Erik Lamela

[CoopsieDeadpool]

there was only one article out of hundreds that stated some of the fee was dependent on add ons, i can see why you're clinging to that hope, i do the same. it was a nice cross but it was ade who made it possible, thank god we still had ade kicking around somewhere, without him we'd have probably finished 20 points down had soldado stayed in the side.

you could say that. Then again, you could also say, if Ade wasn't such a disrespectful egomaniac who openly criticised his manager (his boss) in front of the whole squad, and then went to tell the worlds press how happy he was about doing that, perhaps we'd have finished higher in the league.

Fair play to you for only looking at the bit that suits your standpoint

 

[Blake Griffin]

OR we've paid £13million (the real fee) for 11 goals (many from the penalty spot that other much loved strikers couldn't score from) 5 assists, 67% shooting accuracy, 73% passing accuracy, all whilst settling in a new country, a new (tougher) league, dealing with the awful loss of his unborn child, supporting his wife throughout this awful ordeal, playing in two systems that never even came close to matching his ability, playing under a manager who probably even struggles to spell 'football', scoring the goal that finally got the monkey off his back, only to end up getting dropped immediately, despite having perhaps his best game in a THFC shirt etc etc etc.

Each to their own, though.

wow, how cool is this? soldado's agent posts on sc!

 

[sloth]

He wasn't injured until much later in the season. It wasn't just Sherwood who didn't play him either-AVB constantly chose to ignore him. But we all know better than both don't we? I want him to do well, just calling it as I see it and certainly not getting carried away by a couple of decent performances against MLS teams.

I think maybe you could call off "calling it", and just be in a state of indecision for a while, like most of the rest of us.

 

[sloth]

wow, how cool is this? soldado's agent posts on sc!

I tell you what then, someone should tell him he's in the wrong fucking thread!

 

[CoopsieDeadpool]

wow, how cool is this? soldado's agent posts on sc!

 

[grimreaper84]

Not transfer related, but interesting none the less:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/ar...tml?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

 

[King of Otters]

There are no words to describe how knee jerk, stupid and dumb this post is.

I honestly don't see how anyone could argue that Soldado is quick, skillful, tall or powerful. He has his attributes, modest though they may be, but those listed above are not among them.

 

[SpursManChris]

I honestly don't see how anyone could argue that Soldado is tall

It depends on how 'tall' is defined. When you think about it, it doesn't have a definition.

 

[hughy]

It depends on how 'tall' is defined. When you think about it, it doesn't have a definition.

Don't be getting all deep with us SMC.

 

[SpursManChris]

Don't be getting all deep with us SMC.

But I'm just such a deep guy.

 

[King of Otters]

It depends on how 'tall' is defined. When you think about it, it doesn't have a definition.

In the context of No.9s in football, where height is clearly an attribute, I'd say he's not particularly 'tall'.

 

[SpursManChris]

In the context of No.9s in football, where height is clearly an attribute, I'd say he's not particularly 'tall'.

Height an attribute? You're sure your not thinking of the Center Forward position? Because you should know that's not what Soldado is. (I'm sure you know)

 

[King of Otters]

Height an attribute? You're sure your not thinking of the Center Forward position? Because you should know that's not what Soldado is. (I'm sure you know)

Er, I didn't know that. What exactly did Levy, Baldini and AVB think they were getting for their money then?

 

[SpursManChris]

Er, I didn't know that. What exactly did Levy, Baldini and AVB think they were getting for their money then?

A striker perhaps?

 

[King of Otters]

A striker perhaps?

Right. So a striker similar to Defoe, who needs a partner, rather than an Adebayor leading the line type who can play on his own?

In that case I disagree. He may be better suited to that role but Levy and Baldini must have bought him as a No.9 to lead the line, as that was the system we played under AVB.

The fact that he's terrible in that position is beside the point. We wouldnt (although it appears we did), spunk 20 odd mill on a striker who can't play up front on his own, as that's the system that virtually all coaches play these days.

 

[SpursManChris]

Right. So a striker similar to Defoe, who needs a partner, rather than an Adebayor leading the line type who can play on his own?

In that case I disagree. He may be better suited to that role but Levy and Baldini must have bought him as a No.9 to lead the line, as that was the system we played under AVB.

The fact that he's terrible in that position is beside the point. We wouldnt (although it appears we did), spunk 20 odd mill on a striker who can't play up front on his own, as that's the system that virtually all coaches play these days.

Agreed. I actually know sod all about the man to be honest. I've no idea what his playing activity was for Valencia. Wikipedia refers to him as a striker, that's all.

 

[Blake Griffin]

are we really arguing over semantics? he was signed to lead the line for spurs and failed miserably. it wasn't entirely his fault, if you'd witnessed the football we'd played the season before dropping 26m on him then you could see that it was unlikely that his valencia form would translate into goals for spurs.

 

[Lennon1981]

Lamela 66/1 to be 2015 player of the year. Got to be worth a tenner surely?

 

[SpursManChris]

are we really arguing over semantics? he was signed to lead the line for spurs and failed miserably. it wasn't entirely his fault, if you'd witnessed the football we'd played the season before dropping 26m on him then you could see that it was unlikely that his valencia form would translate into goals for spurs.

How?

 

[Barry Mead]

are we really arguing over semantics? he was signed to lead the line for spurs and failed miserably. it wasn't entirely his fault, if you'd witnessed the football we'd played the season before dropping 26m on him then you could see that it was unlikely that his valencia form would translate into goals for spurs.

With all players they have to fit into a team and a team plan. I imagine the plan was Lamela, Pjanic, Willian and Soldado, which if we had gotten them all in and they had all been fit looked like it could have worked brilliantly
Clearly the previous season we weren't creating enough, the Adebayour you seem to praise for last year scored just 5 goals that previous season despite being very familiar with the PL and already having a season to be familiar with the team
Using your argument on witnessing the football we'd seen that season presumably you would have seen that we lacked creativity and relied far too much on Bale's emerging as a world class player and his ability to carve opportunities for himself out of nothing
So with him leaving it was pretty obvious that we needed creativity but you can't just buy players in a given order, you have a plan and you buy to that plan as opportunity arises. We got Soldado and Paulinho as opportunity arose, we tried for Lamela and Pjanic but only got Lamela, we tried for Willian and only Chavs last minute intervention stopped it
Pjanic for me was the real key, we lacked a playmaker but I imagine Soldado would have worked had we gotten Willian and AVB had given Lamela a chance to find his feet before he got injured
This season hopefully we will have Lamela firing on all cylinders, Capoue and Sandro not impacted by injuries, Eriksen picking up where he left off and a stronger defence we will see far more the team we might have hoped to carve chances for Soldado. We still lack a real playmaker but Capoue has the ability to see and play the early pass to the attackers and Poch seems to like his teams to get the ball forward quickly and then we can play far more to Soldado's strengths
As for price and this ongoing argument about break up of up front and add ons, I think you only have to look at the price historically overpaying City paid for Negredo and the carefulness in terms of price that Levy has always shown to realise that £13 mill up front and the rest in "add ons" was pretty obviously the price. City paid £16 mill for Negredo with £4 mill in add ons for a striker with similar goal record and 9 months younger. Valencia needed the money but their chairman wanted to appear to the fans that he had held out for the buy out, so we constructed a deal that saved his face and allowed him to claim he did. No doubt some of those add ons are reasonable ones that could cost us extra but anyone who thinks Daniel Levy paid £10 mill more than City did for an younger striker with a similar goal record hasn't really studied Levy's previous transfer dealings
Soldado was a good buy, it was just unfortunate we couldn't get all the pieces we wanted last summer, hopefully we will be far better equipped to allow him to thrive this season