gray's appalling footballing ability) but the original proposition and Twitter reaction wasn't suggesting levels of priority or Deeney staying on in a convenient low pecking order position - it was the exact opposite, which was the entire point - he has indicated in an interview that he won't be a bit-part player, and however you (the royal version) choose to interpret that, the response to that in those tweets was a series of sputtering about how he can be our first-choice striker and that with a 'point to prove' he will be capable - despite all evidence to the contrary. Even now, on an emotional level, there is a part of me that would like Deeney to stay and contribute (something I have outlined on here before) as an elder statesman aware of his much-self-lauded leadership role and accepting that he won't play at all week-to-week, only in certain situations when it suits us. Those situations are increasingly rare though, and everything he has said and done, including this new quote this very week (the one that we are discussing) suggests that that is the opposite of what he intends/is prepared to do, and if the alternative is Troy back to his bustling best picking fights with much bigger, stronger, and savvier centre backs and offering no goalscoring threat from open play whilst taking up a spot in the side; stopping us from playing better, more appropriate players in attack a la Welbeck, then we cannot afford for that to happen.
Ayew is on quite high wages I believe. I suspect Swandive will be looking to offload him if they don't go up, and he would probably fancy a move back to the Prem if offered. He's way better than what we've got IMO.
I've been thinking similar. My worry is that playing 442 with Sarr would have us overun in midfield unless maybe he played as a floating winger alongside a good striker. And yet if we play in a 433 like recent matches we would also be overun in midfield UNLESS we found a way to retain the ball better up top and for Sarr to have a far better cross success rate than this season. Both concerns worry me and our ability to bring in the necessary players...? (Hughes, Chabs and cleverly I like but doubt they will have enough in the Prem). Or maybe I'm wrong and they will be good enough against enough of the lower teams to keep us up.????
But be honest - do you think or expect he will accept that? Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But I think anyone who answers ‘yes’ to the above is denying the evidence that Deeney himself has put in front of us for the past 2-4 years. And now we have another off-season where he professes to work harder than ever - only to tell/show us after a handful of games that he’s not fit.
The issue being, if you listen to the player himself who constantly says he is playing with some sort of injury, then he won’t get 6 injury free games. So he will play 6 games with some sort of ailment he’s playing through, the shape of the team shifted to suit him, we sit rock bottom and end up relegated - all as a result of an experiment to see if a player who clearly no longer still has it, has still ‘got it’. I give it about 4 or 5 more posts before you suggest he could be kept on as a centre back. That’s normally how this goes.
There's life after Deeney that's been proved since the Bristol City game. Our best football is played without him. Did wonders for us in our recent history but this has to be the end of the line. Take Gray, Success, Perica and Penaranda out of the equation too. Sinclair's contract is up thank God. We now have a team that was playing with a smile doing everything they could for Xisco to win, wasn't always perfect but we're now a team who work for one another. Recruitment is going to be difficult but they're players out there, out of contract or entering their final year of contract who will massively improve us. No doubt we will see some Udinese players come in and loans with a view. Currently I feel confident that we are going in the right direction and that there will be a couple of incredible players joining us.
The only thing we do know for certain is our starting position at end of cup final season. And in those accounts Pozzo had borrowed against nearly every income stream and every asset to fund his player trading and contract errors. I think if we hadn’t gone up in my view we would have been in a disastrous position even after selling Sarr. Promotion gives us a chance to reset but the wise move from Pozzo is not to splash out and to get to end of season with the terrible wage burden of Gray and Deeney removed. If we stay up it’s a bonus.
Of course there were plenty of moments that were our own undoing (even in the Villa game didn't that goal come from a cheaply given away free kick?) that together caused our relegation, without just one of which we would have stayed up. But this may be a long shot, and I don't think anyone else has thought about this, but what about the 52nd minute Deeney goal that was harshly ruled out at Man Utd? Up to that point we were competing well, and if we'd got that equaliser we might have held on with the returning Sarr acting as an outlet to relieve pressure. Instead clearly confidence dropped, Sarr was ineffective, and Man Utd went on to cruise the game 3-0, when a 1-1 draw would've kept us up.
Yes, out of the big six Man Utd is the team we've played best against (including the FA Cup match this season) even if our results against them overall have been as bad as against any other team in that group, barring City.
Perhaps we could use him as a centre back? (I thought I’d save us the time). If he does stay injured, he won’t play, but I’d like to see him given a chance. I think there is still a player there - not the same type as before, but intelligent players learn to adapt - and players do come back after several injury-hit years to contribute. See the impact Danny W is making at Brighton. I’d just like Troy to be given the chance. On a related note, if he is on the rumoured wages and is injured/no longer good enough for the Championship, as seems to be suggested in this thread, how do we move him in, and to who?
