It only says a lot to people who don't see the bigger pictute. We were buying players that summer, why does it matter one iota if the first one we signed was a youngster for the future?
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Daniel Levy - Chairman
- Thread starter Howard Webb
- Start date
It only says a lot to people who don't see the bigger pictute. We were buying players that summer, why does it matter one iota if the first one we signed was a youngster for the future?
Finney Is Back
Luka Modric
Why buy 4 players for the manager (only 3 who actually arrive at the club) and then sack the manager pretty much before he gets to use those new 3 players? Appalling planning! (especially when we actually needed 6 or 7 new players for the squad due to 3 windows of inactivity other than sales).
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But Clarke was just the first of many transfers that window and since, why is this an issue?
If he was the only transfer that window I would agree more with your point, but he wasn't so????
glorygloryeze
Ian Walker
Well, perhaps ask Poch...he was seemingly miffed that summer as we saw with his press conference saying "i'm not the manger" or words to that effect when being asked about transfers. He never showed such tones previously.
People highlighting issues are looking at the bigger picture: we have 20 years worth of experience to do that now and 20 years worth of different excuses
Baleforce
Martin Peters
excuses for our almost continued improvement over that period?
I wouldn't have sacked poch either. Fail to see how that relates to signing a talented youngster for the future. If anything that was probably from a separate compartmentalised transfer budget... same one we used to sign Ali and possibly Bale.
glorygloryeze
Ian Walker
Again, it showed (to Poch most crucially) that when it comes to the crunch to be decisive about rebuilding and getting in players to integrate quickly for the new season etc, there's likely far less savvy/decisiveness/swiftness whatever you want to call it when it comes to players for the immediate needs vs players for the future/investment punts
glorygloryeze
Ian Walker
In terms of league placings, improvements. I see same excuses for not really pushing on and really going or it in terms of improving the squad to achieve things beyond just getting top 4
Can you not see that Buying one of the most highly rated midfielders in the world ( which Ndembele was at that point) for 65m is a much more complicated and time consuming that buying Jack Clarke?
For all we know, Ndembele was waiting on PSG or Barcelona to make their move before commiting to us (they were both rumoured to be interested.
I cant believe we are having this discussion and the main point of complaint is we signed Jack Clarke first. Personally if you are going to beat Levy up over that window, his failure to secure Ferndes(spelling) is a much better stick to beat him with.
Baleforce
Martin Peters
By "pushing on", do you mean taking greater financial risk?
I don't think Levy is hiding hundreds of millions of pounds somewhere, we spend what we can afford to spend. I see no evidence for conspiracy or corruption.
It's the same reason all along, people like yourself just can't seem to grasp that you don't succeed in any meaningful way without having the revenue in place to do so. You think despite being poorer and smaller than our rivals we should be winning trophies ahead of them - it's an unreasonable position
glorygloryeze
Ian Walker
No, it's about the hierarchy actually 'going for it' when the time and conditions are right and in our favour. Consistently over the years they have 'bottled it' (using different excuses) in that regard and that ultimately has set the tone for the club. It's why we've had the Sissokos bought instead of the Wijnaldums/Manes that were intended etc
Finney Is Back
Luka Modric
I am admittedly being a little facetious.... Our last decade was a good one for the club. We got in two good managers (compared to only one good one the decade before) and those managers got 3 and 5 year periods at the club where they overachieved pretty much continuously.
Weirdly though those two managers, who despite being given lesser resources than their rivals actually delivered what the board wanted, both got sacked.
Both of those managers took us to the cusp of being able to challenge for the really big trophies only to be let down by the board with a lack of investment in the playing squad at key times.
Going forward I would like the owners to make public what the success criteria is for our manager. What is he being judged on? If the requirement is CL football 3 years out of 5 (or whatever) then the owners need to give commensurate financial backing to that criteria.
In the poll I posted the other day I was actually torn between the options of ENIC selling up and the one where they carry on but with a DoF brought in who had full responsibility and accountability, I went for the former simply because I thought the second scenario was more likely with new owners than with Levy remaining in place. If Levy steps back and allows a good football operator to actually operate, then I think we should get back to being the ~4th/~5th best club in a couple of years time once that structure has been able to bed in and the squad had an opportunity to be improved via that means.
Look this has already been addressed in earlier posts - we can sit here and blame the club for not going for it when we were close and i get that it has been frustrating or we can recognise that ultimately the stadium has been the main focus, financially, for the last 10 years and now that it's built werein a much better place to push on and deliver trophies.
Seems more than a little entitled to me to expect us to be 'going for it' in the transfer market so we can maybe win multiple trophies ahead of bigger richer clubs, whilst at the same time committing to massive infrastructure projects like stadium builds.
It wasn't so long ago that you were claming Poch off for not winning trophies, now it's the chairman - maybe you should just stop looking for a bogeyman to blame and realise building a stadium whilst being succesful on the pitch is actually pretty hard.
Finney Is Back
Luka Modric
The most galling thing of all in that particular case was that Liverpool paid about £7 million less for Wjinaldum than we paid for Sissoko. Quite why the manager's first choice target earlier in the transfer window isn't worth paying a lower fee for than a last minute bid for Sissoko is anyone's guess? I do wonder though whether that same sort of mess would occur if our football matters were being operated by a DoF as opposed to our current structure?
Bishop
Paul Stalteri
We spend what we decide we can afford to spend. That a decision made by the club. We could spend more without bankrupting ourselves just as we could spend less.
glorygloryeze
Ian Walker
Erm, i don't remember 'claming Poch off' for not winning trophies, i think you've got me mistaken with someone else there. I did say that him saying trophies are not important and 'just for egos' was a poor move. I also said him saying he'd leave if we won CL before the game was poor.
I also think Poch's change in tone and demeanour were down to him consistently asking the hierarchy to 'be brave' and that instead on the whole they were the opposite.
It's not entitled to want the club to show ambition and take those chances presented to us at the right times. Failing aiming higher is fine, even if frustrating. Failing, constantly playing it safe is what is galling after a while, whilst proclaiming to have ambition.
I expect this is also how things are viewed within football circles and will likely play out over the coming months (let's hope i'm wrong there..)
Baleforce
Martin Peters
We don't know that for sure though do we, we don't have all of the information required to accurately judge.