Supporters Trust & Purslow

[Drummond]

You look at the impact Trippier has had at Newcastle.  That's the sort of lift you're looking for when signing experienced players.

We nearly had it with Coutinho. In the first couple of months, he really did look like the player we were expecting - goals and assists. I still think there is a much better player in there than we have been seeing, and he has shown little glimpses in the last couple of matches, but I suspect some pretty basic, risk-adverse tactics will never bring out the best in him. For all Dean's faults (and there were many), when he had a world class talent, he got the best out of him. Coutinho should be to us what Grealish was, but I don't think the manager knows how to use him.

Purslow also said last week that there was no way we would have been able to sign Kamara and Carlos if it hadn't have ben for Coutinho signing. Coutinho should have been the springboard to launch a serious European challenge this year, but he's looked as bad as anyone else for the most part.

As paul-e said, that's what makes it all so annoying at the moment - we have players that should be exciting to watch and yet we are such a boring side.

I think Coutinho is a great player but our strikers don't fit with his style of play. Ings to my mind is the cleverer of the two (and I reckon Archer could be even better as a fit) but Watkins is better getting on the end of crosses rather than through balls. Grealish could be a winger or 10 and played well with Watkins, plus he had pace, which Coutinho doesn't have.

Bailey is inconsistent too so we don't get the best out of Watkins at all. The whole thing is dysfunctional.

Grealish had so many facets for us that it took 3 signings (Ings, Buendia and Bailey) to replace him, the problem is that the managers haven't been able to work out how to play them all in an effective manner for any period of time.

I still think Coutinho is a great player and signing, but he needs more guile around him. I'd rather he played with Buendia and Ramsey as a front three, than what we have right now. The system is all wrong as it is.

And getting back on topic, buying players approaching 30 is not a problem for me at all, providing they are adding something.

[Dante Lavelli]

You look at the impact Trippier has had at Newcastle.  That's the sort of lift you're looking for when signing experienced players.

I know they have endless money but Newcastle transfer policy has really shown us up in last 12 months. Pope-Botman-Bruno Guimaraes- Isak all guys in early to mid 20s (O.k Pope is older but still pretty young for a keeper), all improving them fairly quickly and can take them into europa league.

They have a clear plan, ours seems to be very muddled and that will probably be reflected in league position in six months time.

Those signings do seem very coherent compared to our approach where we buy ‘names’ in positions where we are already well covered.

[ChicagoLion]

You look at the impact Trippier has had at Newcastle.  That's the sort of lift you're looking for when signing experienced players.

I know they have endless money but Newcastle transfer policy has really shown us up in last 12 months. Pope-Botman-Bruno Guimaraes- Isak all guys in early to mid 20s (O.k Pope is older but still pretty young for a keeper), all improving them fairly quickly and can take them into europa league.

They have a clear plan, ours seems to be very muddled and that will probably be reflected in league position in six months time.

Those signings do seem very coherent compared to our approach where we buy ‘names’ in positions where we are already well covered.

Agree when you look at what we really needed and then where we spent the money, there is not much logic to it. Now we are getting in squad fillers .

[Beard82]

Yeah, sorry, I probably wasn't clear. What doesn't marry up for me is the forward thinking of all of those 'other' things with the Gerrard appointment and subsequent transfer policy. I love all of those investments - it's a progressive way to grow the 'brand' (yuck), while generating potential revenue streams. But at the same time we seem to be incredibly short term on the first team front, and really not very good at it. If the plan was to keep all of these other things bubbling away in the background for the future while being more short term on the first team front (not an awful strategy), then we have got it badly wrong, and put far too much faith in the wrong guy. And the fact he's still here suggests that we might not know what to do next. Which is pretty uninspiring.

Maybe Purslow is our root problem. He seems to be both CEO and DoF.

What has happened since the Greasy debacle is definitely down to Purslow.
We have spent a lot of money, hired a new manager completely changed the strategy and ended up no further forward.

I think this is probably a fair summary - we have got virtually everything wrong since JG left - and it seems to stem from one man decisions

[dave.woodhall]

Ratboy leaving is worryingly reminding me of O'Neill's walkout. We weren't ready for it, it knocked us onto the back foot and although we knew he was important, we didn't know just how important he was.

[Holte L2]

Ratboy leaving is worryingly reminding me of O'Neill's walkout. We weren't ready for it, it knocked us onto the back foot and although we knew he was important, we didn't know just how important he was.

That's how I felt t the time to be honest. I didn't have faith in Lange to spend the £100m wisely either.

[olaftab]

Ratboy leaving is worryingly reminding me of O'Neill's walkout. We weren't ready for it, it knocked us onto the back foot and although we knew he was important, we didn't know just how important he was.

I think we, the Club that is, must have been ready for Grealish leaving as it was obvious once a release clause was  agreed so I don't think it was same as O'Neill's shit show.

[colin69]

Ratboy leaving is worryingly reminding me of O'Neill's walkout. We weren't ready for it, it knocked us onto the back foot and although we knew he was important, we didn't know just how important he was.

I think we, the Club that is, must have been ready for Grealish leaving as it was obvious once a release clause was  agreed so I don't think it was same as O'Neill's shit show.

However if the club was ready for Grealish leaving, the money we received for him was completely wasted and although I hate to admit it we ain’t been the same since he left.

[ChicagoLion]

Ratboy leaving is worryingly reminding me of O'Neill's walkout. We weren't ready for it, it knocked us onto the back foot and although we knew he was important, we didn't know just how important he was.

I think we, the Club that is, must have been ready for Grealish leaving as it was obvious once a release clause was  agreed so I don't think it was same as O'Neill's shit show.

The parallels are obvious, it was the catalyst that caused our owner to lose interest and what followed was poor decision making.
Of course we should have been better prepared but we obviously were not.

[Ads]

Wasn't his divorce and his sister saying "STOP SPENDING OUR LIMITED TRUST FORTUNE ON THAT CLUB YOU BIG FUCKING MAN BABY!" likely more significant?

[tony scott]

J G constantly created spacefor our players, as well as drawing lots of free kicks which constantly gave us possession plus the magic element. 15 months on not one of his three replacements have shown consistent good form, that is a sad indictment of our recruiting policy.

[Sexual Ealing]

J G constantly created spacefor our players, as well as drawing lots of free kicks which constantly gave us possession plus the magic element. 15 months on not one of his three replacements have shown consistent good form, that is a sad indictment of our recruiting policy.

I don't necessarily disagree with the thrust of your argument, but 'go and find another Jack Grealish' is a big ask of the recruitment team.

[SoccerHQ]

Think the owners were expecting a few of the younger players to have broken through by now like Ramsey has done in last 18 months.

Certainly I imagine they were seeing Archer score every other week for Preston and England under 21s and expecting him to get more than 20 minutes this season.

Below that you probably have Tim, Aaron Ramsey and KHH who probably aren't quite ready but they're all getting excellent experience at championship clubs, two who are in top 3 so that's exciting.

Not sure how much Philogene-Bidace is playing at Cardiff but he's another who could come into contention with a manager who actually wants wide players in the team.

I think we've stalled for a year but with some smart signings we can rise up the league again and adding 2-3 of those into the matchday 20.

Let's just hope we don't go full circle as under Lerner and suddenly start signing half of league 1-2 and proclaiming these as ready made prem players as we attempted a decade ago.

[SoccerHQ]

Ratboy leaving is worryingly reminding me of O'Neill's walkout. We weren't ready for it, it knocked us onto the back foot and although we knew he was important, we didn't know just how important he was.

I do think we were sort of prepared (if romantically hoping he'd give us one more year) as bidding for Smith Rowe who had a very similar style of play was a big hint.

I'd love to know if we genuinely believed we could get him and Ward Prowse, seems strange to keep in putting bids for both if players intentions were only to sign new deals at their present clubs.

Ironically we could probably sign both if we wanted to next summer with one well down the pecking order at Arsenal and I think Southampton will get relegated and JWP will have a release clause in his deal and is a better player than I thought when we were linked.

[dave.woodhall]

Ratboy leaving is worryingly reminding me of O'Neill's walkout. We weren't ready for it, it knocked us onto the back foot and although we knew he was important, we didn't know just how important he was.

I think we, the Club that is, must have been ready for Grealish leaving as it was obvious once a release clause was  agreed so I don't think it was same as O'Neill's shit show.

We knew it was happening but weren't ready for it.