Is Our Turgid Football Due To The Sides We Face Early On

[davek]

Said it before: this feller can not blend a team. They always look disjointed.

 

[eddy]

Koeman is what he is as a manager.

I don't know if people just assume because he was a world class player in excellent teams that it is how he would choose his own sides to play.

He is the Dutch Moyes - I said it when we got him - the facts were there for those who chose to see them. He will always favour defensive solidity and players who follow his game plan over attacking flair and unpredictable attackers. He'd rather have a team of 8/10 players than one with a few 10/10s and a few 6/10s. He has fallen out with or dropped almost every flair player he has worked with.

This is an effective strategy as the Moyes/Koeman Everton teams show.

If you are expecting tactical innovation and high flair football you have the wrong manager.

If you want good football with a solid base then he is your man.

My main concern is not the quality of the football. It is the recruitment. I feel we are selling off our best young talent and replacing it with expensive stop gaps. Just this time last year everyone was calling me a moaner for daring to suggest Ashley Williams was a poor value signing. Buying players at 27-30 is terrible business unless they are a massive upgrade on what you've already got or they are really cheap. They won't get any better and the likelihood is they'll decline. £10m on Williams, £25m on Bolasie, £50m (if it happens) on Sigurdsson is just ridiculous.

Add Stones, Barkley and Lukaku into our squad (I'll leave out Deulofeu) and you have top 4 challengers. Without them we'll do well to finish 7th again.

Agree 100%

 

[msb]

Add Stones, Barkley and Lukaku into our squad

What is difficult to understand about the fact that ALL three wanted to leave. No matter which manager we had, they would all have wanted to leave.

It is utter tripe to suggest that IF they stayed we'd be this that or the other, because they WANTED TO LEAVE. If not for money, kudos or personal safety, they all wanted gone. There was no option to keep them, they were leavers, they were dead parrots .......

Why keep harping on about IF we had kept them ..... dear lord, how difficult is it? No-one wanted them to leave, but they wanted to go. So far providing the club with between 112 to 147 million depending if you are Eeyore or me.

 

[eddy]

What is difficult to understand about the fact that ALL three wanted to leave. No matter which manager we had, they would all have wanted to leave.

It is utter tripe to suggest that IF they stayed we'd be this that or the other, because they WANTED TO LEAVE. If not for money, kudos or personal safety, they all wanted gone. There was no option to keep them, they were leavers, they were dead parrots .......

Why keep harping on about IF we had kept them ..... dear lord, how difficult is it? No-one wanted them to leave, but they wanted to go. So far providing the club with between 112 to 147 million depending if you are Eeyore or me.

They want out because we show no ambition and are a selling club, a feeder club to Man United
They want to compete and win things and feel they cannot with us that is why they want out. They have seen transfer window after transfer window come and go and we sign old has beens and hoodwink the fans about our ambition ....... people are beggining to see through the `talk` a new owner for instance with pots of money, the reality an investor who bought 49% of the clubs shares 2 years ago

 

[LouReedwalkonthewildside]

I accept that players need to settle/gel, but putting square pegs in round holes doesn't help.

Watching the game Saturday half the players looked like they were all over the gaff in the first half.

 

[degsy]

Our side looks unbalanced and congested, seriously lack creative players aswell and have for years. Guess we should wait till the end of the transfer window and allow a few new boys to settle in, we looked much better though second half against Stoke when he rejigged the side

Maybe if he'd jigged it right in the first place...just sayin like.

 

[Timak]

What is difficult to understand about the fact that ALL three wanted to leave. No matter which manager we had, they would all have wanted to leave.

It is utter tripe to suggest that IF they stayed we'd be this that or the other, because they WANTED TO LEAVE. If not for money, kudos or personal safety, they all wanted gone. There was no option to keep them, they were leavers, they were dead parrots .......

Why keep harping on about IF we had kept them ..... dear lord, how difficult is it? No-one wanted them to leave, but they wanted to go. So far providing the club with between 112 to 147 million depending if you are Eeyore or me.

I didn't say they didn't want to leave - of course they did/do and we aren't in a position to keep them until we can offer a challenge to the top 4.

However my point is we are selling some of the best young players in the world and replacing them with older players who aren't as good. So when we need to finance the replacements for them who do we sell to raise the money?

 

[LouReedwalkonthewildside]

Maybe if he'd jigged it right in the first place...just sayin like.

And that's the thing for me, he just can't seem to see that certain things he's trying aren't working.

 

[Kiwi]

I didn't say they didn't want to leave - of course they did/do and we aren't in a position to keep them until we can offer a challenge to the top 4.

However my point is we are selling some of the best young players in the world and replacing them with older players who aren't as good. So when we need to finance the replacements for them who do we sell to raise the money?

Keane?
Pickford?
Sandro?
all absolutely ancient players, your point is indeed salient.

 

[Timak]

Keane?
Pickford?
Sandro?
all absolutely ancient players, your point is indeed salient.

There is a list of the signings earlier in this thread.

 

[originalgreaserbob]

And that's the thing for me, he just can't seem to see that certain things he's trying aren't working.

He changed the formation at half time, and then in the post-game presser he said that starting like that was a mistake. So to me that indicates that he did see that certain things weren't working.

 

[yakublue]

It's unlikely that the players can work well together yet, so that must be a factor. However, as fans we tend to assume that all new signings will succeed but that doesn't always happen, particularly when a large number of signings are made.

Spurs, after selling Bale, spent unwisely, going through £110m in buying seven players and have only Eriksen left, though Nacer Chadl was a decent player I always thought. Liverpool, in their £117m splurge on Balotelli, Lambert and six others, have only Can, Lovren and Lalana who play regularly, and they seem to want to get rid of Lovren. Last year, after winning the title, Leicester spent £60m on six signings, including Slimani, all of whom, according to the Telegraph, were made available for transfer this year. Three have gone already.

One of the spurs players that flopped just got signed by Barcelona for 36m

 

[degsy]

Said it before: this feller can not blend a team. They always look disjointed.

Fairplay Dave you did...and you were poo-poo'd...but now he's going to need to pull some rabbits out of the hat.

It's also been remarked upon that his teams seem go on runs of results...good one and bad ones.
We could do with a good one for the next 6 games - make that 37 games.
Not holding my breath.

 

[Westend Blue]

New players take time to bed and without a focal point And gilfy I would expect our approach to be a bit scatter gun. A bit of cohesion and we are laughing

 

[degsy]

I didn't say they didn't want to leave - of course they did/do and we aren't in a position to keep them until we can offer a challenge to the top 4.

However my point is we are selling some of the best young players in the world and replacing them with older players who aren't as good. So when we need to finance the replacements for them who do we sell to raise the money?

Fair Point on the replacements.