We didn't go into the season with one free signing. We paid £26m for a highly rated defender who very unluckily got badly injured in his second game. We paid £17m for Countino, as well as bringing in a left back on loan and made Olsen's move permanent. Lets just see what happens if one or two players move on.
apparently lange was at the blues watford game . Does he take in games for the hell of it . if not who would he be watching?
Neither Sarr nor Deeney played. Joao Pedro might have been watched, young Brazilian striker at Watford. Lot of potential reportedly but not seen enough to have an opinion either way on him.If we are done, then I can see there being some issues down the line with Gerrard and the board over backing. To essentially go into the season with 1 first team signing on a free transfer is worrying. As I said a few pages back, there either has to be a FFP issue on wages, or we are see the move from the owners to a "more sustainable" model and making up the numbers has become the height of our ambition for the time being, because this squad is 9th-17th, best/ worst case scenario.
I don’t doubt the owners ambition, they have been exemplary.There is no point in filling up the squad with the wrong players, the decisions are still about improving the first team and I do not think that is going to be easy. I would expect that we are operating to a budget which probably means we need to get some wages off the books.
Throw stupid money at Palace for Eberechi Eze and be done with it.
Quote from: dicedlam on August 17, 2022, 09:14:35 AMThrow stupid money at Palace for Eberechi Eze and be done with it. Or Olise. I'm a bit pissed off they ended up with both, I remember seeing both in Championship games and thinking straight away that they were clearly above what was around them like Jack was. Maybe they're both happy to stay in London, who knows?
I think there is a believe within the club that for much of the time since we came up we have underachieved. And I think thats a fair assessment - on paper our squad is pretty strong.
Without any evidence or rationale for my view but I’m wondering if this is the man Citeh moment all over again. This time Newcastle. Add to that Grealish going when he did knocked the stuffing out of us to the degree where the ambitions may have been downgraded. The squad is not as good as it appears.