2019/20 Marcel Brands

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The lack of cover at centre-back could come back to bite the team, and I wouldn't say that he gets great prices for outgoing players, but the ones he's brought in have been largely excellent, and even the lesser lights aren't exactly terrible.

Overall, I'm a fan.
That's because they are absolute dross nobody is prepared to pay good money for. Not his fault. Blame those that brought them here.

He was a Zouma, or equivalent CB, away from a 9/10 window for me. Unfortunately, his good work of the past few weeks will probably not see us move up the table as, once again, we are left with a squad missing balance at one end.
 
"Not a chance" you say, as though you're wanting the ridiculous man-crush to continue.

Imagine not thinking we have the very best man for the job after this.

3 main achievements were getting in a real prospect in Kean, for a very good fee.

2nd was not entertaining 80m for Zaha, never worth that sort of money.

Binning off Utd when they wanted us to sign Rojo

He improved the squad and still came away with money in his pocket.

Just make sure you dont cheer this season when 1 of the many, many superb players hes bought wins us games.
 
I wouldn't say that he gets great prices for outgoing players

He’s only had one sale where we weren’t actively trying to get the player off the books for one reason or another... that was Gueye and he got a good price for him. Most of his sales/loans have been more about getting rid than getting big money. Onyekuru was useless to us because of the permit issue, and Lookman wanted to leave.
 

In 50 years of supporting this club I cannot think of anything in that time more irresponsible than going into a premiership season with Keane (the slowest/immobile centre half in the league), Mina (couldn’t cut it last year, total unknown) and Holgate (championship player guaranteed) as 3 centre halves.
I am honestly completely and utterly in shock that Brands can allow himself to be seen in public.
Having spent hundreds of millions these last few years we have those 3, lost our best centre mid and have 1 centre forward worthy of the name who is foreign and 19!!

Silva is saying it himself. ‘we cannot go into the season with those 3 centre halves’.
He knows he’s probably gone by Christmas.

How anyone thinks this is a good window (because we have sold a handful of surplus players) is completely delusional.
 
Besic keeps pricing himself out of moves, Niasse supposedly wants to join Trabzonspor, Cenk for some reason doesn’t want to move anywhere, Bolasie wasn’t keen on going to CSKA and Martina and Mirallas god knows
There should be some kind of unlike-button but with good intentions
 
That's because they are absolute dross nobody is prepared to pay good money for. Not his fault. Blame those that brought them here.

He was a Zouma, or equivalent CB, away from a 9/10 window for me. Unfortunately, his good work of the past few weeks will probably not see us move up the table as, once again, we are left with a squad missing balance at one end.
He’s only had one sale where we weren’t actively trying to get the player off the books for one reason or another... that was Gueye and he got a good price for him. Most of his sales/loans have been more about getting rid than getting big money. Onyekuru was useless to us because of the permit issue, and Lookman wanted to leave.
I don't actually rate Gueye all that highly, but considering how much Silva seemed to want to keep him, and looking at some of the prices that other Premier League clubs are asking for their first team players, I would have expected something in the range of £40-50m. The McCarthy fee was also laughably low (unless the report of £3m was false), even for a crock.

The constant outgoing loans are basically him just kicking the can down the road for another year, but I suppose that it doesn't really matter too much as long as the club is still able to play FFP correctly.

Like I said, I think he's doing a good job overall.
 
The main positive for me is the age of our key signings. Iwobi (23), Gbamin (23), Kean (19), and Gomes (25). It means they can improve but also that they will have sell on value in the future.

We have made a big mistake not bringing in a CB, but perhaps we will get lucky and Keane+Mina will have no injuries/suspensions.

I'm not a huge fan of Zaha specifically, but a goal-scoring winger in that mold is important for us to achieve significant progress (top 4 + domestic trophies), so I'm disappointed that we didn't manage to sign him or someone similar given the funds appear to be there.
 

Obviously the lack of CB is a blemish however we have had an excellent window for a net spend of 28 mil or so.

Plenty of money in the kitty and leaves room for January reenforcments and I hazard a guess the wage bill reduced as well
 
Overall the squad is stronger in depth all round, maybe the first eleven is slightly weaker in the short term but may grow into something better in the medium to long term. We obviously miss that CB but maybe we can get by with Holgate/Gibson/Gbamin as back up till January. If we can get our genuine target for CB in the next window we could be onto something.
 
We are in no better position than we were in May.

No idea why we didn't have another cb lined up, or why iwobi had to be last minute.
 
Agree. What has Brands actually been doing the last few months.
Had a tip off from an agent about Kean and acting on it. That must have taken 1-2 days work.
Then digging out a centre mid from Germany to replace Gueye - ok let’s wait and see.
Then a last minute expensive buy in an area that surely wasn’t a priority.
Nice work if you can get it.
 
What. A. Man. In one day, if news reports are too be believed(and why would they not as they are so reliable), the fee agreed started at 40 million, dropped to 35 million, then ended up at 28 million.

Addressed every position except CB, and improved squad depth. If he made a good signing last summer in Mina then CB is almost already sorted. I think I most look forward to what he can do when hes not trying to plug gaping holes, and is just allowed to sign younger hidden talents and let them develop. Next summer if most of the signings pan out, we will really just be in the market for a backup CB and maybe a winger, thats it.

Pretty much agree with all of that but would like to see another decent CF at the club as well. Can't see that happening in January so deffo next summer as I don't think DCL will make the grade for the step up that we need.
 

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