Toffeelover
Player Valuation: £80m
All for a different manager and system.
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All for a different manager and system.
GwladysBlue
Player Valuation: £70m
Because Pickford’s woeful form this season means we still couldn’t stop him because we don’t have anybody capable to challenge for the No.1 spot.
You better tell Sidibe he won’t be retained, he seems to think he will be.
and what a waste of £8m, and probable big wages, he’s turned out to be.
Arsenal fans were over the moon when Iwobi was sold. He was also never worth £35m.
Lossl - Free, will be sold on at profit or kept as one of the Premier League's many reliable but unspectacular 2nd keepers.
Sidibe - Don't be stupid, he isn't getting retained as much as you'd love to see it happen to stick it to Brands.
Delph - Yeh he's been a waste but at £8m that's fine, can take the hit, might even get £5m for him if we try to sell.
Iwobi - Cost £27m not £35m (that's with add-ons we don't know if he'll reach) and I personally think he's a good player but we don't use a 10 and that's where he's best.
Ignoring Lossl is fine if everybody agrees to shut up about how we need to bring the wage bill down. All we've heard since he came is whinging about how he needs to reduce the wage bill and his hands are tied, and then he went out and added £1m a year or whatever on to it for a player who was TOTALLY unnecessary. Can't have it both ways.
I believe he was brought in thinking Stek was going myself with Joao Virginia as 3rd choice/loaned out. I really believe bringing in Lossl is nitpicking far too much considering he didn't cost a fee and we only paid his wages for 6 months.
It's not a massive issue but I don't think it's fair to say it shouldn't be brought up. Bringing in an international keeper who's been a number 1 keeper pretty much all his career (and all at the top level) to be our number 3 was a pretty unnecessary extravagance for a club that's trying to trim its wage bill. Stek was never going to leave because - to everybody's bemusement - Brands gave him a new contract last year.
GwladysBlue
Player Valuation: £70m
The supposed reason for a DoF is so that managers are interchangeable and the system the players are bought for doesn’t change.
Close but not quite. Stek got a 2-year deal in 2018 so I would assume Brands had looked to sell him last Summer before he leaves on a free this Summer. In my head Brands planned for Pickford, Lossl, Joao which would have been fine and I reckon it'll be that next season unless Hudds buy Lossl and we need a new keeper.
Toffeelover
Player Valuation: £80m
Systems will change down to the manager. so different players may be needed.
Not a chance anybody was going to buy a 37 year old keeper (with notoriously dodgy fitness) who hadn't played for 2 years for actual money, and give him a 2 year contract. If Brands really planned on that then it's far, far, worse than I was suggesting. Signing a 3rd choice was a bit unnecessary, giving Stek a new contract because he thought he could get money for him is utter lunacy bordering on complete incompetence. So let's hope you're wrong on that one.
I think you've misinterpreted. I believe he gave Stek a 2-year deal in 2018 because he wanted him as his back-up, which is fair, he was 35 at the time which isn't exactly past it for a keeper and wasn't a liability when called upon. Then in 2019 - as you said yourself - "bringing in international keeper who's been a number 1 keeper pretty much all his career (and all at the top level)" when he was available on a free was a smart move and one he thought wasn't worth missing out on. Brands was then left with Stek with one-year left who he could try sell but in the end he couldn't and he'll just leave this year.
When Joao Virginia was coming back in my eyes he thought "right, 4 keepers. First choice, one we can't sell, a young lad who needs his confidence rebuilding and a back-up on £38k per week" so that's why Lossl went off out on loan to shave money off the wage bill.
Maybe I'm looking too deeply into it but in my eyes it's all very straightforward and calculated.
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Saint Domingo
Player Valuation: £90m
Easy to do when your league has two good teams in it and 4 CL spots every year. Inject a tiny bit of cash into a team and you can finish in the CL places in Germany and build from there. In England you can throw as much cash as you want at it and still not finish top 7 because 7 other teams are doing the same.
Teams like Atletico Dortmund Sevilla RB Leipzig went from Europa league standard to CL threatening because they were allowed time to build whilst in European competition and not threatened in their own league. We can’t get through the door and are stuck in a cache 22 because we have 6 of Europe’s largest teams ahead of us vying for 4 spaces and even are nearest competitors like Wolves and Leicester all have pockets as deep as ours.
I think we wanted 3 keepers. Last year Virginia was 3rd choice, this year they wanted to loan him out for experience and so they needed another keeper. I don't think selling Stek was ever considered for that reason. Signing Lossl seemed, at the time, to be a reasonable decision. Free transfer, experienced, used to being number 1, could theoretically challenge Pickford and lead to improvement. Stek is then your 3rd choice, unlikely to be ever used but competent in a disaster. In theory that's all fine.
In practice, Lossl turned out not to be a challenge to Pickford, and in fact didn't even establish himself as second choice. That's why I think it's fair to include him in criticism of the summer business, because I don't think he did what he was bought to do, and because of that he became a totally unnecessary signing. If Stek was going to be on the bench half the time anyway then we could have just brought in a nobody to be third choice, on much lower wages/signing on fee. As I said, Lossl is a long way from being a massive problem, and if the rest of the business had been good it wouldn't even warrant a mention. When talking about the business not being good though, I think it's more than fair to include him.
Sphincter Sports
Player Valuation: £750k
Do you mean Wolves and Leicester have signed better players than us
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