Transfer Talk Topic

[paulw66]

Just now, Sleeping Dave said:

But now you are comparing the Jose Mourinho side with the reality of today. There is no comparison whatsoever. Back then it was enough to score 70 goals to win the league if you also had a stellar defensive record. We have neither and there isn’t a side in the PL today that can go through a whole season only conceding 15 goals… Man C has consistently scored 90+ goals over the last five seasons. We are talking about the bare minimum 70 goals here and are struggling to see where that is going to come from. 

I really think that a large majority on here lack the basic understanding of what it takes to be successful in the PL these days. Having a fullback scoring five goals isn’t enough mate. You need a handful of players who score around 10 league goals consistently. Last season Arsenal had four players scoring more than 10 league goals - Odegaard (15), Martinelli (15), Saka (14) and Jesus (11). On top of that they had Xhaka (7). 

City only had two, Haaland (36) and Foden (11) but also had Alvarez (9), Gundogan (8) and De Bruyne (7). Season before that City had 3 players on 10+ goals and another five players scoring 7+ goals. In those two season our top scorer was Havertz (7) and Mount (11). Both sold as you know. Do we have a single player you are confident will get more than 9 league goals this season? Cause I am not. 

I think you are arguing against a point I didn't make. I was agreeing with you.

Back in the day, we had defenders who would chip in, and lighten the load. Now we don't have that either.

Having 2 or 3 defenders getting 5 each was like an extra attacker's contribution.

[boratsbrother]

2 hours ago, paulw66 said:

yes. JT, Ivanovic, Cahill..........they all used to get circa 5 each. Gallas, to a similar degree. That all adds up to another forward if you have defenders who can contribute like that.

And   a remarkable midfielder banging in 15-20 a season.

The mind boggles at what kind of price a peak Lamps would go for these days.

Edited September 15, 2023 by boratsbrother

[Sleeping Dave]

2 hours ago, paulw66 said:

I dunno!

We'll have to hope some of these youngsters come good! 

You and me both then mate! I do believe we have two future top players on our hands - Jackson and Madueke. But they’ll need time to develop and find the confidence to be those players. 

2 hours ago, paulw66 said:

I think you are arguing against a point I didn't make. I was agreeing with you.

Back in the day, we had defenders who would chip in, and lighten the load. Now we don't have that either.

Having 2 or 3 defenders getting 5 each was like an extra attacker's contribution.

Gotcha, and agreed. Having a few defenders chipping in with 3-5 goals per season makes a massive difference. 

In 2021/22 when we did manage to score 76 goals we did so not because we had a few prolific attackers but rather no less than 6(!) defenders scoring 3+ league goals - James (5), Alonso (4), Rudiger/Chalobah/Silva/Chilwell (3).  That’s 21 league goals right there, 22 if you add Azpilicueta (1). So it can be done even though you lack prolific attackers.

Last season our defenders scored; Chilwell/Koulibaly (2), James/Fofana/Badiashile (1) for a combined 7 league goals. 

[Sleeping Dave]

2 hours ago, boratsbrother said:

And   a remarkable midfielder banging in 15-20 a season.

The mind boggles at what kind of price a peak Lamps would go for these days.

£300m? How many midfielders has numbers even remotely like that today? 

[paulw66]

1 hour ago, Sleeping Dave said:

£300m? How many midfielders has numbers even remotely like that today? 

Or ever? 

[Mark Kelly]

1 hour ago, Sleeping Dave said:

£300m? How many midfielders has numbers even remotely like that today? 

 

1 minute ago, paulw66 said:

Or ever? 

Never got the respect he deserved "because Liverpool" 

Another reason to dislike them and their army of fanbois in the media. 

[Sleeping Dave]

1 hour ago, paulw66 said:

Or ever? 

Yes, or ever. Imagine people are still harping on about Steven Gerrard as the best midfielder of his generation. It’s utterly ridiculous. 

I can see it if we had managed to sign him. Forever standing in Frank Lampards shadow. Imagine the field day the press would have had about that one! 

[Max Fowler]

 

 

[Dwmh]

A word on Kepa (hopefully not a final word)..
This season is definitely work in progress for us.  Having Kepa out on loan makes perfect sense with Sanchez being No 2 in a years time.  Of course I have long hoped and expected Kepa would eventually rise to No 1 Kepa again here, so have no urgent need to write him off like Sarri, Jorginho an Havertz,  when they were "kicked out" (or to my chagrin Kovacic or who knows many RLC).

20 hours ago, kev61 said:

The other thing that worries me is Clearlake has nobody to answer to.

If you think Clearlake can not bring us down just look at Nick Leeson who single handedly  brought down barings bank that existed since the 18th century.

A tad over dramatic but there is a similarity in that they are risking a fortune.

If we go under how much will they lose?.We can already see them in the trading mode with no idea who we are buying and who we are selling.

Having said all that I'm 'optimistic'😀

Never mind Barings that suffered from incompetent accounting, audit and risk control systems where tens or twenties failed rather than a single excitable trader.

If Clearlake pay (say) $2bn for us, spend another $1.5bn on largely silly purposes, collect say $0.5bn when Enzo and a couple of other good purchases say  "enough - let me go or I go on strike" - then what happens?
Simple - Clearlake say enough, flog us off for $1bn, a $2bn haircut, and some other investors will come along.

I hope they will be like Bates, tough dealing, tough negotiating, and planning a gradual improvement year by year with the balls to accept a few setbacks.  As Brighton or Brentford seem to be run.  The $1 billion will seem like a great deal.

 

13 hours ago, Mark Kelly said:

I think there has definitely and irrefutably been progression , we are already moving the ball faster , not maybe as quickly as we can but definitely faster , there is more of an emphasis on the forward pass and more movement , we have Colwill and Silva both capable of making long sweeping passes , we have a decent centre forward with a good understanding of the role , we have genuine pace in the side now . What we are lacking is familiarity and a bit of steel .

The owners have made some decisions that look from the outside to be idiotic but we often don't know the noise behind the scenes that were driving them , especially the Tuchel situation , probably the biggest mistake was trusting the ITK assessment of Potter who was very much seen to be "the coming man" in the media , and many of us fell for that one too. Not having a shirt sponsor five games into a new season is West Ham levels of mismanagement so that hasn't been too great either 

We were great pre season , fast , fluid , goals galore football , the loss to Forest and West Ham has knocked that right out of us.

A bit more time , a bit more opportunity to gel and we will be firing on all cylinders again .

Yes and no.  Tactically we look better prepared.  The players seem to know as much as the fans what the 5 defender/4 defender/3 defender system is about (which wasn't the case last year).  The ball does go forward more obviously (there was a fashion for the term Vertical football a few years ago and Colwill is definitely a good alternative to Silva to play those forward balls (so a CF & No 10 can no longer keep Silva and Enzo out of the game).

But this is only relative to Lampard (1 win in 11  and we all knew he was a tactical disaster).
Relative to Potter or Tuchel I don't see much difference.  Pre-season was only good relative to the other teams, and of course we haven't worked out yet who the first 11 is, so picking 2 sets of 11 was like picking the first team while opponents brought on the B team (if I recall we did well in 2nd halves).

We are basically playing more like an average talented mid-table team, plenty of graft but no special flair.  Poch's Spurs without Kane.  And the failure not so much to score against a 10 man Wham or worse an 11 man Forest in 90 mins, but to even really dominate when the oppo were just hanging on.

Almost every where I look at CFC looks ugly.  And I struggle to believe we can hang on to Sterling, Enzo, James and Colwill for very long.  Even Kepa!

The club needs its old fans right now.

[kev61]

16 hours ago, Ham said:

So anytime who disagrees with their opinion is an empty vessel? 

 

No.I'm just saying there is a bit more balance.

[kev61]

4 hours ago, Dwmh said:

A word on Kepa (hopefully not a final word)..
This season is definitely work in progress for us.  Having Kepa out on loan makes perfect sense with Sanchez being No 2 in a years time.  Of course I have long hoped and expected Kepa would eventually rise to No 1 Kepa again here, so have no urgent need to write him off like Sarri, Jorginho an Havertz,  when they were "kicked out" (or to my chagrin Kovacic or who knows many RLC).

Never mind Barings that suffered from incompetent accounting, audit and risk control systems where tens or twenties failed rather than a single excitable trader.

If Clearlake pay (say) $2bn for us, spend another $1.5bn on largely silly purposes, collect say $0.5bn when Enzo and a couple of other good purchases say  "enough - let me go or I go on strike" - then what happens?
Simple - Clearlake say enough, flog us off for $1bn, a $2bn haircut, and some other investors will come along.

I hope they will be like Bates, tough dealing, tough negotiating, and planning a gradual improvement year by year with the balls to accept a few setbacks.  As Brighton or Brentford seem to be run.  The $1 billion will seem like a great deal.

 

Yes and no.  Tactically we look better prepared.  The players seem to know as much as the fans what the 5 defender/4 defender/3 defender system is about (which wasn't the case last year).  The ball does go forward more obviously (there was a fashion for the term Vertical football a few years ago and Colwill is definitely a good alternative to Silva to play those forward balls (so a CF & No 10 can no longer keep Silva and Enzo out of the game).

But this is only relative to Lampard (1 win in 11  and we all knew he was a tactical disaster).
Relative to Potter or Tuchel I don't see much difference.  Pre-season was only good relative to the other teams, and of course we haven't worked out yet who the first 11 is, so picking 2 sets of 11 was like picking the first team while opponents brought on the B team (if I recall we did well in 2nd halves).

We are basically playing more like an average talented mid-table team, plenty of graft but no special flair.  Poch's Spurs without Kane.  And the failure not so much to score against a 10 man Wham or worse an 11 man Forest in 90 mins, but to even really dominate when the oppo were just hanging on.

Almost every where I look at CFC looks ugly.  And I struggle to believe we can hang on to Sterling, Enzo, James and Colwill for very long.  Even Kepa!

The club needs its old fans right now.

I'm going to sound like a Walter Mitty,but I met one family member of barings bank through my brother.

I asked him how could one person bring down a bank.He oozed class with his accent and appearance and said to me they took the eye off the ball.I was chuffed that a someone like him even answered me.

[Rob B]

8 hours ago, Dwmh said:

If Clearlake pay (say) $2bn for us, spend another $1.5bn on largely silly purposes, collect say $0.5bn when Enzo and a couple of other good purchases say  "enough - let me go or I go on strike" - then what happens?
Simple - Clearlake say enough, flog us off for $1bn, a $2bn haircut, and some other investors will come along.

Not for another 9 years they won’t be! 

[thevelourfog]

Not a rumour and just my own musing but I watched about 20 minutes of Bayern vs Leverkusen yesterday (free to air on YouTube, think Sky are pushing their coverage a bit more now Kane is there) and thought to myself "someone is going to pay £100m for Victor Boniface in a year".

That would be us. Posting for posterity incase I finally get something right!

[boratsbrother]

5 hours ago, kev61 said:

I'm going to sound like a Walter Mitty,but I met one family member of barings bank through my brother.

I asked him how could one person bring down a bank.He oozed class with his accent and appearance and said to me they took the eye off the ball.I was chuffed that a someone like him even answered me.

For those who haven't seen it Rogue Trader is an entertaining movie with Ewan McGregor playing the part of Nick Leeson. 

[boratsbrother]

1 hour ago, Rob B said:

Not for another 9 years they won’t be! 

I know it was part of the terms of the sale, but what would the repercussions be if they decided to sell before the 10 years are up? I can't see them wanting to stay around if things are going badly wrong in a few years time.

Edited September 16, 2023 by boratsbrother

[Holymoly]

Football has changed compared with 10 or 15 years ago. You no longer have the players in the market that everyone knows, that perform year after year after year. The "franchise" players have disappeared. The likes of Messi, Ronaldo and Ibrahimovic have gone. There is no-one taking their place that perfrom year in year out. You get players that come up from nowhere, have a handful of good seasons then disappear into obscurity again. The likes of Ballack or Fabregas for instance had been worldclass for 10 years before we signed them at the tail end of their careers. The last player I can remember that we bought as a youngster and who developed into a consistent world class player was Hazard. Clubs now are lucky if they find a player who plays at top class for more than 2 or 3 seasons. There are no longer the likes of Gullit, Hughes, Zola or Vialli, proven players that you can buy and still get 5 good seasons out of them. That is why the league has evened up. Every club can buy out of the same pool of young promising players now and they are equally likely to unearth the odd short lived diamond. There are no longer the cherrys that only clubs such as Chelsea can afford that end up proving to be long term successes. We need to stop trying to buy ourselves out of the malaise in which we find ourselves. Stop trying to buy success. There is an argument to rein in spending to more sensible amounts on cheaper players as they are just as likely to produce the goods as an Enzo or a Caicedo. The real investment should be made in coaching, to try and maximise the effect of the ephemeral flames that flicker and flare before guttering out. It's easy to look back with 20:20 clarity, however if we had that strategy at the tail end of Roman's reign perhaps the likes of KdB or Salah would be seeing out their careers at Cobham rather than having been donated to our rivals. It's a different world out there and the likes of Brighton seem to have cottoned on faster than us.

[boratsbrother]

20 minutes ago, Holymoly said:

Football has changed compared with 10 or 15 years ago. You no longer have the players in the market that everyone knows, that perform year after year after year. The "franchise" players have disappeared. The likes of Messi, Ronaldo and Ibrahimovic have gone. There is no-one taking their place that perfrom year in year out. 

Haaland and Mbappe are obviously two players performing at a high level every year but neither has the charisma to be a "franchise player."

Sad lack of characters in the game these days. Same can be said for most sports.

[paulw66]

1 hour ago, thevelourfog said:

Not a rumour and just my own musing but I watched about 20 minutes of Bayern vs Leverkusen yesterday (free to air on YouTube, think Sky are pushing their coverage a bit more now Kane is there) and thought to myself "someone is going to pay £100m for Victor Boniface in a year".

That would be us. Posting for posterity incase I finally get something right!

Would you advocate this? I've never seen him play

[Sleeping Dave]

3 hours ago, thevelourfog said:

Not a rumour and just my own musing but I watched about 20 minutes of Bayern vs Leverkusen yesterday (free to air on YouTube, think Sky are pushing their coverage a bit more now Kane is there) and thought to myself "someone is going to pay £100m for Victor Boniface in a year".

That would be us. Posting for posterity incase I finally get something right!

Another likely candidate is Terem Moffi, also from Nigeria (playing for Nice). 

[Max Fowler]

3 hours ago, Holymoly said:

Football has changed compared with 10 or 15 years ago. You no longer have the players in the market that everyone knows, that perform year after year after year. The "franchise" players have disappeared. The likes of Messi, Ronaldo and Ibrahimovic have gone. There is no-one taking their place that perfrom year in year out. You get players that come up from nowhere, have a handful of good seasons then disappear into obscurity again. The likes of Ballack or Fabregas for instance had been worldclass for 10 years before we signed them at the tail end of their careers. The last player I can remember that we bought as a youngster and who developed into a consistent world class player was Hazard. Clubs now are lucky if they find a player who plays at top class for more than 2 or 3 seasons. There are no longer the likes of Gullit, Hughes, Zola or Vialli, proven players that you can buy and still get 5 good seasons out of them. That is why the league has evened up. Every club can buy out of the same pool of young promising players now and they are equally likely to unearth the odd short lived diamond. There are no longer the cherrys that only clubs such as Chelsea can afford that end up proving to be long term successes. We need to stop trying to buy ourselves out of the malaise in which we find ourselves. Stop trying to buy success. There is an argument to rein in spending to more sensible amounts on cheaper players as they are just as likely to produce the goods as an Enzo or a Caicedo. The real investment should be made in coaching, to try and maximise the effect of the ephemeral flames that flicker and flare before guttering out. It's easy to look back with 20:20 clarity, however if we had that strategy at the tail end of Roman's reign perhaps the likes of KdB or Salah would be seeing out their careers at Cobham rather than having been donated to our rivals. It's a different world out there and the likes of Brighton seem to have cottoned on faster than us.

I will repeat what I said before - there is a complete dearth of quality players in the 25-29 age bracket. Salah, De Bruyne, Kane etc. are all older now, as well as the generation above them - Modric, Ronaldo, Messi.

However, there is a ton of great players in the 21-24 age range, and I can't see them going away any time soon.

[Dwmh]

4 hours ago, Rob B said:

Not for another 9 years they won’t be! 

No.  I think as soon as Clearlake go, they'll be another buyer, as i say hopefully someone smarter (though since Clearlake seem to be doubling up on their investment they may well make a success it if once quadrupled; they may have to call the great bluff which is FFP first, or City might have one that already).

3 hours ago, boratsbrother said:

I know it was part of the terms of the sale, but what would the repercussions be if they decided to sell before the 10 years are up? I can't see them wanting to stay around if things are going badly wrong in a few years time.

I wasn't paying close attention when the deal was done.  But the counterparties I imagine would have been fordstam, the government, perhaps the FA, and possibly some Fan representatives or the CPO.
I can't see any of them not approving a sale if Clearlake management is a disaster over next 2 years.

 

8 hours ago, kev61 said:

I'm going to sound like a Walter Mitty,but I met one family member of barings bank through my brother.

I asked him how could one person bring down a bank.He oozed class with his accent and appearance and said to me they took the eye off the ball.I was chuffed that a someone like him even answered me.

3 hours ago, boratsbrother said:

For those who haven't seen it Rogue Trader is an entertaining movie with Ewan McGregor playing the part of Nick Leeson. 

 

Your classy relative is classily ducking the subject.  Not seen the film, but I was trading Index futures in much smaller size a few years before Leeson for a rival Merchant Bank.
It wasn't one eye off the ball, it was a dozen sets of eyes from the teams supposed to monitor that kind of trading and a dozen more sets from the people whose job it is to make sure those accounting, auditing and risk monitoring roles are done properly.  There were huge losses in the Error Account that Leeson was using to hide his losses - an easy giveaway.
 

[boratsbrother]

7 hours ago, Dwmh said:

 

 

 

Your classy relative is classily ducking the subject.  Not seen the film, but I was trading Index futures in much smaller size a few years before Leeson for a rival Merchant Bank.
It wasn't one eye off the ball, it was a dozen sets of eyes from the teams supposed to monitor that kind of trading and a dozen more sets from the people whose job it is to make sure those accounting, auditing and risk monitoring roles are done properly.  There were huge losses in the Error Account that Leeson was using to hide his losses - an easy giveaway.
 

There's a  paragraph in the wiki page for Leeson which stood out for me.

Prior to leaving to work in Singapore, Leeson was denied a broker's licence in the UK because of fraud in his application. He had failed to report a judgment against him entered by the National Westminster Bank. Bearings knew about this and neither Leeson or the Barings discloses this when he applied for his licence in Singapore.

I had great sympathy for what happened to Barings, but they partly bought it themselves for ignoring  and even covering  up that red flag.

Fascinating story all the same.

 

[Dwmh]

2 hours ago, boratsbrother said:

There's a  paragraph in the wiki page for Leeson which stood out for me.

Prior to leaving to work in Singapore, Leeson was denied a broker's licence in the UK because of fraud in his application. He had failed to report a judgment against him entered by the National Westminster Bank. Bearings knew about this and neither Leeson or the Barings discloses this when he applied for his licence in Singapore.

I had great sympathy for what happened to Barings, but they partly bought it themselves for ignoring  and even covering  up that red flag.

Fascinating story all the same.

I have no doubt Leeson was 100% guilty.  But that is just one more red flag the Barings team ignored.
Absolutely criminal.  Who was the trading boss he was reporting to?  Because the type of trading he was doing is about as open to huge risks as you can get.  There are systems and systems to prevent that kind of thing, and all of them get huge salaries.  100% Barings failure and of course the reason they had to go to a big bank to be bailed out rather than just go to the shareholders for more money was precisely that they had been shown to be a Management Failure bank.

Edited September 16, 2023 by Dwmh

[kev61]

14 hours ago, Dwmh said:

No.  I think as soon as Clearlake go, they'll be another buyer, as i say hopefully someone smarter (though since Clearlake seem to be doubling up on their investment they may well make a success it if once quadrupled; they may have to call the great bluff which is FFP first, or City might have one that already).

I wasn't paying close attention when the deal was done.  But the counterparties I imagine would have been fordstam, the government, perhaps the FA, and possibly some Fan representatives or the CPO.
I can't see any of them not approving a sale if Clearlake management is a disaster over next 2 years.

 

 

Your classy relative is classily ducking the subject.  Not seen the film, but I was trading Index futures in much smaller size a few years before Leeson for a rival Merchant Bank.
It wasn't one eye off the ball, it was a dozen sets of eyes from the teams supposed to monitor that kind of trading and a dozen more sets from the people whose job it is to make sure those accounting, auditing and risk monitoring roles are done properly.  There were huge losses in the Error Account that Leeson was using to hide his losses - an easy giveaway.
 

I can't believe an investment company like clearlake haven't got a 'get out' strategy. 

I'm not clever enough to see it, but my common sense tells me they have to.

[kev61]

We've seen liverpool struggling like us.I said at the time it would be interesting to see how Liverpool would perform in comparison. 

They are thriving going forward.

We are multi million pound flop.