The Daily ITK Discussion Thread DEADLINE DAY!

freeeki said:

Looking forward to "not selling to United" winning us the league.

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Would you expect Valencia to win the league? Fiorentina? Schalke? Would you criticise them for not making the signings that'd let them?

Since we improved under Poch people's expectations of us around here and their idea of our stature in the game have gotten absolutely ridiculous. We are not a Man Utd failing to challenge, we're an Everton doing extremely well to be anywhere close.

This is not the 70s where a few good signings and a well-managed team sees you become champions. The competition is immense. And we are already competing significantly above where we should be with the resources we have. Yes we've got a proud history - but that frankly has little influence on where we stand now. We achieved very little between the mid-late 80s and 2015/16. In those 30 years the rest of the football world moved on and left us behind. We were left with mediocre commercial revenue, because nobody in China or the States is gonna follow a mid-table outfit. Ditto corporate revenue, also damaged by playing at a lovely but dilapidated stadium. Ditto therefore matchday revenue. That is an extremely large hole 30 years in the making - the idea that because we've had three good seasons we're now going to go out and buy the players to win the title is absolutely bonkers.

If we are going to win it, it's not going to be by having the money to challenge the likes of the Manchester clubs any time soon. It's going to be with exceptional youth players bolstering us, fantastic squad harmony, all the puzzle pieces falling together at the right time. Our goal has to be to make sure we're in a position for that to happen, while doing our best to consolidate the top 4 places, and being financially responsible so that we're not set back massively if/when we fail to do that one year (which is near-inevitable: 6 into 4 does not go).

No, it isn't Glory Glory, To Dare is To Do. Because in the Sky era, to Dare is to end up bankrupt in League One. The whole thing is set up with an established order it is deliberately very hard to challenge. We need to keep being clever to do that, not reckless. If that means in one particular window we evaluate the prices to be too high to be worthwhile, especially when it also means eating a loss on squad players who then couldn't even be registered, so be it. We take the rough with the smooth. And we trust that the very people who've got us to this position - the ONLY club in this money era to break into those positions for more than a fluke year - have not collectively lost their minds.

PrettyColors said:

I just can’t wait until mid-October, the squad languishing off of a midweek fixture in CL, when our beleaguered team loses 3-1 at home to Brighton. Will absolutely love that.

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That happened last season did it?

scottlag10 said:

Already done announcements held back to appease fans for the DL perfect nett spend transfer window?

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Well we have ITK to say so, but until they are announced I will assume otherwise. That said if the word around was that they haven't, then I'm sure the big fish would have been hunting..

George94 said:

The signs were there 3 weeks ago!!

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And yet we were getting giddy this morning with early positive itk

I really don’t want Pochettino to leave

So Levy tells Poch if we don’t sell Toby by 5pm he stays...fast forward a week later when Barca come in with a £50m bid...bye bye Toby!

Like, how do you not sign anyone?

It’s crazy just thinking this happened. You go into every window wondering what new players you get, never thinking you may not sign anyone at all. I can’t wrap my head around it.

pablo73 said:

Last season Poch repeatedly played the likes of Sissoko and an out of form Aurier over our highly rated academy prospects but now all of a sudden the youth are the answer to all our problems. As others have said, it's clearly out of necessity not choice. I would have no issue at all if Poch had looked at the young players in our academy and decided that we didn't need any signings due to the quality coming through, but that is clearly not the case as we have been chasing signings all summer. Just very, very ineffectively.

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Alternative is that we cannot as a club afford to drop the likes of Sissoko and Aurier and abandon all resale potential while eating their wages for a long contract. Signing someone who turns out to be another mediocre squad player would make that worse, not better.

Mr Pink said:

Maybe the situation has changed? Levy will know the fans are frustrated
...

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he could have thought of that before coming up empty handed

George94 said:

The signs were there 3 weeks ago!!

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Yep, as soon as there wasn't movement after the WC, I knew we were doomed.

PrettyColors said:

I just can’t wait until mid-October, the squad languishing off of a midweek fixture in CL, when our beleaguered team loses 3-1 at home to Brighton. Will absolutely love that.

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Your a poor excuse of a fan if you’d absolutely love seeing us lose.

So to cut out any future confusion/misinterpretation of itk on our transfer policy....we are not capable/willing to buy anybody that can improve our first 11 unless we sell to fund it?

When and who was the last club in the top 3/4 leagues or CL to not sign anybody? What a disgrace

crokey said:

How is being "tired" (fatigued) after a long season and a long world cup an excuse? It's simply a physiological fact.

Whether you sign a player or not does not change the physical symptoms of fatigue in human beings. Wtf?

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I think he means it’s an excuse because as a club we knew this was the case, but still didn’t strengthen the squad. Not an excuse for the individual players.

Tucker said:

The state of this thread. We are all frustrated. But can we not spam this place to shit with bitching and moaning please. There’s still three hours to go and it’d be nice if we didn’t have to sift through tonnes of off topic crap to find any ITK that might pop up.

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I think Poch's presser was the most telling ITK regarding any potential movement one way or the other. This window is done I reckon. If we get to keep Toby and all is well between Poch and him, then I would consider that job done for the most part

Hercules said:

Our speculative signing gambles is now BITING us hard!

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Yup.

mquinn73 said:

Time will tell.

We've made our bed, now we have to sleep in it.

But that means no excuses:

No "our players are tired after the World Cup"

No "it is taking us time to settle into the new stadium"

No "all of our competitiors have strengthened"

If this is all part of some grand plan, then great. No need for excuses.

But if that's not the case,then don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining.

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Things happen outside our control. There's a world out there. Sometimes there is very little you can do and you have to choose the least damaging option out of several bad ones. That's life.

scottlag10 said:

So to cut out any future confusion/misinterpretation of itk on our transfer policy....we are not capable/willing to buy anybody that can improve our first 11 unless we sell to fund it?

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Pretty sure a lot of the ITK was down to the lack of squad spaces due to fringe players not being able to secure moves away.

Can't wait until our transfer ban is lifted next summer

Hercules said:

I think a lot of this, including Toby change is club politics. Our speculative signing gambles is now BITING us hard!

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But surely this window any signing we made would have been a speculative gamble, because the finished product that is good enough for our first team is worth £75m+.