Big Friedkin Rebuild

[ToffeeDevil]

Bove for Doucoure makes the most sense to me. £15 million pound swap deal.

would be hard - fiorentina LOVE bove, and the outpouring for his recent health scare on pitch was enough. think they'll try to retain him

fiorentina love aside, that health scare in and of itself is a flag

 

[Dymak]

would be hard - fiorentina LOVE bove, and the outpouring for his recent health scare on pitch was enough. think they'll try to retain him

fiorentina love aside, that health scare in and of itself is a flag

It is a red flag, for Roma, Everton, Fiorentina or anyone else.

He will need a permanent pacemaker imo. Otherwise, he won't be getting on to a pitch anywhere at all. I think this means that he will have to leave Italy.

 

[Bryan+]

Can we attract real quality? I think it makes more sense to bet on younger talent and more so quantity than perceived quality.

We can once we move to BMD, I don’t just mean the stadium - the investment, sponsors, stadium tours will allow us to attract better players - whether they chose to comes that’s down to the ability of DOF, and manager.

 

[murphy89]

Our youth policy is non existent

This just is true though? Loads of work gone into the academy over the last couple of years. Quite a few brought in this summer after our ban finished too

 

[ToffeeDevil]

It is a red flag, for Roma, Everton, Fiorentina or anyone else.

He will need a permanent pacemaker imo. Otherwise, he won't be getting on to a pitch anywhere at all. I think this means that he will have to leave Italy.

was gonna edit and say that - correct, if he needs a defibrillator, then he's gotta go away from Serie A. he's a great player and young, but idk if i like the risk

 

[W84 Dum Freeze]

Which players do we want to take on loan from Roma? Surely we can expect a bit of player trading from within the 'group'.

Andre Gomes' 21 shirt number is still available, so erm.. Dybala for a bit of kit sales revenue.

 

[Bryan+]

If they have any sense, they look at the accounts versus revenue for the past 9 years and say “let’s not do that?”.

 

[gedefc]

Well surely that begins now? We have a LOT to do in the summer already; take a look at the “discussion points” of the original post: what do you think we can get done in January?

Regardless of division, we have 14 players returning to parent club / out of contract in the summer leaving us with 12 senior players. Yes we obviously need to stay up first, but if we doing nothing towards the plan for the future because of that is negligent.

Yeah, we could do with 1 or 2 additions in january to take the pressure off the summer a bit - I'd probably like the manager to go before these players are signed though

 

[TheBigIguana]

I don't mean like Moshiri style statement signings. I have no idea what sort of market we'll be shopping in but using a kind of hybrid example from the past to show what I mean I would rather go down the route of spending £28m on Lukaku and getting Barry and Deulofeu on loan and Naismith and Cleverly on frees, rather than buy Kone, Jelavic, Funes Mori and Mirallas for the same sort of money.

If a talent as good as Lukaku falls into our lap sure. It’s unlikely.

The second group of players don’t represent a strategy. We can spend similar in a more structured approach and it can work way better:

 

[TheBigIguana]

We can once we move to BMD, I don’t just mean the stadium - the investment, sponsors, stadium tours will allow us to attract better players - whether they chose to comes that’s down to the ability of DOF, and manager.

Our money is not going to be competitive with the top end of the table. It’s not a strategy

 

[Zatara]

Of the 'out of contract' players there is only one I would keep and that is Virginia - seems a decent keeper in the making and still young enough to get better. A solid stand in.

And as for the loanies, possibly Mangala - although still need to see a lot more of him to really have an opinion.

I believe Virginia was quoted some time ago as saying he would leave for first team football once his contract expired.

 

[ganistuk]

It's an opportunity rather than a weakness imo. Most if not all of them would accept an extended contract if we offered them, but many will be binned off as we wish to improve and move on from them.

The picture should look a bit different come the end of January anyway, as we will see incomings and departures in January.

Doucoure hasn't had his wages reduced, he was in an extremely strong position at the time his most recent contract was agreed. We actually have the option to extend his contract in the summer as well. I think this was possibly more to do with ensuring we get a fee for him, which I think we will in either January or the summer.

Agreed, IF there is a plan in place. It can be done but there are risks with that large a turnover of players. Forest just about survived it last season but are thriving. Everyone thought they were mad singing that many players at once, and of course there were always going to be ones that didn't work out, but on the whole they pulled it off.

The step up is huge from the U21s, but sometime when your hand is forced there may be a diamond appear when given the chance. 2-3 signings in January with a mind to beyond this season would help minimise the need for such a drastic overhaul.

On the whole, what we have is not good enough, and it has often seemed hard for us to get rid of the dross, so let's make the most of it.

 

[Lanolin]

If a talent as good as Lukaku falls into our lap sure. It’s unlikely.

The second group of players don’t represent a strategy. We can spend similar in a more structured approach and it can work way better:

I was just using them as an easily understandable example, not talking about them specifically as players. The very simple point is that I believe we should focus on signing a lower number of higher quality players rather than a higher number of lower quality players.

 

[Bryan+]

Our money is not going to be competitive with the top end of the table. It’s not a strategy

Well why else would they be encouraged to join us? Scouse birds?

 

[TheBigIguana]

Well why else would they be encouraged to join us? Scouse birds?

You have to buy players who can’t command that kind of money yet, develop them, sell, buy new players, rinse and repeat.

Maybe a moment comes where you can stop selling and try to make a push. But we aren’t near that now.