Transfer Talk Topic

[Max Fowler]

7 hours ago, Dwmh said:

Mount and Havertz are 2 out of 23 examples.  You can't credit the board because 2 out of 23 players (I may have missed a few more) that exited haven't succeeded.   In their first few months.

I mean I actually carefully brought up Mount and Havertz Droy, because the board has taken a ton of flack (including from me) on selling all of those important players at once. 

There was quite a bit of deadwood but I also think there were some we could have tried harder to keep (e.g. Kovacic) who do a good job for the team and add important experience.

Now I think we can look a few months later and say, from where we are standing today, selling Mount and Havertz was great business. That situation could obviously change again.

[paulw66]

17 hours ago, Dwmh said:

 

The other obvious point is that one of the reasons Arsenal is having a good season is Jorginho.
 

Of all of your contrary viewpoints, this is gold.

He has started 4 PL games, out of 12 (or 384 minutes out of an available 1080), including  starting the game against us (he was substituted at 2-0)

To suggest Arsenal are having a good season because of him is just strange. How can a player who has played so little be so responsible for their overall form?

To take it further, when Arsenal bought Jorginho in January, they had 50 points from 19 games. They got 34 points from the next 19 games. A circa 47% drop. 

 

 

[paulw66]

8 hours ago, Dwmh said:

Off the top of my head, Teams that bought Chelsea players.
Anyone notice a pattern?
 

 

 

 

This proves nothing. The players sold to the stronger PL teams are at best, squad players. The ones sold abroad have gone to far weaker leagues.

We were terrible last season and beat Milan 5-0 on aggregate. So what does selling them two cast offs mean? Nothing. 

[Dwmh]

1 hour ago, Max Fowler said:

I mean I actually carefully brought up Mount and Havertz Droy, because the board has taken a ton of flack (including from me) on selling all of those important players at once. 

doh - so you cherry picked 2 out of 23 on the basis of a few months as an argument the board had done well.
Exactly my point.  It is a fake argument.
 
If it had been about Mount and havertz and not about the board it might have been a useful point.

 

[Dwmh]

9 hours ago, xceleryx said:

We fast tracked things to a degree but it doesn't negate the underlying factors that a lot of these players had ran their course here. If anything, I commend the effort to just pull the plaster off once and for all. There's quite a few names in there who were lucky to still be at the club at the time and arguably should've been sold years prior. 

Result 11th equal.  Whatever and whyever the experiment, it is a huge failure - most of all it limits our ability to buy and keep good players going forwards.
[Technical - for a handful interested in Investment theory.   From a risk taking pov buying many football players bets have a huge fat tail (potential downside) because they play in a team and all sink or swim together.  Add in team spirit effects. 

There is no diversification effect which would isolate one Clearlake portfolio investment from another.]

9 hours ago, xceleryx said:

It's almost like a more experienced and developed side were able to do better than a younger more inexperienced one, barely a shock to anyone who acknowledges the vast differences in dynamics. 

QFT.  Precisely.  100% predictable.

 

9 hours ago, xceleryx said:

I didn't, I address the wider group as whole initially. The part where I said it's hard to argue we made any mistakes with those we've left go. 

In which case you should address that point to the person who brought up Mount and Havertz (and also wanted to cherry pick them them as praise for the board).

 

9 hours ago, xceleryx said:

That's fine, I've continuously stated my acceptance of where we are and that it may take a few years before we're back in more familiar territory again. Maybe even in a better position then before where we can genuinely mount a title challenge, unlike how things have been since we last won the league. 

Have you stopped and considered that being a 100 point team is the goal, and that what we're doing is trying to make steps to achieve that? No where as there been any indication that we're trying to go from "44 points to 100" in one fell swoop. That's a narrative you've conjured up yourself. 

Last season is last season so I'm not going to rehash over it, however I'd rather have the nucleus of the team we have now compared to what was on offer last season. Even if it's not been entirely reflected on the league table, I'm much more content, confident, and excited with what we're building. It'll take further time and patience, but I'm certainly prepared to provide that if it helps land us in a stronger position moving forward. 

So i can see their is a logical argument in here, not one that I agree with.

Your argument is that a complete re-fit allows us to go from 74 points to 44 points and then up to 100 points over a large number of years.  
I think the first step when you just had 74 points and want more is to make damn sure you dont fall below 64 points the next season and stay at 64+ the season after.  Anything else means the plan has failed big time.
And I don't think Clearlake have a large number of years in mind (unlike the fans).  One of the basics of VC investment is you need to make your money over a short period and get out.  Doubling your money in 3 years is a fantastic return.  Doubling it over 10 years is just 2 % higher than you can get on Treasury bonds.

At 44 points and on target for 50 this season the plan has failed BIG BIG time already

Win some lose some at investment portfolio level is part of the game.  The good get cashed in, the bad get closed down.  The tough calls are on the "Zombie" investments - profitable enough to not close, but not growing fast enough to invest more into.
We look seriously like a Clearlake Zombie investment.

[Dwmh]

1 hour ago, paulw66 said:

To suggest Arsenal are having a good season because of him (Jorginho) is just strange. How can a player who has played so little be so responsible for their overall form?

He is getting picked in a successful team and comingon as sub when not  His situation is quite different to those not getting picked at teams having what i would call a disappointing season.  Done well for himself.

1 hour ago, paulw66 said:

This proves nothing. The players sold to the stronger PL teams are at best, squad players. The ones sold abroad have gone to far weaker leagues.

Just a reminder that the players weren't slung out because they were poor players - pretty much everyone went to a club better than us right now (or to a better paying club in Saudi).
The ones that went abroad nearly all went to teams in the CL.

1 hour ago, paulw66 said:

We were terrible last season and beat Milan 5-0 on aggregate. So what does selling them two cast offs mean? Nothing. 

CL place, CL budget.  CL semis last season.   I do hope on the basis of 2 group games in the CL you are not going to claim that the Creamcakes had a good season,
 

[Max Fowler]

55 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

doh - so you cherry picked 2 out of 23 on the basis of a few months as an argument the board had done well.
Exactly my point.  It is a fake argument.
 
If it had been about Mount and havertz and not about the board it might have been a useful point.

 

But the board will clearly have done well on some things and not on others.

I.e Clearly they have done well with Palmer. Jury is still out on Mudryk.

Just trying to give credit where credit is due for Mount and Havertz.

[paulw66]

39 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

He is getting picked in a successful team and comingon as sub when not  His situation is quite different to those not getting picked at teams having what i would call a disappointing season.  Done well for himself.

 

You switched arguments. You said initially that were doing well this season because of Jorginho, a player who has played about 33% of minutes. It's just odd.

you also ignored the huge drop in points per game Arsenal had last season after he joined

39 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

 

Just a reminder that the players weren't slung out because they were poor players - pretty much everyone went to a club better than us right now (or to a better paying club in Saudi).
 

 

Yes, and no.  Certainly underperforming players. And I guess it depends how you define "better"....... I think we will end up finishing about Brighton and West Ham (for examples), possibly Man Utd too. The foreign clubs it is harder to benchmark, but the leagues are weaker.

Moreover, a lot of the players were moved on due to their age. A lot of them needed replacing either now, or next summer latest.

39 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

The ones that went abroad nearly all went to teams in the CL.

 

Doesn't necessarily make them better. As I said, we stuffed Milan last season, and yet they are in the CL. They play in a much weaker league. 

We also beat Dortmund, who were joint top of the Bundesliga. Again, proves nothing other than how weak the league is. 

Werner went back to Leipzig, who are 4th......if we finished 12th and beat the team who came 2nd, where do you think Leipzig would finish?

39 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

 

.   I do hope on the basis of 2 group games in the CL you are not going to claim that the Creamcakes had a good season,
 

I literally said we were terrible. If you are not going to read the post properly, there is little point engaging. 

 

[Dwmh]

26 minutes ago, paulw66 said:

Yes, and no.  Certainly underperforming players. And I guess it depends how you define "better"....... I think we will end up finishing about Brighton and West Ham (for examples), possibly Man Utd too. The foreign clubs it is harder to benchmark, but the leagues are weaker.

I think some people are in for a shock.  We had a couple of good results.  Because we found one of the very few teams that is happy to gamble hard to risk 1 point to get 3.  And before that because of 2 Red cards and a Pen.
It is one thing to say bad luck has been balanced out.  Quite another to think we are on a roll.

I still think that the troubles we had in scoring against Spurs which from 55 mins to 90mins played as if it actually expected to win with 9 men implied the team is even weaker than it appears.
Can't score against packed defences.  Can't score against defences sitting on the h/w line until they get so tired they no longer run back.


Foreign leagues sure, but they all went to CL level teams.  

 

26 minutes ago, paulw66 said:

I literally said we were terrible. If you are not going to read the post properly, there is little point engaging. 

If you read the series of posts  🙂 you'll see cherry picking 2 out of 23 was a theme for the page.

Edited November 24, 2023 by Dwmh

[Max Fowler]

11 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

I still think that the troubles we had in scoring against Spurs which from 55 mins to 90mins played as if it actually expected to win with 9 men implied the team is even weaker than it appears.

I mean we really didn't have troubles scoring Droy, in the end.

Our build up play was garbage, I'll give you that. Man City would have scored about 12.

I think we are at a point now where we can say, let's see what impact Nkunku has on the team.

He's coming back in ASAP and like James could make a big difference.

[Dwmh]

7 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

I think we are at a point now where we can say, let's see what impact Nkunku has on the team.

He's coming back in ASAP and like James could make a big difference.

On a roll, or fingers crossed something will change?

Still a game to look forward too at last.

[Max Fowler]

3 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

On a roll, or fingers crossed something will change?

Still a game to look forward too at last.

Considering the start we have had, being 9 points away from CL spots and still in with a shout doesn't seem too bad to me.

I know we have been rocky but we are improving!

[thevelourfog]

4 hours ago, Max Fowler said:

Now I think we can look a few months later and say, from where we are standing today, selling Mount and Havertz was great business. That situation could obviously change again.

Max, this is absolutely mad. I can't believe you didn't write it, think "oh", and delete. It's good business because it looks that way after a few months, but we can change our minds later? It just obviously is too soon to say it's good business!

1 hour ago, Dwmh said:

Your argument is that a complete re-fit allows us to go from 74 points to 44 points and then up to 100 points over a large number of years.  
I think the first step when you just had 74 points and want more is to make damn sure you dont fall below 64 points the next season and stay at 64+ the season after.  Anything else means the plan has failed big time.
And I don't think Clearlake have a large number of years in mind (unlike the fans).  One of the basics of VC investment is you need to make your money over a short period and get out.  Doubling your money in 3 years is a fantastic return.  Doubling it over 10 years is just 2 % higher than you can get on Treasury bonds.

At 44 points and on target for 50 this season the plan has failed BIG BIG time already

Win some lose some at investment portfolio level is part of the game.  The good get cashed in, the bad get closed down.  The tough calls are on the "Zombie" investments - profitable enough to not close, but not growing fast enough to invest more into.
We look seriously like a Clearlake Zombie investment.

Exactly. A lot of criticism of Clearlake gets framed as reactionary or impatient, a lot of tolerance or praise for them gets (self-) congratulated as having vision. That "vision" assumes the money and power behind Clearlake is happy to build slowly over half a decade and asks no questions about how the spending so far is financed. This is wildly, wildly optimistic. 

[ROTG]

1 hour ago, Max Fowler said:

I.e Clearly they have done well with Palmer. Jury is still out on Mudryk.

Palmer is looking the part in a mid table team which like it or not is factual. One can only hope his progression continues, however I remember similar praises about a player who go POTY in consecutive seasons and look what happened to him. 

Mudryk is toilet in a mid table team. Says it all really. 

 

[Max Fowler]

27 minutes ago, thevelourfog said:

Max, this is absolutely mad. I can't believe you didn't write it, think "oh", and delete. It's good business because it looks that way after a few months, but we can change our minds later? It just obviously is too soon to say it's good business!

This corrects for the criticism of Clearlake for their sales in the first place. Was it too early then to say whether it was good business or not? Also yes. But plenty of people including me piled in and said what are we doing selling all our first team players. Okay maybe Mount more than Havertz.

It's important to correct the record as we go. 

I genuinely think Mount and Havertz have found their level. I don't see them exploding again. Havertz is simply not good enough for the league and yet Arsenal's highest wage earner, Mount has been surpassed by Foden, Bellingham, Saka, etc. 

[Max Fowler]

32 minutes ago, thevelourfog said:

Max, this is absolutely mad. I can't believe you didn't write it, think "oh", and delete. It's good business because it looks that way after a few months, but we can change our minds later? It just obviously is too soon to say it's good business!

By the way I am also highly critical of some of our other business in replacing Mount and Havertz. We avoided Cherki because of supposed attitude problems yet in Mudryk and Madueke we have bought the mentality equivalent of Hitler's testicles.

One has a rotten mentality and one has a non-existent mentality.

[Dwmh]

42 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

Considering the start we have had, being 9 points away from CL spots and still in with a shout doesn't seem too bad to me.

I know we have been rocky but we are improving!

Considering the start has been 12 games, being 9 points off CL spots already is disastrous,  Having 5* teams in between us and 4th is worse.
*6 but Everton...

43 minutes ago, thevelourfog said:

Exactly. A lot of criticism of Clearlake gets framed as reactionary or impatient, a lot of tolerance or praise for them gets (self-) congratulated as having vision. That "vision" assumes the money and power behind Clearlake is happy to build slowly over half a decade and asks no questions about how the spending so far is financed. This is wildly, wildly optimistic. 

I'm glad at least one other person sees that.  Clearlake are 18 months into a 3 year project.
This is not ego capital like some club purchases.  This is Vulture capital trying to make a quick buck on Abramovicz's misfortune.

 

9 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

We avoided Cherki because of supposed attitude problems yet in Mudryk and Madueke we have bought the mentality equivalent of Hitler's testicles.

??????  The connection between Ukrainians and Hitler is not funny.


 

 

[Max Fowler]

9 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

Considering the start has been 12 games, being 9 points off CL spots already is disastrous,  Having 5* teams in between us and 4th is worse.
*6 but Everton...

??????  The connection between Ukrainians and Hitler is not funny.

Our start was disastrous Droy.

We've put in decent displays recently against Arsenal, City and Spurs - all things considered. 

Spurs being the worst of those where we actually got 3 points.

I have shared your concerns but as I said, considering our start, the fact we are still in with a shout is something to be optimistic about.

Apologies if you were offended by the Hitler joke - was about the one ball rather than anything else (Madueke is not Ukrainian).

[Bert19]

16 hours ago, Rob B said:

It’s his uncle, not sure why he’d lie?!

But regardless of whether Frank actually said that or not, that quote is bang on the money.   He’s all pace and not a lot else.

If he had the physical attributes of Cole Palmer’s for example, he’d wouldn’t have made it out of Shaktar Donesk’s second team. 

Some people do it compulsively. I'm edging towards Frank's Uncle perhaps being one of them. 

5 hours ago, Max Fowler said:

Let's see. I have sympathy because of the war but I think we should at the very least loan him out soon.

To be fair to the lad, the circumstances he's probably had to deal with in the last 18 months would be a lot for anyone, let alone a young kid with a huge price tag put on him.  

I agree that he could be doing more or having more impact at least, but there are glimpses there of something good happening more frequently - I think perhaps harsh to write him off so soon. 

I'll also point out that if you wanted a blueprint of how not to manage a young expensive player in his first few weeks and months in a new league, Potter and Frank pretty much nailed that one.  He'd have been a miracle worker to have managed to get anything out of the run he got from January - May 

[Dwmh]

1 hour ago, Max Fowler said:

Apologies if you were offended by the Hitler joke - was about the one ball rather than anything else (Madueke is not Ukrainian).

It is the Nazi reference that is the dangerous topic, sorry you didn't realise that.

[chiswickblue]

32 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

It is the Nazi reference that is the dangerous topic, sorry you didn't realise that.

And suddenly we're back in the culture wars, again

[Max Fowler]

1 minute ago, chiswickblue said:

And suddenly we're back in the culture wars, again

My fault everyone. Apologies. I just meant to refer to the one ball!

[Max Fowler]

1 hour ago, Bert19 said:

Some people do it compulsively. I'm edging towards Frank's Uncle perhaps being one of them. 

To be fair to the lad, the circumstances he's probably had to deal with in the last 18 months would be a lot for anyone, let alone a young kid with a huge price tag put on him.  

I agree that he could be doing more or having more impact at least, but there are glimpses there of something good happening more frequently - I think perhaps harsh to write him off so soon. 

I'll also point out that if you wanted a blueprint of how not to manage a young expensive player in his first few weeks and months in a new league, Potter and Frank pretty much nailed that one.  He'd have been a miracle worker to have managed to get anything out of the run he got from January - May 

I hope he can prove us wrong. TBF - Cucurella has been turned around and he looked an impossible case. He had his house burgled and you can imagine Mudryk has gone through more.

Part of the thing that is annoying me is Twitter fanboys nuts for anything tiny he does in a match or in training.

Great - he can clearly kick a ball hard. Let's see some goals and assists and then start fanboying him.

 

 

[Max Fowler]

Sounds like top brass are divided on Toney vs. Osimhen.

Personally I think we miss out on Toney (he goes to Arsenal) and then we have to go Osimhen.

I would hope the board could come to that conclusion any way.

 

 

[Dwmh]

24 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

Sounds like top brass are divided on Toney vs. Osimhen.

 

No - it sounds like the hacks don't have a clue what Chelsea are thinking.
Quite right too.