[RELEASED] Joshua King

Release confirmed by club.

 

Good. Why can’t we release Sissoko as well? Are we will paying his wages?

 

Love the fact Giaretta shoehorned into the statement the ‘rule of 11’ that no other club ever refers to.

 

To be fair, no other club buys quite as much overseas crap as we do.

Quite why he felt the need to mention it in an article telling us that’s we have released 2 homegrown players though - just bizarre.

 

Danny Rose is a bigger (literally) concern. If Sissoko somehow were to remain, he’d probably get a game. Rose won’t.

 

Don't get it with Rose. If he's unfit/overweight then surely that is a breach of contract and just kick him out and cancel his contract. Either that or get him bloody fit we've had enough time

 

Easier said than done. Got to fit him through the training ground doors first.

 

If Rose does what he is contractually obligated to do (Turn up to training or otherwise follow club guidance) then there isn't a whole lot we can do unless fitness / weight was specifically written into it. I suspect it was not so the only other option is pay him off. Thankfully it's only a 2 year deal and expires end of this upcoming Season so worse mistakes have been made on that front.

 

His wages make it the equivalent of a bigger mistake than some other players.

Our very highest earners have often been terrible value for money.

 

Legend.

 

Another of the grade A+ transfers gone.

 

I really thought this would be a good signing. Shame.

 

Is that a Scott Duxbury quote?

 

Crikey, I’ll have to moderate my posting style. Lessons have been learned.

 

Cheerio.

 

At 60k or so he is less than Deeney or Gray was. This is still a monumental waste of money and I hate it being basically burnt on someone who evidently came in for an easy ride. (Quite a few million over the two seasons)

At the time it was a calculated punt in a position he should have made his own with only Masina for competition so while it's a disaster of a transfer it's not as crippling as older transfer failures were and the logic made sense. At least saying that makes me feel better about it.

 

Are you on the wrong thread?

 

It's so people that don't engage their brains can just respond to any criticism by patronisingly saying 'rule of 11, mate, it's what Rob wanted'.

 

How f*cking hilarious does last summers transfer business look!

 

Well mildly so. Louza, Etebo, Dennis, Sissoko and the inclusion of Cucho looked decent. King arrived to few grumbles at the time. The problem was we already had too many players past their best or never good enough in the first place and made poor decisions in crucial areas, like Tufan and Kucka. Getting Kamara in January was never going to be enough. The whole thing needed radical surgery before then. Needs it now.

 

Louza - hit
Dennis - hit
Fletcher - disaster
Rose - disaster
King - miss
Kucka - miss
Sissoko - miss
Etebo - miss
Tufan - disaster

 

Not even sure we can label Louza a hit yet given the cost. On then fence so far really.

 

He's a hit insofar as he showed decent performances in the second half of last season and he's here for this one (well, at least until the 'Rule of 11' gets him). We'd be gutted if he left now, which is more than can be said for the rest of the ones I didn't call hits.

But take your point.

 

8

id say kucka was more of a hit then a miss actually stevo

 

Fair enough. I quite liked him, tried hard and was one of our better players in the second half of the season. Had he been more of a squad player to call on rather than having to start every game I'd agree. But overall, he wasn't good enough to be playing week in, week out in the Premier League and doubt he would've got in any other team.

 

For me the issue was not subbing him around 60 minutes. He usually looked pretty good until then. With a frequent early sub I reckon he'd be remembered a lot more fondly than he will be now.

 

isn’t the rule of 11 just EFL not EPL (and new for this season ?) But agree it does seem to be our go to excuse for everything

 

Yes it’s an EFL thing, although it’s definitely not new. Dates back at least 4 seasons. Maybe more.

 

Lots of the regime's cheerleaders appear to have gone a bit quiet on that front...

 

For me, this rule of 11 doesn’t really stack up. I get Edwards doesn’t want to have to think about leaving a player out for technical reasons such as this, but it’s the same as any rule.

You can’t pick anymore than 18 players for your match day squad, but you wouldn’t just have an 18 man squad. You max out at 25 and also use U23’s to boost the numbers even further.

We can have more than 11 NHG players if we wish, it just needs a bit of careful thought. It’s not too hard to have a bit of software or even a spreadsheet with all the players listed. RE can pick his side and cross-check to make sure it’s valid within the rules. Would only take 5 minutes.

To tailor an entire squad to avoid a technical mistake from occurring seems a little extreme and unlikely to me.

I just think it’s a convenient excuse to hide behind to justify popular players leaving.

Let’s be honest. HG equals dross in most cases. All the good, exciting players are NHG.

 

I still don’t know what he did though. Plenty of charging around that may have achieved better results when he was 26 years old. But he came across as not much more than an ageing ‘pashun merchant’ who lacked a few brain cells at key times (Arsenal away, Spurs home).

 

I just think the club have been stupid in even mentioning it - selling Cucho and Zinckernagel whilst really bad overseas players remain on the books and don’t look to be leaving, makes it look like the judgment of players ability is bad. That’s a far worse look than just having too many foreign players IMO.

Moreover, if they’d really embraced this new culture, they’d have just sold Cucho and said the money on offer was too good and we’ve just been relegated etc etc - most would have accepted that.

But no one is buying Cucho being sold because he is foreign and can’t reasonably be assured of getting a game whilst Samuel Kalu, Kayembe and Ken Sema are kicking about.