He needs a year to "adapt".....

[Mr Tourette]

Pires

Arghh.

[steveheighwayrobbery]

Arghh.

sorry

[Mr Tourette]

Bergkamp.

what about him - bruce rioch was a long time ago - was he crap to start with?

[friedk]

Steve Finnan was **** his first season with us

[MrMichael]

Bergkamp's record in his first season was very average. He looked awkward and an absolute shadow of the player he matured into.

I think that expecting often very young men, with little grasp of the language or culture, to move to this country and adapt to everything so as to be at the absolute top of their footballing game within 6 months, is totally unrealsitic.....

[Mr Tourette]

Steve Finnan was **** his first season with us

Ill give you that. he was a bit crap wasnt he - now mr consistent. forget what i originally said.

[Mr Tourette]

Bergkamp's record in his first season was very average. He looked awkward and an absolute shadow of the player he matured into.

I think that expecting often very young men, with little grasp of the language or culture, to move to this country and adapt to everything so as to be at the absolute top of their footballing game within 6 months, is totally unrealsitic.....

Totally i know what you mean. I just think that it has become a new cliche (well - an old one now) that so many players that arent good enough get the benefit of the doubt with..."this guy will do a pires....."

[Mr Tourette]

sorry

naughty.

[friedk]

Ill give you that. he was a bit crap wasnt he - now mr consistent. forget what i originally said.

[JRC]

Bu he nub of the matter is - a sh*t player will look sh*t straight away(although there are exceptions - Titi Camara, anyone?), and history shows us that a good player - even a great player - CAN look sh*t at first as well - believe it or not, Peter Beardsley started getting dropped around October/November in his first season, as he simply wasn't cutting it. Some adapt more quickly than others, but I don't think it's unreasonable to suspend or postpone full judgement on a player when they first arrive, esp from abroad. Not just benefit of the doubt, but more avoiding getting on their backs, which clearly isn't going to help anyone adapt.

The coaches and scouts get a much better chance to see what they can really do, so it's not entirely blind faith to have trust in their judgement.

Still rubbish after 12 months, though? Then we should BURN THEM!

[Joe Le Toff]

Our current side has a decent record since end of October / early November

Maybe we should go with the current squad next season instead of having to wait for players to gel

You are basically advocating bringing in 5 first team players, the last three seasons will tell you that the settling in period for so many players takes too much time and by the time we get going the Leagues over

For me its a real balancing act and we only need fine tuning imo. I really worry about bringing in wholesale changes because it does affect your initial momemtum

IMO its a striker and left midfielder to be brought in only.

[RedProf]

We could then give these guys time to settle whilst the current players kickstart our season

IF we ever have a good start to the season then its time to buckle our seatbelts because that year we will genuinely challenge for the title

Thing is though Lecter, I was expecting that at the start of this season. We bought quite a few in the summer but I fully expected to start the season with practically the same 11 that ended the last season - integrating the new lads in slowly, in dribs and drabs. Seems Rafa thinks rotation at the start is important. In this case, if he does only bring in 1 or 2 then I'd imagine he would still rotate, but with a much more settled and bedded in squad. Could be the key to doing well at the start of the season whilst still being fresh at the end!

[Mattshark]

Thing is though Lecter, I was expecting that at the start of this season. We bought quite a few in the summer but I fully expected to start the season with practically the same 11 that ended the last season - integrating the new lads in slowly, in dribs and drabs. Seems Rafa thinks rotation at the start is important. In this case, if he does only bring in 1 or 2 then I'd imagine he would still rotate, but with a much more settled and bedded in squad. Could be the key to doing well at the start of the season whilst still being fresh at the end!

I don't think it help that we suffered two injuries on the opening day though and we had so little of an off season and we lost Kewell during the WC.

[Johnny]

Quincy - nice post, colour coded, respect

Did you like it???

[captainfog]

So far we've agreed deals for Voronin & Leto

I'd be happy with keeping the squad and adding in a top quality forward and a top quality wide player (Eto'o & Alves)

We could then give these guys time to settle whilst the current players kickstart our season

IF we ever have a good start to the season then its time to buckle our seatbelts because that year we will genuinely challenge for the title

finally some sense