Transfer Speculation / Gossip

[paul_e]

TBH it's all a bit pointless anyway. Look at how our reasonable team was dismantled in 2010. How many Saints fans thought they'd be starting the new season with all their players gone? Simple fact is that any team outside the top 4 that gets decent are forced to sell their players because of what the game has become.

Not really. Tottenham regularly sell their best players but reinvest the money back into the squad. We sell our best players and mainly replace them with players from the lower leagues and cheap foreigners who are clearly out of their depth. Basically our squad has been asset stripped over the last 4 years to balance the books. You get what you pay for in life. That's why we're no more than relegation fodder these days.

What are you on about?

How do we mainly replace them with lower league or foreign players, let's look at the 4 that regularly come up:

Barry - replaced by Downing which allowed Milner to move inside
Milner - replaced with Ireland who many thought would be better for us but it didn't work out
Young - replaced with Nzogbia who was the overwhelming first choice
Downing - The only one you may have a point with he was replaced by Albrighton effectively, who had looked a fantastic prospect the year before.

The 2 key ones there are just signings that didn't work out, not the cheap tat you're suggesting.

What we've actually done wrong is replace our average players with more average players, so as the thing above haven't worked out we've got weaker, if we'd strengthened the squad by buying first team players to replace the squad players we'd have absorbed the failures better.

[saunders_heroes]

TBH it's all a bit pointless anyway. Look at how our reasonable team was dismantled in 2010. How many Saints fans thought they'd be starting the new season with all their players gone? Simple fact is that any team outside the top 4 that gets decent are forced to sell their players because of what the game has become.

Not really. Tottenham regularly sell their best players but reinvest the money back into the squad. We sell our best players and mainly replace them with players from the lower leagues and cheap foreigners who are clearly out of their depth. Basically our squad has been asset stripped over the last 4 years to balance the books. You get what you pay for in life. That's why we're no more than relegation fodder these days.

And Spurs have achieved what exactly?

Well they didn't lose 10 league games at home last season. Nor have they been routinely humiliated like we have over the last few years either.

[saunders_heroes]

TBH it's all a bit pointless anyway. Look at how our reasonable team was dismantled in 2010. How many Saints fans thought they'd be starting the new season with all their players gone? Simple fact is that any team outside the top 4 that gets decent are forced to sell their players because of what the game has become.

Not really. Tottenham regularly sell their best players but reinvest the money back into the squad. We sell our best players and mainly replace them with players from the lower leagues and cheap foreigners who are clearly out of their depth. Basically our squad has been asset stripped over the last 4 years to balance the books. You get what you pay for in life. That's why we're no more than relegation fodder these days.

What are you on about?

How do we mainly replace them with lower league or foreign players, let's look at the 4 that regularly come up:

Barry - replaced by Downing which allowed Milner to move inside
Milner - replaced with Ireland who many thought would be better for us but it didn't work out
Young - replaced with Nzogbia who was the overwhelming first choice
Downing - The only one you may have a point with he was replaced by Albrighton effectively, who had looked a fantastic prospect the year before.

The 2 key ones there are just signings that didn't work out, not the cheap tat you're suggesting.

What we've actually done wrong is replace our average players with more average players, so as the thing above haven't worked out we've got weaker, if we'd strengthened the squad by buying first team players to replace the squad players we'd have absorbed the failures better.

You're right, Barry, Downing, Young, Milner and co never actually left and we'll soon wake up from the nightmare that is Baker, Clark, El Ahmadi, Bennett, Luna and co.

[ozzjim]

TBH it's all a bit pointless anyway. Look at how our reasonable team was dismantled in 2010. How many Saints fans thought they'd be starting the new season with all their players gone? Simple fact is that any team outside the top 4 that gets decent are forced to sell their players because of what the game has become.

Not really. Tottenham regularly sell their best players but reinvest the money back into the squad. We sell our best players and mainly replace them with players from the lower leagues and cheap foreigners who are clearly out of their depth. Basically our squad has been asset stripped over the last 4 years to balance the books. You get what you pay for in life. That's why we're no more than relegation fodder these days.

What are you on about?

How do we mainly replace them with lower league or foreign players, let's look at the 4 that regularly come up:

Barry - replaced by Downing which allowed Milner to move inside
Milner - replaced with Ireland who many thought would be better for us but it didn't work out
Young - replaced with Nzogbia who was the overwhelming first choice
Downing - The only one you may have a point with he was replaced by Albrighton effectively, who had looked a fantastic prospect the year before.

The 2 key ones there are just signings that didn't work out, not the cheap tat you're suggesting.

What we've actually done wrong is replace our average players with more average players, so as the thing above haven't worked out we've got weaker, if we'd strengthened the squad by buying first team players to replace the squad players we'd have absorbed the failures better.

Pretty well reasoned. But essentially we have ended up with a central midfield that was Petrov, Barry and Milner and Young and Downing wide, with only N'Zogbia to show as replacements, and Delph who has stepped up. Beyond that, the players in those positions have been nowhere near the quality we need.

[paul_e]

TBH it's all a bit pointless anyway. Look at how our reasonable team was dismantled in 2010. How many Saints fans thought they'd be starting the new season with all their players gone? Simple fact is that any team outside the top 4 that gets decent are forced to sell their players because of what the game has become.

Not really. Tottenham regularly sell their best players but reinvest the money back into the squad. We sell our best players and mainly replace them with players from the lower leagues and cheap foreigners who are clearly out of their depth. Basically our squad has been asset stripped over the last 4 years to balance the books. You get what you pay for in life. That's why we're no more than relegation fodder these days.

What are you on about?

How do we mainly replace them with lower league or foreign players, let's look at the 4 that regularly come up:

Barry - replaced by Downing which allowed Milner to move inside
Milner - replaced with Ireland who many thought would be better for us but it didn't work out
Young - replaced with Nzogbia who was the overwhelming first choice
Downing - The only one you may have a point with he was replaced by Albrighton effectively, who had looked a fantastic prospect the year before.

The 2 key ones there are just signings that didn't work out, not the cheap tat you're suggesting.

What we've actually done wrong is replace our average players with more average players, so as the thing above haven't worked out we've got weaker, if we'd strengthened the squad by buying first team players to replace the squad players we'd have absorbed the failures better.

You're right, Barry, Downing, Young, Milner and co never actually left and we'll soon wake up from the nightmare that is Baker, Clark, El Ahmadi, Bennett, Luna and co.

I don't even ...

Ozz, I'm not saying that didn't happen, what I'm saying is the the argument that we didn't replace our best players properly is just revisionist bullshit.

We have clearly made mistakes and we're clearly cutting wages and trying to 'reset' to an affordable position which has hurt us, but the worst of that has only happened when we haven't had anyone (Benteke excepted) who's been worth anything to sell.

[pauliewalnuts]

TBH it's all a bit pointless anyway. Look at how our reasonable team was dismantled in 2010. How many Saints fans thought they'd be starting the new season with all their players gone? Simple fact is that any team outside the top 4 that gets decent are forced to sell their players because of what the game has become.

Not really. Tottenham regularly sell their best players but reinvest the money back into the squad. We sell our best players and mainly replace them with players from the lower leagues and cheap foreigners who are clearly out of their depth. Basically our squad has been asset stripped over the last 4 years to balance the books. You get what you pay for in life. That's why we're no more than relegation fodder these days.

And Spurs have achieved what exactly?

Well, they're top four contenders year after year, and have played in the Champions League.

I appreciate, they've not exactly needed to do much extra polishing in the trophy cabinet, but they're in an entirely different league to us now.

Five or six years ago, we were competing with them. Nowadays we are about as relevant to Spurs as Stoke City are.

[saunders_heroes]

Revisionist bullshit? Ha!
Take a look at our squad now and then compare it to the squad from 4 or so years ago and then tell me we replaced our best players properly.

[Dave]

Revisionist bullshit? Ha!
Take a look at our squad now and then compare it to the squad from 4 or so years ago and then tell me we replaced our best players properly.

Very triumphant, winning an argument that nobody else is arguing.

[saunders_heroes]

Revisionist bullshit? Ha!
Take a look at our squad now and then compare it to the squad from 4 or so years ago and then tell me we replaced our best players properly.

Very triumphant, winning an argument that nobody else is arguing.

Quit your stirring, Dave.

[Dave]

Alright, once you quit twisting people's words and arguments to fit in with your narrow-minded world view.

Deal?

[ozzjim]

Tumbleweed will roll across the rainforest before that agreement is made.

[pauliewalnuts]

Revisionist bullshit? Ha!
Take a look at our squad now and then compare it to the squad from 4 or so years ago and then tell me we replaced our best players properly.

I think if you focus on "replacing our best players", then you can't see the wood for the trees.

It's not really about how we replaced those players - poorly, as it turned out, but not necessarily cheaply, although we tried to replace both Young and Downing with one player - it is about how we have managed the squad in general over that period.

Basically, we've totally fucked it up. We've spent huge amounts of money and just sat and watched as the value we accumulated in the squad leaked out. Following on from that, we've bought a succession of really pretty poor players.

Bennett
KEA
Luna
Tonev
Sylla
Bowery

Clearly nothing like good enough.

If we want to improve, then financially we are going to have to stand up and be counted, we can not go on as we have done for the last few years. It has disaster written all over it.

I am inclined to think that "10m for fees AND wages" story is untrue, but if our spending were to be anything like at that level, then these people would be truly gambling with the future of the club. The league is going to be even more awash than ever with money this year, we can't just pretend we live in a bubble where we're not compared with other clubs - that's the whole point of football, you're comparing yourself to the rest, and if we think we can just bob along and not invest, then we're going to pay the price at some point.

I just have zero trust in these people any more. I think they're on autopilot, they've given up, all they want to do is minimise the money we spend.

We've become a club who don't even pretend to have any ambition - see the likes of the Joe Cole comments last week about how he is confident our returning players can help us avoid relegation. What does that say about our ambitions? How are we any different from the rest of the dross that perenially fights to avoid relegation? Nice ground, excellent history, but really, how do we differ from these clubs?

I'll wait and see who else we sign, but can any one of us seriously say that, had they been told at the end of last season that our first two signings would be Senderos and Joe Cole they wouldn't be worried?

We can't avoid it any more, we have absolutely got to start to spend proper money on decent footballers. Lerner and Faulkner have to realise that just because you really want something to be true (like the entire "just use loads of young players and in time they become ace" myth they bought into) doesn't mean it actually happens.

It doesn't really matter if Milner was replaced badly or if Barry's replacement was poor by comparison, all that stuff is in the past, we absolutely have to decide if we're going to pretend to have something approaching ambition, and if we are, we've got to start to show that financially.

[saunders_heroes]

Alright, once you quit twisting people's words and arguments to fit in with your narrow-minded world view.

Deal?

Yet you think nothing of twisting my words into some kind of "triumphant" sneer when there was none whatsoever.  Sort out your own narrow mindedness before you go pointing the finger at me.
Deal?

[saunders_heroes]

Revisionist bullshit? Ha!
Take a look at our squad now and then compare it to the squad from 4 or so years ago and then tell me we replaced our best players properly.

I think if you focus on "replacing our best players", then you can't see the wood for the trees.

It's not really about how we replaced those players - poorly, as it turned out, but not necessarily cheaply, although we tried to replace both Young and Downing with one player - it is about how we have managed the squad in general over that period.

Basically, we've totally fucked it up. We've spent huge amounts of money and just sat and watched as the value we accumulated in the squad leaked out. Following on from that, we've bought a succession of really pretty poor players.

Bennett
KEA
Luna
Tonev
Sylla
Bowery

Clearly nothing like good enough.

If we want to improve, then financially we are going to have to stand up and be counted, we can not go on as we have done for the last few years. It has disaster written all over it.

I am inclined to think that "10m for fees AND wages" story is untrue, but if our spending were to be anything like at that level, then these people would be truly gambling with the future of the club. The league is going to be even more awash than ever with money this year, we can't just pretend we live in a bubble where we're not compared with other clubs - that's the whole point of football, you're comparing yourself to the rest, and if we think we can just bob along and not invest, then we're going to pay the price at some point.

I just have zero trust in these people any more. I think they're on autopilot, they've given up, all they want to do is minimise the money we spend.

We've become a club who don't even pretend to have any ambition - see the likes of the Joe Cole comments last week about how he is confident our returning players can help us avoid relegation. What does that say about our ambitions? How are we any different from the rest of the dross that perenially fights to avoid relegation? Nice ground, excellent history, but really, how do we differ from these clubs?

I'll wait and see who else we sign, but can any one of us seriously say that, had they been told at the end of last season that our first two signings would be Senderos and Joe Cole they wouldn't be worried?

We can't avoid it any more, we have absolutely got to start to spend proper money on decent footballers. Lerner and Faulkner have to realise that just because you really want something to be true (like the entire "just use loads of young players and in time they become ace" myth they bought into) doesn't mean it actually happens.

It doesn't really matter if Milner was replaced badly or if Barry's replacement was poor by comparison, all that stuff is in the past, we absolutely have to decide if we're going to pretend to have something approaching ambition, and if we are, we've got to start to show that financially.

Agree 100%. I'll pay you to be my spokesman from now on.

[paul_e]

Revisionist bullshit? Ha!
Take a look at our squad now and then compare it to the squad from 4 or so years ago and then tell me we replaced our best players properly.

That's a completely different argument, our squad is clearly weaker, I've already said that, but you specifically said that we don't replace our best players when they get poached, I pointed out the last 4 players to whom that applies and proved you entirely wrong, we replaced 3 of them with like for like and the 4th with a highly rated prospect from our youth system who was coming off the back of a very good breakthrough season.  It's revisionist bullshit because no thought the replacements were shit at the time.  That they turned out badly is irrelevant to the argument, and therefore the respective squad strengths are completely irrelevant to your argument.

To clarify did you think:

replacing Barry with Downing and moving Milner inside was a poor decision?
Ireland was going to be as shit as it turned out?
Nzog was going to be as shit as it turned out?
Albrighton was going to go backwards for 2 years?