Transfer Spending &* Squad Costs

[barnes10]

DJ makes some points but they tend to go along the lines of 'rafa isnt all that because look what we've spent since the pl began'. so its just irrelevant to rating rafa and getting tiresome now. DJ, because of this, you can come across as a manc/chave/arse/bitter WUM. why are you being over harsh to rafa when all the man has done is great things with the poor situation the club has been in.

we all agree we only want top class to build on the squad we have but if we lose some squad players, we cannot replace 4 outgoings with 1 incoming can we. we have to do like last season and get some young promising talent (lucas/babel) supplemented with quality (torres & masher). simple as that.

[Craig_H]

It's really simple Barnes10...but here it is again, in case it didnt make sense to you before:

1...The squad players we lose are of the 'calibre' whereby you can use some of the youngsters to replace them. Nemeth as 4th choice striker instead of Voronin. Insua instead of Riise. Etc...the only difference it's likely to make is a positive one.

2...the point about rafa and transfers is that he NOW has the squad depth and backup players he needs, several bought at vast expense...so the time is NOW to stop spending £21m on 3 average players and bring in more players of the Torres/Mascherano level. Let's see if he does.

[El Jefecito]

It's really simple Barnes10...but here it is again, in case it didnt make sense to you before:

1...The squad players we lose are of the 'calibre' whereby you can use some of the youngsters to replace them. Nemeth as 4th choice striker instead of Voronin. Insua instead of Riise. Etc...the only difference it's likely to make is a positive one.

2...the point about rafa and transfers is that he NOW has the squad depth and backup players he needs, several bought at vast expense...so the time is NOW to stop spending £21m on 3 average players and bring in more players of the Torres/Mascherano level. Let's see if he does.

Tell me you are not up at close to 2AM on a friday night arguing about this FFS.

[Fiddy]

From what I can see, one £20m player is not gonna win us the league.

And what if they flopped

IMO we need about 3 players to go straight into the first team, defo a RB and a winger, maybe another top striker (depending on Rafa's ideas for his system) and possibly a LB. These 3 don't need to cost much more than about £35-40m combined

[Craig_H]

Tell me you are not up at close to 2AM on a friday night arguing about this FFS.

Yes, i stayed up all night for this...

Or i went out and got home a short time ago.

[Craig_H]

From what I can see, one £20m player is not gonna win us the league.

And what if they flopped

IMO we need about 3 players to go straight into the first team, defo a RB and a winger, maybe another top striker (depending on Rafa's ideas for his system) and possibly a LB. These 3 don't need to cost much more than about £35-40m combined

I'd tend to agree fiddy, but you're not going to buy 3 top class players until you've bought the first.

For argument's sake, say we had about £20m to spend...would you prefer 3 Jermaine Pennant type signings at £7m each or one £20m top class player?

If we cant afford the THREE top class players, then let's buy the first and get the other two when we can.

I'd prefer that than 3 average £7m players who we'll be wanting to see the back of in a year's time...and who we'll probably get £3m each for.

[El Jefecito]

I'd tend to agree fiddy, but you're not going to buy 3 top class players until you've bought the first.

For argument's sake, say we had about £20m to spend...would you prefer 3 Jermaine Pennant type signings at £7m each or one £20m top class player?

If we cant afford the THREE top class players, then let's buy the first and get the other two when we can.

I'd prefer that than 3 average £7m players who we'll be wanting to see the back of in a year's time...and who we'll probably get £3m each for.

The ironic thing is that almost no-one disagrees with the above, but ...

[Red_Polo]

If Crouch leaves, which of our youth players should take his place in the squad?

[wiw]

If Crouch leaves, which of our youth players should take his place in the squad?

None of them IMO. Nemeth could maybe take Voronin's though

[Ketario]

Dungeons and Dragons rules WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[El Jefecito]

If Crouch leaves, which of our youth players should take his place in the squad?

Brouwer.

We need to go after Luca Toni.

[Fiddy]

I'd tend to agree fiddy, but you're not going to buy 3 top class players until you've bought the first.

For argument's sake, say we had about £20m to spend...would you prefer 3 Jermaine Pennant type signings at £7m each or one £20m top class player?

If we cant afford the THREE top class players, then let's buy the first and get the other two when we can.

I'd prefer that than 3 average £7m players who we'll be wanting to see the back of in a year's time...and who we'll probably get £3m each for.

You're being a bit arbitrary there picking £20m out of the air as a figure. Clearly we'll have more than that to spend...as I said earlier IMO we need 3 players in the £10-15m bracket, so obviously I'm not gonna advocate 3 pennant type £7m signings am I

But for argument's sake we've only got £20m to spend - tell me a) which position you'd buy and b) exactly who you'd buy.

How did this start anyway, because no matter what you say you're not convincing me that this one £20m player wins us the league, we've got too many needs.

Maybe we could buy Messi's left peg for that though

[Fiddy]

The ironic thing is that almost no-one disagrees with the above, but ...

[Red_Polo]

None of them IMO. Nemeth could maybe take Voronin's though

Well exactly, Brouwer's not remotely good enough as El Jefecito inferred. We'd need to bring someone in, and Crouch is not the only player that might leave where we just can't expect a kid to make the step up without a resulting dip in quality. We all want big signings but the idea that any small signings whatsoever would be wrong strikes me as a bit fanciful in out current situation.

[barnes10]

I'd tend to agree fiddy, but you're not going to buy 3 top class players until you've bought the first.

For argument's sake, say we had about £20m to spend...would you prefer 3 Jermaine Pennant type signings at £7m each or one £20m top class player?

If we cant afford the THREE top class players, then let's buy the first and get the other two when we can.

I'd prefer that than 3 average £7m players who we'll be wanting to see the back of in a year's time...and who we'll probably get £3m each for.

morning.

alright, we can agree on moving forward, concentration has to be on top quality.

say we we lost pennant, crouch and kuyt, we'd get what, 15mill-20mill? more or less what we paid - a loss of 5million across all 3 roughy. well thats not bad. but it means a total budget of 35-40 mill. this means replacing and upgrading is possible in one season.

rafa's problem to date tho, and why he has spent his 20 million on squad players, was because he inherited worthless players. what did we get back for any of houllier's signings? nobody would buy the jokers. this meant he had only that 20 mill.

the squad has to be built.

as for youth, the same thing applies. when he arrived, we had little quality there. he tried a couple but haven't yet cut it. basically guthrie but he's still not worth a place in our squad against the 5 CMs we have now. the point is, its taken time to get even the youth players quality up the standard we can consider having them in the first team.

so the youth system has been rebuilt.

this is why its flawed to dismiss rafa's buys for us thus far as if the man doesnt know anything else. 'he'll only buy squad players' is nonsense. he has had to purely because of the state of the squad he inherited and the lack of money (either injected from owners or recouped from sales).

so you're not wrong in saying we need to concentrate on top talent going forward but your massively wrong comparing the squad today with that of GH which your 'buy only impact players' approach requires.