How will Levy weaken us this window?

[Chris12]

Nothing wrong with what Levy did yesterday. Got rid of Lennon on loan who wasn't really playing anyways, so hardly weakened, and we have sufficient cover in each position. Can we strengthen? Yes, but will do in summer probably

 

[Donki]

No problems with the window, were up there, and Poch is progressing with the squad he has.

 

[GMI]

Is this the thread to say well done to the chairman for getting rid of some players surplus to requirements.

 

[davidmatzdorf]

@davidmatzdorf and @Sp3akerboxxx please, by all means, I'm curious to hear your logic in contradiction to the post above.

"one of league's leading scoring strikers + league's leading scoring midfielder + x = in sixth place with a +5 goal differential"

How can you refute the above? How would you solve for x?

Heh. It was this part:

I just cannot understand why every year we refuse the opportunity to push on, especially when the answer is so clear.

I have set out in several posts already why we do not buy major/expensive players or players to improve the current season's campaign during January transfer windows. We never do it and it's pretty clear why, but still we get this rain of posts either angry or, in your case, mystified that we do not. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with what's clearly a policy, but the club's reasons are not obscure or difficult to follow: they don't consider that important players are available at good value in January and they look at the squad on a longer time frame than the next 5 months.

 

[cliff jones]

Heh. It was this part:

I have set out in several posts already why we do not buy major/expensive players or players to improve the current season's campaign during January transfer windows. We never do it and it's pretty clear why, but still we get this rain of posts either angry or, in your case, mystified that we do not. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with what's clearly a policy, but the club's reasons are not obscure or dificult to follow: they don't consider that important players are available at good value in January and they look at the squad on a longer time frame than the next 5 months.

Indeed, VDVs acquisition has certainly been proved to be the exception. Unless Levy spots a deal like Pienaar, or Holtby, where contracts were almost up. The Saha/Nelson window told everyone what was going to happen. Competitive, more or less, equals saving the money-but saving the money for what or when is the key unanswered question.

 

[sloth]

It shouldn't always amaze me I know, but I'm forever astounded by bimbos who don't know what they are! Fine be a bit dim, but surely along the way you come to realise it...? You know, you can never quite follow the detail, complicated stuff makes you want to stick your finger up your nose or fart or whatever...

 

[Lilbaz]

Indeed, VDVs acquisition has certainly been proved to be the exception. Unless Levy spots a deal like Pienaar, or Holtby, where contracts were almost up. The Saha/Nelson window told everyone what was going to happen. Competitive, more or less, equals saving the money-but saving the money for what or when is the key unanswered question.

£50m training ground/academy. Which we are already seeing the benefits from.
Well over £100m on the new stadium (including £50m in the last year on the contract for the groundworks).

Levy is looking for long term success. It's hard for the fans because we want trophies and CL. Just hope that we can sort out the Archway mess this month and then get the stadium going properly.

 

[Ionman34]

£50m training ground/academy. Which we are already seeing the benefits from.
Well over £100m on the new stadium (including £50m in the last year on the contract for the groundworks).

Levy is looking for long term success. It's hard for the fans because we want trophies and CL. Just hope that we can sort out the Archway mess this month and then get the stadium going properly.

In a nutshell Baz.

The bigger picture, part of a Chairman's remit.

I'm sure there are some on here who believe he only goes to the States, promoting the brand, for the airmiles and the chance to gamble the transfer kitty in Vegas.

 

[Shadydan]

We do have some mellow dramatic fans on here don't we.

 

[jambreck]

Another monumental fail by Levy, but you won't have any joy convincing the bsodl.
There's a herd mentality at work here with everyone trying to outdo each other with slavish optimism, and scoring points for abusing the minority of un intimidated dissenters.

Yawn. If your default response to anyone who questions an OP such as this is liberally and thoughtlessly to throw the lame bsodl ad hominem up in the air like confetti, then your argument is inevitably going to lack substance.

There has been no undue optimism expressed in this thread. Nor intimidation. What there has been is merely frustration that the OP has made wild claims - which were clearly designed to provoke a response (though you conveniently ignore that) - but has persistently failed to back them up with evidence when challenged. I'm quite certain that if the OP's complaints and arguments were based on fact, rather than wild speculation, then reasonable discussion would have ensued. Perhaps even consensus.

But, instead, the OP persists with silly accusations of pension funds and Levy being the cause of team weakening as a consequence of loaning a player that the manager clearly no longer wanted. The thread was therefore gratuitous from the outset and the OP got the response that he deserved (and almost certainly wanted).

For the record:
I'm very happy with the performance of MP, the wonderful development of Kane and Eriksson, and perhaps most of all with the way our longtime weakness of mentality is being rectified. Even the lesser players are showing signs of improvement,and there is an encouraging trend of more open progression from youth to first team, with some good prospects.

In itself that is enough for me to be able to enjoy this season, I don't require 4th, or a trophy to do that, and in theory I'm quite prepared to patiently watch the squad develop as organically as Levy's allotment, if he had one. Unfortunately we all know, when not blinded by partisan optimism, that that's not how it works in the PL. I'm not happy with the prospects for the coming seasons because All the above positives do not amount, and will not amount to progress in our League position. For that you actually have to invest in the team in a timely and astute fashion, which Levy consistently refuses to do.

Agreed about Poch. And there's also something to be said for your criticism of Levy's failure to invest further in the team at crucial moments. It's a shame that the OP couldn't have restricted himself to making that point rather than blaming Levy for loaning Lennon when it is clear to everyone else that it was Poch's choice not to pick him even for match day squads, let alone the starting line up.

We are indeed weakened. We've lost two squad options, while replacing only one very inexperienced unknown quantity in Yedlin. Much more importantly we've lost another opportunity to build our squad incrementally with the addition of at least one quality player. That's important because new players take time to bed in and can't all be brought in at once as we learnt to our cost with the less than magnificent seven.

True. And maybe that is indeed Levy's fault. But maybe, since there appears to have been no strong link to any major signing this window, everyone involved in transfer decisions - Levy, Poch, Baldini, Mitchell etc - agreed that the players they wanted were not available in January and they would rather keep their powder dry until the summer. Certainly, there have been no whispers of dissent from Poch; no tales of failed bids; no levy transfer brinkmanship. Just quiet and calm. Which suggests to me that that was the agreed upon plan all along.

Even more unforgivably in my view, is that Levy has for the second window running, failed to significantly clear the deadwood ( ade, Paul, kab,cap, chir) despite opportunities to do so. That means the summer window, instead of being about finally proactively backing MP with his own players, will now be a repeat of the last two, the same old mantra of outs before ins before eventually picking up scraps at the last moment.

Again true. But it wasn't for lack of trying, surely? By all accounts, a number of bids were accepted for a number of players but, in each case, they refused to move - usually on account of the lower wages they would have received. It comes across as hugely agenda driven to blame Levy for that.

We are weakened because the time-scale of any realistic notional progress to CL has again shifted back at least another 6months ( much the same as the stadium plans always do). And what the bsodl are unwilling to face up to is that that is absolutely critical, because in today's PL if you don't make significant progress you are effectively moving backwards. Not just because your rivals are strengthening and any fond ideas of progress are actually only significant relative to what other teams are doing, but because there's a fast ticking clock on those hopes of progress. The likes of Eriksson, Loris, Verts, and even Kane will not stick around for ever waiting for Daniel to do his business, they won't even stay very long at this rate if they are given no reason to believe the ambition of the clu b could soon match their own. The failure to strengthen is effectively a weakening in itself, because our hopes of holding on to them, and their morale and commitment to the club over the next few months as the vulture agents circle can't help but be weakened. If the chairman consistently puts money before all else, why should we expect them not to?

Yes they might go anyway, but that's all the more reason to strengthen while we have them so we can achieve some continuity and weather the loss. That way it would be a case of two steps forward, one back, which equals progress. The present policy , heading for a repeat of the bale situation, sees us making one forward, one back and that's effectively at least two back when you factor in the time, morale and momentum lost and extra disruption to our transfer schedule waiting for the dreaded sales to go through. That, my friends, is a recipe for, at best, stasis and perennial false optimism. Exactly what we're used to.

You're being a bit overdramatic about it but, in principle, I don't disagree. There is, of course, a danger that we will lose our best players if they don't see the club progressing and matching their own ambitions. And, again, if only the OP had made this point rather than the nonsense that he did post. You wouldn't then have misguidedly felt the need to leap to his defence while needlessly firing out ad hominems in the direction of anyone who dissented from his view.

 

[Arcane]

Dafuq you get 20-25 million from?

You do know he's been carrying a serious injury? As well as that, the last time I saw a price quoted for him it was 15 million.

Christ on a bike, it's like having a Sun journo on here.

Lol.
As if anyone's going to pay 15 mill for a semi-injured player. He's either going to be considered injured or not. If not the price will be what it was before, and someone will pay it. But you sir, appear to be too foolish to argue with so I suggest you agree to the following or refrain from your mouthy posturing:

£10 donation to SC:
From me if Rodriguez goes anywhere for 15mill or less.
From you if he goes anywhere for 20mill or more.

 

[Ionman34]

Lol.
As if anyone's going to pay 15 mill for a semi-injured player. He's either going to be considered injured or not. If not the price will be what it was before, and someone will pay it. But you sir, appear to be too foolish to argue with so I suggest you agree to the following or refrain from your mouthy posturing:

£10 donation to SC:
From me if Rodriguez goes anywhere for 15mill or less.
From you if he goes anywhere for 20mill or more.

Done.

 

[yido_number1]

Lol.
As if anyone's going to pay 15 mill for a semi-injured player. He's either going to be considered injured or not. If not the price will be what it was before, and someone will pay it. But you sir, appear to be too foolish to argue with so I suggest you agree to the following or refrain from your mouthy posturing:

£10 donation to SC:
From me if Rodriguez goes anywhere for 15mill or less.
From you if he goes anywhere for 20mill or more.

Done.

I'll join on this one. If Rodrigues goes for 20m or more I will cough up a tenner. Having not played a whole season and given that Southampton have Tadic, Elia, Churcic(sp) and Mane amongst others in this position I would expect him to go relatively cheaply. Probably in the 8-15m bracket. His injury was a serious one and he won't have had much playing time by the time he returns to the end of the season.

 

[Kendall]

Kept two proven goalscorers, so that's a plus.

Shame that we've limited our wide options, but then Poch is excessively stubborn when it comes to injecting a bit of width, so I suppose it's not all that surprising.

Ultimately I just see a continuation of us struggling to get in behind defenses and a real lack of craft in the final 3rd. 6th place for us I think this year.

 

[Ionman34]

I'll join on this one. If Rodrigues goes for 20m or more I will cough up a tenner. Having not played a whole season and given that Southampton have Tadic, Elia, Churcic(sp) and Mane amongst others in this position I would expect him to go relatively cheaply. Probably in the 8-15m bracket. His injury was a serious one and he won't have had much playing time by the time he returns to the end of the season.

Ssshhhhhh, you're giving it away

 

[Shadydan]

And Rodrigues' contract runs out next year so expect him to be considerably cheaper.

Someone has mugged themselves right off.

 

[DaSpurs]

Heh. It was this part:



I have set out in several posts already why we do not buy major/expensive players or players to improve the current season's campaign during January transfer windows. We never do it and it's pretty clear why, but still we get this rain of posts either angry or, in your case, mystified that we do not. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with what's clearly a policy, but the club's reasons are not obscure or difficult to follow: they don't consider that important players are available at good value in January and they look at the squad on a longer time frame than the next 5 months.

Good stuff David, because I actually agree with you and it was never an expensive signing I was demanding. As I've explained throughout the window and in this thread, what irked me so much is that I felt we could have spent so little on such a signing and yet improved significantly.

So believe me, I agree with you and am absolutely not in the camp demanding we spend big or shoot for big name players in order to improve. So I'm sorry you read my post in such a light. The things you point here though are pretty obvious, so I wish you wouldn't have assumed the worst.

 

[parklane1]

Indeed, VDVs acquisition has certainly been proved to be the exception. Unless Levy spots a deal like Pienaar, or Holtby, where contracts were almost up. The Saha/Nelson window told everyone what was going to happen. Competitive, more or less, equals saving the money-but saving the money for what or when is the key unanswered question.

Its pretty obvious to those who want too see, a state of the art training complex and a new ground on the way.

 

[parklane1]

Indeed, VDVs acquisition has certainly been proved to be the exception. Unless Levy spots a deal like Pienaar, or Holtby, where contracts were almost up. The Saha/Nelson window told everyone what was going to happen. Competitive, more or less, equals saving the money-but saving the money for what or when is the key unanswered question.

Its pretty obvious to those who want too see, a state of the art training complex and a new ground on the way.

 

[cliff jones]

I have no prob at all with Levy diverting money to fund the capital projects, if the Goons had to do it then why shouldn't we. And they stayed towards the top throughout thanks to Wenger and of course we all hope Poch can succeed in the same way.

But unless I'm mistaken Levy has always maintained that the playing side budget is separate and (something like) building the stadium would not have a detrimental effect on the board's capacity to keep the squad competitive.

The window came at a good time for him, in that results certainly picked up towards the end of the year and despite the odd blip post-Chelski most fans are not too worried about not signing anyone for here and now. IF we were lose to the Goons, Scousers, the Italians and in the final, which is more than possible, especially if Kane and/or Eriksen are out, then the picture of our season turns on its head.

I'm not saying this will happen, especially if all do somehow stay fit, or that I would adopt an I told you so approach for one second. I'd be gutted.