Be a funny year if you needed over 40, not impossible mind.
You look at teams such as Newcastle, Villa and Leeds and expect them to spend alot of money in January and/or bring in new managers. The rest of them bar Norwich have enough about them to achieve 40pts.
To be fair I don't think it's his job to sell players, that's Brands & not many of our players we want rid of have a big value
Because unfortunately most PL DOF's haven't recently undergone a lobotomy mate lol
Who in the right mind would cough up £15-20 million for Iwobi or Delph or Davies?
Only we/Brands are stupid enough to do that!
This again?
To sell them, somebody would have to want to buy them and for the majority of the squad, no other team is actually stupid enough to pay real money for them
So, the 'general' response is "who would buy them"?
Basically not a single one of Digne, Nkounkou, Keane, Holgate, Coleman, Kenny, Delph, Gomes, Davies, Iwobi and Allan...could have achieved any fee?
As in zero?
Alternatively, he couldnt have suggested extensions for players which would have spread their fees on the books to release funds?
Doesnt sound to me like he knew who he wanted at the club and preferred to just 'go with what he had' along with five additions on the wage bill.
Then see what happened over the season.
Reactive and not proactive, yet he was proactive moving James on...
For me, its not so much the selling (or lack thereof) of players, its the way he's using the players.
Last year, we did that weird set up on set pieces were we lined up further out. At the time, it looked weird, everyone questioned it, but it was effective. The stats bear that out. We've reverted to a more traditional approach now, and as Carragher mentioned last night, its a hark back to the Silva days.
Ancelloti managed the team effectively. It wasn't pretty most of the time but it did what it needed to, probably up til the point he was informed of the financial situation and he lost interest.
Benitez isnt managing this team and he needs to figure that out quickly rather than waiting for transfer windows. As a not so wise man once said 'you go to war, not with the army you want, but the one that you've got.'
Id be surprised if he watched any of our performances from last season as (like you say) hes dismantled our defensive structure.
You saw how ruthless he was with Rodrigues. What about Gomes, Gbammin, Tosun, Delph, Iwobi, Davies, Keane, Siggi, Kenny, Holgate
Made a big deal about how much he watched us, why didn’t he go to the ends of the earth to get these guys out.
100% my point.
I had him winning these Watford and wolves games to buy himself breathing room before that run. Without that credit in the bank it is a matter of time before the board are going to be forced to sack him.
I had us at 24pts after 13 games.
Without that cushion then the games following I predicted we'd fall off.
