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cuppatea

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  1. cuppatea

    Comolli

    cuppatea replied to Ted's topic in FF - Football Forum

    I was massively underwhelmed with our transfer dealings at the end of last summer and many others were too. Trading in Aquilani and Meireles for Adam and Henderson always looked like a step backwards, at least in the short term and the only first team positions we could have really been said to strengthen were left back and left mid, though no one was hailing Downing or Enrique as world class talents. We signed the wrong players for the wrong fees and if Kenny was responsible for the former and Comolli the latter then they're as much to blame as each other.
  2. cuppatea
    Is that an argument for or against signing Clint Dempsey? The first paragraph would suggest "for" and the rest "against."
  3. cuppatea
    He's 29 and playing for Fulham. He's been in the league for 5 years and only now, during a career-best run of good form, are people suggesting he's good enough to play for a top team. His fee would reflect the fact that he's currently in the form of his life (as it did with Carroll and Downing) and so to justify the cost he'd have at least maintain his current level (which is better than he's ever previously shown), if not exceed it. To prove good value for money he'd basically have to come here and play better than he's ever done before, which, as we've seen with Adam, Carroll and Downing, can hardly be relied upon. There's no value in signing players based on a run of good form and, going forward, I'd like to think we'd put more stock into a player's career as a whole, rather than just the most recent few months of it. I'd rather see us sign a player of established quality who is horribly out of form than spunk money on the latest flavour of the month, which is what we did in the previous 2 windows to disastrous results.
  4. cuppatea
    I'd like to think we've learnt the hard way not to sign every average midtable Premiership player who hits a run of good form.
  5. cuppatea
    We're playing in the biggest, richest league in the world and we're one of the biggest, richest clubs in it. This idea that we could never hope to sign anyone but average midtable British players is absurd. Not saying we could have got Falcao specifically but there are only a handful of clubs on the planet with more pull than us and the overwhelming majority of players would bend over backwards for the chance to come here.
  6. cuppatea
    While I agree our mentality and belief leave a lot to be desired you can't underestimate the drop off in quality the squad has suffered over recent seasons. Just looking at the Champions League quarter finalists, 4 of the remaining 8 teams (and the 4 best teams, along with Bayern) are fielding key players they've recently signed from us. We've lost established internationals from Spain, Argentina, Portugal and Italy and replaced them with players who can't get in the England squad. Looking at the lineup on Sunday, would any of Carragher, Flanagan, Spearing, Shelvey, Carroll or even Bellamy see regular first team football for the teams above us? How high would you expect a team who counts the likes of Charlie Adam and Jordan Henderson amongst its key players to finish? I think a lot of our current plight can be explained by the fact we've lost a lot of very good players in recent years and replaced them with those of vastly inferior quality. All the belief in the world isn't going to take a squad consisting largely of midtable players towards a title challenge.
  7. cuppatea
    Personally I think our football has been shit for a lot of this season. Much of our attacking play has revolved around pumping the ball into the box from out wide, hitting it long for Carroll, having speculative long range shots at goal and giving it to Suarez in the hope he can turn 3 players and get a shot away. What good football there has been has generally come when we dispensed with the more direct British players we spent a fortune to bring to the club and went back to the pass-and-move football we were employing so successfully at the back end of last season. There have been times this season when we've been genuinely unlucky not to find the net but, by and large, we've struggled to score because we're a legitimately poor attacking outfit, consisting mostly of midtable standard players who lack the quality and the guile to consistently break teams down.
  8. cuppatea
    I think we were probably playing a bit above ourselves at the back end of last season but we also ripped apart the foundation of that success in the summer and tried to build something completely different, which has ultimately proved to be unsuccessful.
  9. cuppatea
    He's 23 in a few weeks, has 1 international cap to his name and moved to a shit Premiership team for a pittance less than a year ago. What are the odds he's actually a top class player who has somehow escaped the radar of every big club in Europe, including those with extensive scouting networks in Ireland, and what are the odds he's the latest in a very, very, very long line of ordinary players who just hits a run of good form and suddenly has people clamouring for his signature (Charlie Adam being a prime example)?
  10. cuppatea
    He was linked with a £5m move to Stoke 6 months before we bought him. His reputation in the game was that of a decent young English striker and not much more but after a bright start to his Premiership career we decided to make him one of the most expensive players in the history of the sport. It was absolute fucking lunacy. I've no doubt that if we had the same setup in place a few years ago we'd have spent £35m on Amr Zaki (currently plying his trade in the Egyptian league), who had a similarly impressive start to his Premier League career (and also "destroyed" us during a league game that season). We inquired about a Newcastle striker, they set one of those "so ridiculously high no one will ever pay it so it's only real purpose is to tell the interested club the player isn't for sale" prices and we actually gave them the money. I bet they couldn't fucking believe it. It's genuinely like a club asking after Jay Spearing, Kenny saying "the wee man isn't for sale, just tell them we want £35m so they'll get the idea" and him getting a fax through offering the full amount 5 minutes later. I honestly can't recall a more ludicrously overpriced transfer in all of my time following the sport. I just don't know what the fuck anyone involved in that transfer from our side were thinking.
  11. cuppatea
    The Torres transfer would be like Man Utd signing Modric for £50m in the summer and him turning out to be shite next season. What we did was pay £35m for Jay Spearing after a few months of good form in the league.
  12. cuppatea
    He could be posting next week's winning lottery numbers but I wouldn't know because I'll never read any of the shit he writes in that stupid fucking format.
  13. cuppatea
    Wasn't Lucas 20 and Carroll 22?
  14. cuppatea
    We were playing pass and move football at the back end of last season and many of the players integral to it were either sold in the summer or relegated to fringe roles this campaign. In their place we have spent a fortune on an old fashioned English target man and players to pump the ball into the box for him from wide positions. What makes anyone believe we're trying to build a pass and move team when all of our transfer activity over the past 12 months suggest we're abandoning that philosophy in favour of a far more direct brand of football?
  15. cuppatea
    I find the idea that we could spend £100m (yes, £100m) in 12 months on Darren Bent, Andy Carroll, Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson and Charlie Adam to be frightening. Obviously the Darren Bent stuff is just speculation at the moment but would that would be a LOT of money for not a lot of talent, in my opinion.
  16. cuppatea
    I thought we were playing some cracking stuff at the back end of last season. We looked like having the makings of a really good, slick pass and move outfit and I hoped to see us build on that in the summer. Instead, we got rid of the likes of Meireles and Aquilani, relegated Maxi to a fringe role and spent the bulk of our summer transfer business bringing in players whose primary function, as far as I could tell, was to pump balls into the box for our big, limited, English target man. I think we were further away from being a slick pass and move outfit at the end of the summer transfer window than we were at the start and if our biggest signing this January is Darren Bent then we'll be further away still. Having squandered millions on players to accommodate Andy Carroll, I wouldn't mind seeing us spending a few quid on the kind of players Luis Suarez thrives alongside (technically gifted, mobile, intelligent, quick of mind and foot, capable of give-and-gos in and around the box). Or fuck it, we could just sign another limited Brit who has found his level at a midtable Premier League club and hope for the best.
  17. cuppatea
    We've signed 6 players from Premiership clubs and 2 from abroad, one of whom (Coates) was in a position we first tried to fill with another Premiership player (Jones). There's clearly been a preference shown for British based players since Kenny and Comolli came in.
  18. cuppatea
    Not to put a downer on the thread but we're 6th in the league, level on points with 7th and trailing Newcastle, having produced a number of abject displays this season (and some very good ones). This squad hasn't proved anything yet. I think we've done very well to shift the dead wood and certainly there are less cases (perhaps none) of players who offer absolutely nothing on the pitch clogging up the wage bill but we still look short of quality in a number of key areas, some of which we've spent massive amounts of money on with little visible improvement.
  19. cuppatea
    Bye Jack! Terrible decision but I'll take it.
  20. cuppatea
    Terrible first half from the midfield.
  21. cuppatea
    He's a Portuguese international who did well for us last season and was hugely influential coming off the bench against Arsenal recently, of course his departure weakens us. If he wanted to go and the manager didn't fancy him then fair enough but with Adam, Henderson and Lucas all having started each of our league games this season I'd certainly rather have had Meireles as their immediate cover than Shelvey or Spearing.
  22. cuppatea
    Aquilani has oozed class since he came on.
  23. cuppatea
    Hasn't all the talk been how notoriously difficult it is to sign players in January due to it being a seller's market? Either way, it's no skin off Ajax's nose to keep hold of their star player and club captain for another 6 months while he tries to help them qualify for the Champions League and then sell him in the summer when plenty of big clubs will be on the lookout for top players. They'd be fools to shift him for so far below his market value now and I can't believe anyone at Liverpool ever believed a £12.7m bid had a chance of being accepted. Yes and we knew that, having already rejected a £3.5m bid which they described as "derisory," there was no way on earth Blackpool were ever going to accept £4m. As I said, we shouldn't be held to ransom but I hope offering half of a player's market value and then hoping the selling club is feeling charitable before walking away empty handed won't be indicative of our approach to transfer negotiations under Comolli.
  24. cuppatea
    If we've really offered just £12.7m for Suarez and £4m for Adam and we're not prepared to go significantly above those valuations then effectively we've just wasted the time of everyone involved (and unsettled 2 club captains for no reason) by making bids which common sense should tell us had absolutely no hope of ever being accepted. I agree we shouldn't be held to ransom but nor should we expect clubs to give up their best players for well below market value.
  25. cuppatea
    Meireles Torres Lucas
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