The lack of coherency in our recruitment strategy

[Ghost Hardware]

What’s certain is that we have left ourselves a lot to do in the summer, essentially we have only managed to improve one position whilst thinning our numbers quite significantly. What I found most surprising is that we seemed to be going after Vlahovic, a striker, then did a 180 after he sold to Juve and tried to get Diaz, a LW. If we had got Vlahovic we would have had to change our system to two up top, but with Diaz it would very much have been a 3. On top of that Diaz’s best position is LW, the same as Son, and as much as Son can play RW he’s not as dangerous on his left foot so why spend that amount on a player that would force us to move our second best player into a less favourable position. Dembele or Dybala at least would have made some sense as RW could do with an upgrade even tho I think Dembele especially would have been an injury nightmare.

All in all I don‘t think we can really judge until summer but thus far I’m not overly convinced and this window I certainly wouldn’t call a success.

 

[dontcallme]

What’s certain is that we have left ourselves a lot to do in the summer, essentially we have only managed to improve one position whilst thinning our numbers quite significantly. What I found most surprising is that we seemed to be going after Vlahovic, a striker, then did a 180 after he sold to Juve and tried to get Diaz, a LW. If we had got Vlahovic we would have had to change our system to two up top, but with Diaz it would very much have been a 3. On top of that Diaz’s best position is LW, the same as Son, and as much as Son can play RW he’s not as dangerous on his left foot so why spend that amount on a player that would force us to move our second best player into a less favourable position. Dembele or Dybala at least would have made some sense as RW could do with an upgrade even tho I think Dembele especially would have been an injury nightmare.

All in all I don‘t think we can really judge until summer but thus far I’m not overly convinced and this window I certainly wouldn’t call a success.

The thing with January, is it's always about availability. Vlahovic with 18 months left on his contract was possibly going to be sold. Diaz from the Portuguese league where they seem happy to cash in was another possibility. Traore was also completely different but again likely to be available with his contract length.

The fans specifying positions to improve in are always off base. We needed quality from a relatively small pool of obtainable players.

If the Alli deal finalises and we can find permanent buyers for Lo Celso and Ndombele then our summer window becomes easier but as you say we have to wait until then before judging.

I see this window as a good first step.

 

[Amo]

Activate clean slate protocol

 

[Sevens]

Salah is one example.

Kind of, but not really. He cut his teeth in Switzerland and had two years coaching at Chelsea before he went to Italy.

 

[Sevens]

You say a refresh , our starting 11 still consists of Lloris , Dier , Davies , Winks , Son, Kane , Lucas . 3 or 4 of these players are squad players and shouldn’t be anywhere near the first 11. Add Hojberg , Emerson , Doherty , ( not required standard . It’s only really Romero and skipp that have potential to be regulars in a top 6 team pushing for 4th place .

That's the squad. The probable first XI would feature Lloris, Dier, Davies, Son, Kane and Moura (and I'm not sure he'd be picked if we had the players to play 532 more often). So around half the first team.

 

[Ghost Hardware]

The thing with January, is it's always about availability. Vlahovic with 18 months left on his contract was possibly going to be sold. Diaz from the Portuguese league where they seem happy to cash in was another possibility. Traore was also completely different but again likely to be available with his contract length.

The fans specifying positions to improve in are always off base. We needed quality from a relatively small pool of obtainable players.

If the Alli deal finalises and we can find permanent buyers for Lo Celso and Ndombele then our summer window becomes easier but as you say we have to wait until then before judging.

I see this window as a good first step.

Of course Jan is very much about availability and there was never anyway we would have been able to strengthen everywhere we needed mainly because the squad is in such awful condition across the board. And of course none of us actually know who really was available so there is a large amount on guesswork going on. I think tho it’s fair to be disappointed that we didn’t, at least loan, ether a back up striker or RWB as both those positions could cost us a top 4 spot.

As I mentioned previously, I get it’s about who is available and you have to take an opportunity if you see it but there also has to be some sort of plan. iE, buy the positions we need and with the two aforementioned big ticket players it’s hard to tell if we are planning to go for 343 or 352 as they wouldn’t suit both and neither would be bench players. I just feel if your going to be spending that much on a player then the player should fit the formation you play not change the formation to fit the player. I know its good to be able to play both formations but Conte has always favoured one more then another at the clubs he manages, at Inter It was 352 and Chelsea it was 343. At least Traore, who we supposedly had wanted to play RWB, made some sort of sense as a purchase. Our approach toward this window for incomings just seemed unfocused and a little messy and it could well be the case that our focus was on outs rather then ins. But because of this I don’t really feel like we have put ourselves in the best possible place to achieve top 4 hence my less then enthusiastic response to this window. Hopefully we will get top four and be able to bring in the right players of the required quality come summer.

 

[wrd]

I still think that the previous summer was the beginning of a coherent plan, we saw Romero added and two players for the future in Gill and Sarr (who is going be top class eventually). Emerson unfortunately has suffered as a consequence of the swap in managers but he's still young enough to develop, he just needs to work hard.

However this window was the real statement in terms of the direction we are trying to go. Look at the players we have shipped, people will say they were shit or this or that personally I don't believe they were bad players, I think they were signed for a specific style and system, we sack a manager during that bedding in period and then we hire a manager who would never choose these type of players in a million years, they suffered for that and we can talk about attitude and this and that but I think strongly that they are symptoms of the lack of coherence in our strategy and now we have finally just taken the plunge and decided to pick a lane on what we want the squad to be and they're the victims of that.

You can see clearly how Kulusveski fits right into a gap we had, You can see given the style of midfielder Conte likes why Bentacur looks likely to fit in perfectly. I think we are now seeing that through line in our squad building and will hopefully see some stability with Conte building upon this again in the summer.

 

[SargeantMeatCurtains]

6 months worth of planning, only for us to fund Juventus’ move for our prime striker target on the final day of the window. In return we get a CDM and a RW when Conte made it clear his priorities were a RWB, CM and striker. We are at the mercy of Kane’s ankles holding strong and Matt Doherty not being total shit.

Our recruitment team are a fucking joke. Can’t be too surprised though considering they’re led by an utter fraud.

 

[dudu]

Club is clearly backing Conte and don't think for a second we would have bought in these two without his approval.

We are quite obviously waiting for better deals and players to be available in the summer for other positions.

 

[dudu]

6 months worth of planning, only for us to fund Juventus’ move for our prime striker target on the final day of the window. In return we get a CDM and a RW when Conte made it clear his priorities were a RWB, CM and striker. We are at the mercy of Kane’s ankles holding strong and Matt Doherty not being total shit.

Our recruitment team are a fucking joke. Can’t be too surprised though considering they’re led by an utter fraud.

6 months?

 

[double0]

The strategy is financially related to the payment plan. Newcastle just blew £90M like it was peanuts, a few more raids like that and it won't be long before they're a massive problem.

Time again we fail to get our main targets and move down the list our strategy as it stands is crap.

 

[SargeantMeatCurtains]

6 months?

6 months. When Paratici came in, we were told there would be a complete restructure of the recruitment team and how it operates. That evidently hasn’t happened as it’s just been a rinse and repeat of what we’ve seen already. If we’re talking about planning for what Conte wants, he’s still had at least 2 months and imo he’s failed him.

FWIW I like both of the players we’ve signed but the lack of a RWB when Conte’s system exclusively relies on its wing backs is negligent and a lack of cover for Kane given his history of injuries is bordering on incompetence.

I’m not getting particularly sucked into this “Fabio did a great job cleaning the decks” spiel either. Dele went for a ridiculously low fee with likely very unobtainable performance add ons and the pair of Ndombele and Lo Celso will likely be back in the summer stinking out the place again because they’ve only moved on loan with either an unrealistic buy option (Ndombele) or no option at all (Lo Celso).

Paratici can not fuck up the summer window. That’ll be make or break for us. Unfortunately I have no trust in the guy whatsoever because he’s done nothing to even warrant being trusted so far.

 

[thekneaf]

6 months worth of planning, only for us to fund Juventus’ move for our prime striker target on the final day of the window. In return we get a CDM and a RW when Conte made it clear his priorities were a RWB, CM and striker. We are at the mercy of Kane’s ankles holding strong and Matt Doherty not being total shit.

Our recruitment team are a fucking joke. Can’t be too surprised though considering they’re led by an utter fraud.

Just wanted to say I'm enjoying the acrobatics to get angry about buying a CM. And then angry about signing a lock pick forward.

We're stronger. Are we the finished article? No. But we're leaner and hungrier which fittingly is where Conte wants us to be.

 

[thekneaf]

The strategy is financially related to the payment plan. Newcastle just blew £90M like it was peanuts, a few more raids like that and it won't be long before they're a massive problem.

Time again we fail to get our main targets and move down the list our strategy as it stands is crap.

Everton spent loads of money and went backwards. Hell, we've spent loads of money and gone backwards.

 

[hellava_tough]

Everton spent loads of money and went backwards. Hell, we've spent loads of money and gone backwards.

Spending doesn't guarantee success, but you have to spend to be successful.

Some clubs do it well, others don't.

But you have to do it.

 

[thekneaf]

Spending doesn't guarantee success, but you have to spend to be successful.

Some clubs do it well, others don't.

But you have to do it.

You don't actually have to spend to be successful every window though. You have to find something that works, however you do that (often through spending) and then find a way to replicate it. Often our most successful periods have been based on stability and not churn. Same at Liverpool.

However, we've just hacked out loads of disaffected players over 2 windows. We've also added in a number of new ones.

We've signed 2 players who could be brilliant, we'll see. Pre judging them as nothing special is weird. Son was a meh signing back in the day, how'd that turn out?

 

[hellava_tough]

You don't actually have to spend to be successful every window though. You have to find something that works, however you do that (often through spending) and then find a way to replicate it. Often our most successful periods have been based on stability and not churn. Same at Liverpool.

However, we've just hacked out loads of disaffected players over 2 windows. We've also added in a number of new ones.

We've signed 2 players who could be brilliant, we'll see. Pre judging them as nothing special is weird. Son was a meh signing back in the day, how'd that turn out?

Agreed.

This window has been pretty solid.

My only concern is in the context of our CL qualification push; we have a good chance for a Top 4 finish and I'd hate to miss out by a point or two, and be left wondering 'what if we had have signed that extra player'.

 

[Monkey boy]

6 months. When Paratici came in, we were told there would be a complete restructure of the recruitment team and how it operates. That evidently hasn’t happened as it’s just been a rinse and repeat of what we’ve seen already. If we’re talking about planning for what Conte wants, he’s still had at least 2 months and imo he’s failed him.

FWIW I like both of the players we’ve signed but the lack of a RWB when Conte’s system exclusively relies on its wing backs is negligent and a lack of cover for Kane given his history of injuries is bordering on incompetence.

I’m not getting particularly sucked into this “Fabio did a great job cleaning the decks” spiel either. Dele went for a ridiculously low fee with likely very unobtainable performance add ons and the pair of Ndombele and Lo Celso will likely be back in the summer stinking out the place again because they’ve only moved on loan with either an unrealistic buy option (Ndombele) or no option at all (Lo Celso).

Paratici can not fuck up the summer window. That’ll be make or break for us. Unfortunately I have no trust in the guy whatsoever because he’s done nothing to even warrant being trusted so far.

Couldnt agree more on this point, not sure why anyone is cheering on getting rid of these two on loan deals as both of them will be back in the summer and will absolutely be here until the last day of the summer transfer window as buying clubs will know full well that they have us over a barrel. I can already hear the excuses now as to why we will be left scrambling around again in the summer.

Also fully agree that to fail once again to bring in a striker (back up or otherwise) is bordering on negligence now. If Kane breaks down between now and May then we can kiss goodbye to any hope of a top 4 finish and the riches that come with it.

 

[Japhet]

I think we've seen a big change in strategy this time. Unwanted players have been jettisoned at whatever cost and the prep has been done for the summer. Conte has been backed substantially and we have a fighting chance of top 4. Yes, we could have done more, but all eyes are now on the summer, exactly like we were told.

 

[14/04/91]

I think we've seen a big change in strategy this time. Unwanted players have been jettisoned at whatever cost and the prep has been done for the summer. Conte has been backed substantially and we have a fighting chance of top 4. Yes, we could have done more, but all eyes are now on the summer, exactly like we were told.

Spot on regarding getting players out. Given the financial state of most clubs, we did well to find loans quite frankly.
The tricky part comes in summer when we need buyers, otherwise it’s more loans and contracts/achievable fees dwindling.

My other concern for summer is this apparent focus on players out of/nearing end of contract.
Yes we save on fees but wages being demanded will be sky high & that’s not usually our style. Loads of other clubs will be trying the same tactic so we’ll need to be paying well.
If we’re still saddled with a few unwanted high earners, I fear our budget won’t stretch. Hope I’m wrong.