Unai Emery

[Beard82]

I think our spending limitations are really showing. City bought 2 top players cos they could, we cannot do anything near that to strengthen and when you lose 3 top midfielders, we don’t ability to replace them. We rely on ex players who were shifted out as not deemed good enough and a Championship level player…but he could at least drop Watkins.

Spending limitations compounded by silly transfers

Thats what I like about Alyson - he seems to be quit robust for a kid

[DB]

I think our spending limitations are really showing. City bought 2 top players cos they could, we cannot do anything near that to strengthen and when you lose 3 top midfielders, we don’t ability to replace them. We rely on ex players who were shifted out as not deemed good enough and a Championship level player…but he could at least drop Watkins.

Spending limitations compounded by silly transfers

Add Desperate transfers.

[DC1874]

But we're up against "franchises" that can spend 100M at a drop of a hat, where do you think our replacements can be found when 3 midfielders are crocked, we have a passenger centre forward and wingers who are quire frankly wank?

[curiousorange]

The thing that really gets me is that no, we can't spend loads of money on proven players, particularly not in January. But instead of thinking, oh we'll go and get someone who isn't quite there yet but is clearly talented, we either pay over the odds for a short term punt or buy a sixteen year old who we immediately loan out to the French regional leagues. The transfer policy is by far, far the worst thing about the Emery Villa.

[Skipper_The_Eyechild]

We could have spent that money more wisely and not bought Guessand, who doesn't fit. Or 'loan' Elliott, who doesn't fit. Or waste a lot of wages on Sancho, who has been at best average. Or buying Malen who wanted to play down the middle but Emery didn't like him there. I get that we can't afford to mistakes like those other teams, though, but our squad building has felt pretty poor.

[PaulWinch again]

We could have spent that money more wisely and not bought Guessand, who doesn't fit. Or 'loan' Elliott, who doesn't fit. Or waste a lot of wages on Sancho, who has been at best average. Or buying Malen who wanted to play down the middle but Emery didn't like him there. I get that we can't afford to mistakes like those other teams, though, but our squad building has felt pretty poor.

Indeed - we are making piss poor use of our limited resources to replenish the squad.

[Ian.]

The thing that really gets me is that no, we can't spend loads of money on proven players, particularly not in January. But instead of thinking, oh we'll go and get someone who isn't quite there yet but is clearly talented, we either pay over the odds for a short term punt or buy a sixteen year old who we immediately loan out to the French regional leagues. The transfer policy is by far, far the worst thing about the Emery Villa.

Isn’t this just modern football and all clubs are trying it? It’s just other teams at least strengthen their first team as well.

We’ve signed Lindelöf, Sancho, Guessand and recalled Bailey. Can you image Man Utd, Chelsea or Liverpool doing this?

[Ianu]

We could have spent that money more wisely and not bought Guessand, who doesn't fit. Or 'loan' Elliott, who doesn't fit. Or waste a lot of wages on Sancho, who has been at best average. Or buying Malen who wanted to play down the middle but Emery didn't like him there. I get that we can't afford to mistakes like those other teams, though, but our squad building has felt pretty poor.

Indeed - we are making piss poor use of our limited resources to replenish the squad.

And how can we be better at this?

[Des Little]

This isn’t 20/20 hindsight, but when I saw that team with Buendia, Watkins and Bailey in it I feared the worst, and so it proved. I cannot understand for the life of me why they were in.

[DB]

But we're up against "franchises" that can spend 100M at a drop of a hat, where do you think our replacements can be found when 3 midfielders are crocked, we have a passenger centre forward and wingers who are quire frankly wank?

Exactly my point.
But what money we did have was not spent great. Ok, no one can predict 3 midfielders would be injured in such a small space of time, that has hit us hard.

[Deano's Mullet]

Loads of " Emery out" posts on our social media groups..Unbelievable.

[brontebilly]

Buendia and Bailey starting just kills us physically. That was apparent against Leeds. Add to that when Buendia isn’t on it he is actively damaging to the team - e.g. you’ll think he has someone covered defensively and they’ll just muscle him off it.

Maybe so but Rogers was by far the worst of our attacking players tonight, with and without the ball. Buendia will obviously take grief for losing the ball for their third but losing the ball that high up the pitch shouldn't result in a goal like that either.

[DB]

This isn’t 20/20 hindsight, but when I saw that team with Buendia, Watkins and Bailey in it I feared the worst, and so it proved. I cannot understand for the life of me why they were in.

And that is also a perfectly good point. He’s not helping himself picking these 3.

[PaulWinch again]

Well I don’t know what the disconnect is but we need to start buying players the manager will use. I’m not absolving Unai there by the way, he needs to be more flexible if things aren’t exactly as planned.

[curiousorange]

The thing that really gets me is that no, we can't spend loads of money on proven players, particularly not in January. But instead of thinking, oh we'll go and get someone who isn't quite there yet but is clearly talented, we either pay over the odds for a short term punt or buy a sixteen year old who we immediately loan out to the French regional leagues. The transfer policy is by far, far the worst thing about the Emery Villa.

Isn’t this just modern football and all clubs are trying it? It’s just other teams at least strengthen their first team as well.

We’ve signed Lindelöf, Sancho, Guessand and recalled Bailey. Can you image Man Utd, Chelsea or Liverpool doing this?

I suppose I don't watch enough football these days but I literally hadn't heard of Mateta or Lacroix before Palace, or Rayan or Evanilson, or even Semenyo, at Bournemouth. I dunno, it just seems like these players were well scouted to fit into a system in a first team. It just makes me frustrated that we're either, be good immediately or be good in three years and rarely inbetween.