I have to say that I genuinely struggle to see the joined up thinking and which way we approached the summer in terms of the transfer strategy, who was driving it, are there too many people with input?
Now we can all look at it from different angles, we tend to, that's fine because when there isn't an actual answer in front of you then you tend to look for an answer yourself and usually you have a start point where you are having a pre conceived idea that you are simply looking to back up with evidence that is not evidence but a way to find something to support your own idea. We are all guilty of it, I am, you are..
However this summer the longer I think about it it's confusing me more, so we knew we were losing Luis, at some point we knew, I personally believe we knew longer than is common knowledge, but even if we didn't them we should have been aware that it could happen and should have planned for that possibility.
So at some point last season we would have had the thought that Luis may leave, we also for a fairly long period knew we were finishing in the top 4 at least, so our planning should have been for additional depth for the CL and then working on the need to replace Luis as an add on to that initial work.
So they looked at the way we played, fast high press, fluid, counter.. With that in mind you need players to suit that style.. no?
Did we try to do too much? Did we fill the wrong holes? With the wrong types? Did we ignore more pressing areas?
So who we brought
Lallana makes sense to that, can play in two or three positions in any formation that we go with and can play in our approach..
Lovren, I could see the thought process but I wasn't but surely there were other options out there? As soon as you pay what we paid it puts such a massive pressure on the lad.. But I did see the thought process to bringing him in
Moreno, definitely a good signing in terms of the way of we play, fits, we needed him.
Can, not one probably any of us knew, I like the bits I've seen of him however we could possibly have done with a more established player in the middle of the park.. But in terms of a profile? No issue, but maybe one 'project' that we didn't need on top of the amount of players we brought in.
Markovic, profile fits, but I can't help we had enough in his position, we have what, Coutinho, Lallana, Sterling, Studge if needed, young Ibe, I just don't see where he gets his minutes and with the price tag people expect something massive straight away, an impact every time.
Manquillo, I just don't get the signing at all, Johnson, love him or hate him is going to play a lot of this games at full back, Flanno, you can't guess the injury when planning for the future, but I don't get the long term plan to bring a lad over who had played about 6 first team games prior and invest in developing him over your own? You can see live at games simply how raw he is, at the ground literally the other lads talk him through the games.. Just a bit of an odd signing.
Lambert and Balotelli, I'm going to link them together simply in terms of the types of player are they are, neither are bad players, both are technically good players, but neither suit how we play, they don't fit the fluidity, high press, counter.. They are more static, target men, bring players in around them, can get goals but in a system that suits them, they look like fish out of water in our system, they look poor, we look a worse side and blame is being thrown around, but I simply can't get my head around why we signed this profile striker? Not one but two of them? When we signed Lambert we thought, well ok, a different option, late in games, in certain games, but then we lost Luis, didn't really replace him in the type he was and signed Balotelli to boot, so we then had one top striker who suited us but will always miss games, and two strikers that simply don't fit us.. No wonder we are struggling for fluidity.
So who planned this, because it, definitely in the most important area of the field, both in terms of it's where you win games and the fact we were losing a Worldy in that area, because who ever planned it has fu**ed up, and hindered our season big time.
We needed depth yes, but we have failed to bring in players in the right area and of the right profile, the forward line now in terms of suitability to our managers style looking for championship rather than champions league.. So who has done that? I genuinely don't believe that the manager would bring in so many players that didn't suit his approach, why? Why would he? I think there is too many cooks throwing ideas at the transfer approach, it's hurt us this year looking at it. But the whole club has got to take the blame for what's happened up front, we knew Suarez was off, why the F**k have we ended up with two target men to replace him? It's nothing short of irresponsible, we should have looked at profile and importance, had three or four options of Suarez types and no matter what he cost get one to soften what we lost... Even if it meant missing one of these potentials like Markovic who just can't get the minutes right now to develop, that 20 million should have been added to the 20 on the two target men Nd found someone who suits
Biggest F**k up of recent times
If I were Brendan now I'd " shrink " the squad again, use the players who suit to get us going again, we need Studge back ASAP obviously but I genuinely can't get my head around what we do transfer wise anymore.. Too much thinking about how to get the best down the line rather than what gets the best on a Saturday afternoon.
I literally don't trust our scouting system and transfer policy anymore
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