Boubacar Kamara - out for the season

[Smithy]

He's been really good, in my opinion. But as others have said, it seems really strange that filling a position that many believed was the missing piece of the jigsaw, has seen team performances go through the floor.  Barring the first half yesterday with Douggie, the other two midfielders always seem so far away from him when he gets the ball rather than playing a midfield unit.

Whatever happens, even though it's only been a few games, I think we can file Bouba under "transfer successes".  Very comfortable at this level.

[ChicagoLion]

The midfield looked relatively stable until he took Doug off.
His performances have been very good. He is still part of the solution.

[LeeB]

He's been really good, in my opinion. But as others have said, it seems really strange that filling a position that many believed was the missing piece of the jigsaw, has seen team performances go through the floor.  Barring the first half yesterday with Douggie, the other two midfielders always seem so far away from him when he gets the ball rather than playing a midfield unit.

Whatever happens, even though it's only been a few games, I think we can file Bouba under "transfer successes".  Very comfortable at this level.

It's probably because when he looks up to pass, his two colleagues in midfield are behind him to the left and right filling in for Roberto Carlos and Cafu.

[Simon Page]

Even if you added in a market value for Kamara, it still wouldn't be enough. We're still playing with largely the same midfield we've had for the last 3 seasons, who have proved time and time again that they're not good enough.

"Otherwise he has everyone from last season to go with the new arrivals". That's entirely the problem. Of course the Carlos injury was unlucky, but that squad plus Kamara and a few back ups isn't good enough, even allowing for the fact they should be doing better than they are.

What I'm saying is net spend isn't the measurement unless we're saying we can only buy our way better. We could get really good money offloading our "not good enough" midfielders, so it's not necessarily net spend we should be looking at. Obviously, if the board has restricted spending, Gerrard has more of a Parker-like excuse.

[brontebilly]

I don't think Gerrard would openly be critical of the owners and directors like Parker has, but you can tell he thinks we need more players. Our net spend absolutely does not match our stated aims.

That's pretty misleading, especially on a thread dedicated to one of our new signings who would have significantly pushed up that net spend if he hadn't run down his Marseille contract. Gerrard has only lost a promising youngster and the left back he replaced as soon as could, both for decent fees. Otherwise he has everyone from last season to go with the new arrivals. He's not operating on Bournemouth resource levels.

Even if you added in a market value for Kamara, it still wouldn't be enough. We're still playing with largely the same midfield we've had for the last 3 seasons, who have proved time and time again that they're not good enough.

"Otherwise he has everyone from last season to go with the new arrivals". That's entirely the problem. Of course the Carlos injury was unlucky, but that squad plus Kamara and a few back ups isn't good enough, even allowing for the fact they should be doing better than they are.

He made McGinn captain, to be fair seems to rate Ramsey highly and has also spoken very well of Luiz. So that's three 8s for want of a better term for two positions to partner Kamara in his preferred setup, if Sanson wasn't bombed out that would be 4. So if we get in another one, without Luiz and Sanson leaving, we are over stacked again.

That's the same problem throughout the squad Ings/Watkins, Buendia/Coutinho and even having Bailey when we don't play with wingers.
The squad is too big, likely part of the reason for disharmony in the dressing room, and we shouldn't be adding to it without significant departures. 

[paul_e]

I don't think Gerrard would openly be critical of the owners and directors like Parker has, but you can tell he thinks we need more players. Our net spend absolutely does not match our stated aims.

That's pretty misleading, especially on a thread dedicated to one of our new signings who would have significantly pushed up that net spend if he hadn't run down his Marseille contract. Gerrard has only lost a promising youngster and the left back he replaced as soon as could, both for decent fees. Otherwise he has everyone from last season to go with the new arrivals. He's not operating on Bournemouth resource levels.

Even if you added in a market value for Kamara, it still wouldn't be enough. We're still playing with largely the same midfield we've had for the last 3 seasons, who have proved time and time again that they're not good enough.

"Otherwise he has everyone from last season to go with the new arrivals". That's entirely the problem. Of course the Carlos injury was unlucky, but that squad plus Kamara and a few back ups isn't good enough, even allowing for the fact they should be doing better than they are.

He could have a new £25m winger as well but he decided to pull out of that deal, so right now we could easily be looking at an extra £60-70m in net spend, would it actually mean anything though, would Kamara be a better signing if we'[d paid £40m rather than nothing? Would Coutinho be in form if we'd spend £50m on him instead of ~£15m? Would spending another £25m on Sarr have fixed the fact that our midfield has been almost entirely vacant in our games this season because of the tactical decisions made by Gerrard?

[Risso]

The actual or net spend is just a pointer that the squad isn't good enough and not enough has been done to improve it. Kamara can't do everything by himself, we need a proper number 8 and a forward who isn't shit. People are mentioning the fact that we've fallen massively behind Arsenal. Well part of the reason for that is that they've bought in players including Ramsdale, White, Odegaard, Zinchenko and Jesus. Big improvements in all areas of the pitch.

[paul_e]

The actual or net spend is just a pointer that the squad isn't good enough and not enough has been done to improve it. Kamara can't do everything by himself, we need a proper number 8 and a forward who isn't shit. People are mentioning the fact that we've fallen massively behind Arsenal. Well part of the reason for that is that they've bought in players including Ramsdale, White, Odegaard, Zinchenko and Jesus. Big improvements in all areas of the pitch.

but it isn't a good pointer and right now is incredibly misleading. In the last year and a bit we've made the best part of £150m from sales and yet only 1 player from that would come back in and improve our first 11, that makes our net spend a really poor indicator of the relative strength of our squad now compared to the end of the 20/21 season. In my opinion we're massively improved from then but poor tactics and poor man management mean that we're seeing the squad at it's worst not it's best right now.

I think you're overly harsh on our forwards, neither are top 4 standard but both are capable of 10-15 goals and that's enough to be far better than we are. I agree we could do with another midfielder but signing one is almost pointless if we're going to carry on conceding the midfield as we have so far this season, we're not being out battled in there, we're choosing to abandon it and play 2 wide midfielders and DM that's almost a 3rd centre back.

[Risso]

The actual or net spend is just a pointer that the squad isn't good enough and not enough has been done to improve it. Kamara can't do everything by himself, we need a proper number 8 and a forward who isn't shit. People are mentioning the fact that we've fallen massively behind Arsenal. Well part of the reason for that is that they've bought in players including Ramsdale, White, Odegaard, Zinchenko and Jesus. Big improvements in all areas of the pitch.

but it isn't a good pointer and right now is incredibly misleading. In the last year and a bit we've made the best part of £150m from sales and yet only 1 player from that would come back in and improve our first 11, that makes our net spend a really poor indicator of the relative strength of our squad now compared to the end of the 20/21 season. In my opinion we're massively improved from then but poor tactics and poor man management mean that we're seeing the squad at it's worst not it's best right now.

I think you're overly harsh on our forwards, neither are top 4 standard but both are capable of 10-15 goals and that's enough to be far better than we are. I agree we could do with another midfielder but signing one is almost pointless if we're going to carry on conceding the midfield as we have so far this season, we're not being out battled in there, we're choosing to abandon it and play 2 wide midfielders and DM that's almost a 3rd centre back.

The squad might be stronger, but these were the players who played the majority of the season in 20/21 (Number of games in brackets):

Martinez

Cash (28) Konsa (35) Mings (36) Targett (38)
Luiz (32) McGinn (37)
Traore (29)/El Ghazi (17) Barkley (18) Grealish (24)
Watkins (37)

So all we've really done in two years is swapped Targett for Digne, Traore/ElGhazi for Buendia/Bailey, and Grealish for Coutinho. The squad is stronger overall, as we're not having to use the likes of Trez from the bench, but the end result is we just haven't upgraded a first team that has finished 11th and 14th nearly enough. Compare the Arsenal team from then to now.

[Dave P]

This was my post in the 'Off the Wall Season Prediction' thread.

Kamara will be like prime Kante for three games then Ashley Westwood after that.

He hasn't at all by the way, but if he does, then I called it 

[paul_e]

The actual or net spend is just a pointer that the squad isn't good enough and not enough has been done to improve it. Kamara can't do everything by himself, we need a proper number 8 and a forward who isn't shit. People are mentioning the fact that we've fallen massively behind Arsenal. Well part of the reason for that is that they've bought in players including Ramsdale, White, Odegaard, Zinchenko and Jesus. Big improvements in all areas of the pitch.

but it isn't a good pointer and right now is incredibly misleading. In the last year and a bit we've made the best part of £150m from sales and yet only 1 player from that would come back in and improve our first 11, that makes our net spend a really poor indicator of the relative strength of our squad now compared to the end of the 20/21 season. In my opinion we're massively improved from then but poor tactics and poor man management mean that we're seeing the squad at it's worst not it's best right now.

I think you're overly harsh on our forwards, neither are top 4 standard but both are capable of 10-15 goals and that's enough to be far better than we are. I agree we could do with another midfielder but signing one is almost pointless if we're going to carry on conceding the midfield as we have so far this season, we're not being out battled in there, we're choosing to abandon it and play 2 wide midfielders and DM that's almost a 3rd centre back.

The squad might be stronger, but these were the players who played the majority of the season in 20/21 (Number of games in brackets):

Martinez

Cash (28) Konsa (35) Mings (36) Targett (38)
Luiz (32) McGinn (37)
Traore (29)/El Ghazi (17) Barkley (18) Grealish (24)
Watkins (37)

So all we've really done in two years is swapped Targett for Digne, Traore/ElGhazi for Buendia/Bailey, and Grealish for Coutinho. The squad is stronger overall, as we're not having to use the likes of Trez from the bench, but the end result is we just haven't upgraded a first team that has finished 11th and 14th nearly enough. Compare the Arsenal team from then to now.

If we picked our best XI now it'd be something like:

Martinez
Cash Carlos Mings Digne
Kamara Ramsey/Luiz
Bailey Buendia Coutinho
Watkins

Coutinho for Grealish is maybe a drop (but not massively if we can use him properly) but otherwise we've kept the players who came out of that season good and upgraded 5 more, on top of that the squad behind it is much better, all for a net spend of very little across 3 windows. I don't disagree that there are still a couple more improvements to be made but I firmly believe this squad with no changes is a top half one, a clear upgrade in midfield and an alternative up front would have us well capable of challenging for Europe.

[Russ aka Big Nose]

He's been really good, in my opinion. But as others have said, it seems really strange that filling a position that many believed was the missing piece of the jigsaw, has seen team performances go through the floor.  Barring the first half yesterday with Douggie, the other two midfielders always seem so far away from him when he gets the ball rather than playing a midfield unit.

Whatever happens, even though it's only been a few games, I think we can file Bouba under "transfer successes".  Very comfortable at this level.

It's probably because when he looks up to pass, his two colleagues in midfield are behind him to the left and right filling in for Roberto Carlos and Cafu.

This. It is frustrating beyond belief the number of times our midfield players drop into the space between Kamara (or the centre-halves) and the fullbacks, achieving nothing other than slowing our progress because the ball can comforably be passed directly to the fullback that is higher and wider.

Closing a clear passing channel like this would be spotted and corrected by most parks teams, yet it happens with such frequency it is clear (to me) it is coached and part of Gerrard's pattern of play 

Kamara has been one of few positives so far this season and looks real quality. UTV

[paul_e]

He's been really good, in my opinion. But as others have said, it seems really strange that filling a position that many believed was the missing piece of the jigsaw, has seen team performances go through the floor.  Barring the first half yesterday with Douggie, the other two midfielders always seem so far away from him when he gets the ball rather than playing a midfield unit.

Whatever happens, even though it's only been a few games, I think we can file Bouba under "transfer successes".  Very comfortable at this level.

It's probably because when he looks up to pass, his two colleagues in midfield are behind him to the left and right filling in for Roberto Carlos and Cafu.

This. It is frustrating beyond belief the number of times our midfield players drop into the space between Kamara (or the centre-halves) and the fullbacks, achieving nothing other than slowing our progress because the ball can comforably be passed directly to the fullback that is higher and wider.

Closing a clear passing channel like this would be spotted and corrected by most parks teams, yet it happens with such frequency it is clear (to me) it is coached and part of Gerrard's pattern of play 

Kamara has been one of few positives so far this season and looks real quality. UTV

Yep, this is the biggest problem right now for me. Them both dropping in means Coutinho has to come really deep and we end up with something like a 532 but with all of our central midfielders in that 5, which is fucking stupid.

[eamonn]

He's been really good, in my opinion. But as others have said, it seems really strange that filling a position that many believed was the missing piece of the jigsaw, has seen team performances go through the floor.  Barring the first half yesterday with Douggie, the other two midfielders always seem so far away from him when he gets the ball rather than playing a midfield unit.

Whatever happens, even though it's only been a few games, I think we can file Bouba under "transfer successes".  Very comfortable at this level.

You're easily impressed! He clearly has a classy way about him and his technique looks good but he's also not seemed to be on the same wavelength as the rest of midfield and embarrassingly kept hacking down Bolton players last week as he kept getting caught on the wrong side.

Early days but he has yet to prove his off the ball skills and tactical brain is good enough for a progressive PL team.

[rooboy316]

Yep, this is the biggest problem right now for me. Them both dropping in means Coutinho has to come really deep and we end up with something like a 532 but with all of our central midfielders in that 5, which is fucking stupid.

Easily fixed. Play Ramsay, Luiz and Coutinho as centre backs. Most of the first half at west ham was konsa and chambers passing it to each other. At least this way we will have better passers on the ball!