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Dominic Solanke

Raziel said:
If we have a CF lined up in January, I'd be tempted to see if we can't find a club desperate and offload him then.

One top level CF and a prospect (from Europe) would be how I'd approach it in Jan with both Richi and Solanke going
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Top level CFs are hard to find and wanted by many clubs at the best of times. Good luck finding that in the January window for a club not in Europe....
 
harr1984 said:
Top level CFs are hard to find and wanted by many clubs at the best of times. Good luck finding that in the January window for a club not in Europe....
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There are people employed in the club, for who, that is exactly their job.

Whether you or I know of a good striker that's available isn't the question, clearly Kroupi was our #1 target, did we keep talking to his camp? did we tell them we were coming back in January, what was our plan B? is our plan B still available, who is on our young prospect list? If those things weren't in place at close of last window, we certainly should have been working on it since then.

If this club is anywhere decently run, they should have a plan, targets and budget all lined up and the initial conversations should already have been done.
 
Raziel said:
There are people employed in the club, for who, that is exactly their job.

Whether you or I know of a good striker that's available isn't the question, clearly Kroupi was our #1 target, did we keep talking to his camp? did we tell them we were coming back in January, what was our plan B? is our plan B still available, who is on our young prospect list? If those things weren't in place at close of last window, we certainly should have been working on it since then.

If this club is anywhere decently run, they should have a plan, targets and budget all lined up and the initial conversations should already have been done.
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Ah yes, always seems that simple to us armchair fans doesn't it? Of course they have a plan, that doesn't mean that plan has to come to fruition in January. In January you are unlikely to get your top targets, and heaven forbid we wait until the summer for such a thing rather than just buying some form of backup option who happens to be available now and is hardly any better than what we have that we subsequently want to offload not long after.

As per Ornstein:
IMG_5209.jpeg
 
harr1984 said:
Ah yes, always seems that simple to us armchair fans doesn't it? Of course they have a plan, that doesn't mean that plan has to come to fruition in January. In January you are unlikely to get your top targets, and heaven forbid we wait until the summer for such a thing rather than just buying some form of backup option who happens to be available now and is hardly any better than what we have that we subsequently want to offload not long after.

As per Ornstein:
View attachment 23631
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Not being facetious mate, but Ornstein can say whatever he wants.

Executives and teams in the club are there to provide RDZ with the tools he needs, it's clear we have a gap in the CF role, "it's a tough market" is not an acceptable answer (and that's not being an armchair fan, that's understanding how big business works).

Maybe there isn't a Haaland/Kane or even a JD type available, but you can't tell me Kroupi would not be available for 90M (whether we should pay that is another story), you also can't say there is no prospect in all of Europe that wouldn't be a better option than no one at this point.
 
Raziel said:
Not being facetious mate, but Ornstein can say whatever he wants.

Executives and teams in the club are there to provide RDZ with the tools he needs, it's clear we have a gap in the CF role, "it's a tough market" is not an acceptable answer (and that's not being an armchair fan, that's understanding how big business works).

Maybe there isn't a Haaland/Kane or even a JD type available, but you can't tell me Kroupi would not be available for 90M (whether we should pay that is another story), you also can't say there is no prospect in all of Europe that wouldn't be a better option than no one at this point.
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It's a combination of the fact that 1) There's a dearth of very good strikers 2) Good strikers don't tend to be available in January, clubs don't want to sell the guy who will fire them into Europe or keep them up or whatever, it's not worth it to them
3) Any that are available are likely to be coveted by clubs actually in Europe and deemed more attractive. You keep mentioning Kroupi, but the likes of Arsenal have been linked to him too.

We've signed plenty of 'prospects' who fans soon get on the back of and want sold so I'm not getting on board with that's better than no one. I'm happy for us to hold fire until the summer if our main targets who we believe we could get aren't achievable in January. You disagree, that's cool....
 
Raziel said:
Not being facetious mate, but Ornstein can say whatever he wants.

Executives and teams in the club are there to provide RDZ with the tools he needs, it's clear we have a gap in the CF role, "it's a tough market" is not an acceptable answer (and that's not being an armchair fan, that's understanding how big business works).

Maybe there isn't a Haaland/Kane or even a JD type available, but you can't tell me Kroupi would not be available for 90M (whether we should pay that is another story), you also can't say there is no prospect in all of Europe that wouldn't be a better option than no one at this point.
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I appreciate he's coming back from injury, but Kroupi also seems third choice at Bournemouth at the moment. Their scouting has been fantastic. Rayan 12 months ago for half what we paid for Gallagher
 
harr1984 said:
It's a combination of the fact that 1) There's a dearth of very good strikers 2) Good strikers don't tend to be available in January, clubs don't want to sell the guy who will fire them into Europe or keep them up or whatever, it's not worth it to them
3) Any that are available are likely to be coveted by clubs actually in Europe and deemed more attractive. You keep mentioning Kroupi, but the likes of Arsenal have been linked to him too.

We've signed plenty of 'prospects' who fans soon get on the back of and want sold so I'm not getting on board with that's better than no one. I'm happy for us to hold fire until the summer if our main targets who we believe we could get aren't achievable in January. You disagree, that's cool....
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Sure we can disagree, but my perspective

- Last January we made the wrong call, the lack of action there put us within 90 minutes of being relagated (would have cost us 100's of millions)
- Yes, other teams are interested but like Tonali & Fernandes, it becomes a how far into the well are you willing to go, if we bid 90M is the Scum still in the game (my opinion, Arteta will spend the money on another defensive player)
- There is a difference between nobody and a warm body, again in the plan B/C etc, is there not a promising youth option to give us something else if first targets are really impossible (maybe someone with pace or height or some other skill set)

This is risk/reward at a corporate level

- e.g. is we spent 100M on Kroupi (and sold Richi & Solanke) but finished higher in European spots vs. finishing 9th, which works?
- It's also understanding, keeping this squad together and building on it next summer will require European football.

Would I buy into Solanke plus a youth prospect or a journeyman option? sure, if we really had a plan to go big in summer for a top #9

Would I buy into January window being Richi out and no one in re CFs? no, to me that's incompetance
 
Raziel said:
Sure we can disagree, but my perspective

- Last January we made the wrong call, the lack of action there put us within 90 minutes of being relagated (would have cost us 100's of millions)
- Yes, other teams are interested but like Tonali & Fernandes, it becomes a how far into the well are you willing to go, if we bid 90M is the Scum still in the game (my opinion, Arteta will spend the money on another defensive player)
- There is a difference between nobody and a warm body, again in the plan B/C etc, is there not a promising youth option to give us something else if first targets are really impossible (maybe someone with pace or height or some other skill set)

This is risk/reward at a corporate level

- e.g. is we spent 100M on Kroupi (and sold Richi & Solanke) but finished higher in European spots vs. finishing 9th, which works?
- It's also understanding, keeping this squad together and building on it next summer will require European football.

Would I buy into Solanke plus a youth prospect or a journeyman option? sure, if we really had a plan to go big in summer for a top #9

Would I buy into January window being Richi out and no one in re CFs? no, to me that's incompetance
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I usually sit on the side of the fence where you buy a 1st team player for the long term and dont' just buy squad players who are only inrementally better than what we already have. I'm not really a fan of squad fillers. There have been special cases though:

Robbo - we didn't have the funds to go big at LB so went for the experiences, highly decorated player at the end of his career.
Senesi - we needed to churn Dragusin, Romero and Vuskovic for whatever reasons and he fitted Roberto's style of play.
Tosin - the latish call on Danso leaving meant we probably needed that player coming in.

In JPvH, Tonali, Fernandez, Savio and Marmoush we clearly went for the 1st team impact players. Whether it's working out for all of them is not really the point. They were clearly bought to be 1st choice or heavily rotated players.

It's now a case whether we need to do any more of this type of churn or whether we can really go after top tier players. If they're not available, can we wait until the next window.

What I would say to Solanke is stop being mr nice guy. Dom needs to get really angry with the referees who are watching centre half after centre half illegally go through him. He needs to use his smarts and go to ground and protest everything. He needs to foul a few centre halves and pick up a few bookings. Show his teeth. I'm sick of him getting illegally fouled and nothing given. It's another complete failing of PGMOL nowadays. We also need his team mates to get into the ear of the referee on his behalf as well. I think Roberto needs to teach Dom to back into the centre half first and create that little bit of space. There is clearly something not working right as he was never this bad at playing with his back to goal. He use to be compared to Firminho at one point. He needs help getting back to that.
 
Raziel said:
Sure we can disagree, but my perspective

- Last January we made the wrong call, the lack of action there put us within 90 minutes of being relagated (would have cost us 100's of millions)
- Yes, other teams are interested but like Tonali & Fernandes, it becomes a how far into the well are you willing to go, if we bid 90M is the Scum still in the game (my opinion, Arteta will spend the money on another defensive player)
- There is a difference between nobody and a warm body, again in the plan B/C etc, is there not a promising youth option to give us something else if first targets are really impossible (maybe someone with pace or height or some other skill set)

This is risk/reward at a corporate level

- e.g. is we spent 100M on Kroupi (and sold Richi & Solanke) but finished higher in European spots vs. finishing 9th, which works?
- It's also understanding, keeping this squad together and building on it next summer will require European football.

Would I buy into Solanke plus a youth prospect or a journeyman option? sure, if we really had a plan to go big in summer for a top #9

Would I buy into January window being Richi out and no one in re CFs? no, to me that's incompetance
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The wrong call last January was keeping Ftoss in charge
That was the crippling factor
Now we have big boy decisions to make on certain players
Solanke would be one
Arguably Maddison too
 
Gutter Boy said:
Any two of Kroupi, Kofane, Lankshear and Osimhen hopefully
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Kroupi is injured I believe and I'm not convinced we should be spending £100m on someone with 2 good seasons (1 in the PL), yes he could be the next big thing that we miss out on but we need something who's more of a surer bet if there is such a thing.
 
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