Where the transfer policy has completely failed

[Charly]

I'm not so sure he would have provided what we need

What d oyou think we need?

[erick]

yes, but thats one less thing to worry about, many players have come here and not settled, with British players there's no worry about it.

I've no doubt that Barry would've settled in though.

With Keane, well, its hard to settle into a system from the bench, however £20m was madness.

You mean we should buy Bent instead of Torres?!

[Charly]

You mean we should buy Bent instead of Torres?!

IS that even a question? Did anybody ever say that?

Torres was clearly brilliant before he came. But nobody expected him to flop. All foreign signing have an element of risk, but some you have higherhopes for.

[Reece]

IS that even a question? Did anybody ever say that?

Torres was clearly brilliant before he came. But nobody expected him to flop. All foreign signing have an element of risk, but some you have higherhopes for.

That's just not true. There were even people on here who thought we should have signed Bent over Torres. They're pretty embarrassed now mind

[The Birdman]

IS that even a question? Did anybody ever say that?

Torres was clearly brilliant before he came. But nobody expected him to flop. All foreign signing have an element of risk, but some you have higherhopes for.

That's rubbish mate, quite a lot of fans, pundits and journalists were questioning the decision to bring Torres in.

[Exiled_red]

What do you think we need?

We need someone who will dominate the midfield with their use of the ball, and be a creative spark with a decent long passing game. I don't see Barry as that type of player. I can't imagine a midfield of Mascherano and Barry being much different to a midfield of Mascerano and Lucas (No doubt someone will laugh at this), but that's what I believe.

[BillobShaisley]

I think that we did replace most of those with better players

Bellamy - Torres
Sissoko - Lucas
Arbeloa - Johnson

Alonso's replacement Aquilani hasn't played yet so we can't pass judgement and I'll agree we never really replaced Crouch I guess Ngog could be considered his replacement, but he wasn't a ready made replacement.

I must confess that I'm baffelled by the many recent claims that we should have hung on to Bellamy, he was average at best for us and although he's had a decent spell recently, his average level of performance doesn't suggest to me that we've lost much.

If you blame Rafa for us moving backwards this year then you have to credit him with what he achieved last year. Personally I think we overachieved last year and are underachieveing this year.

The problem with our squad is that it didn't get the level of investment it needed to progress, our shortage of investment from the owners, has caused us to fall behind and the longer we are lacking that investment the further behind we'll fall, and the harder it will be to catch up

Its amazing, last year we needed to "Trim the ****ing squad, its quality we need not quantity" and this year "We need some more bags of meat making up the numbers, Raffa can't build a squad!" and "We have no strength in depth, lets play our kids".

We just need to glue the troglodites mouths shut, ban their IP addresses and let the team get the **** on with it. The squad is as strong as last year and the 1st team is about the same, we just stopped trying to keep clean sheets because said troglodites weren't content with achieving way above our investment and fancied watching Keegan style football "Let the lads off the leash Raffa", "Attack, Attack, Attack", "winning ugly is below us", "oh **** we haven't won in 10"

Let Raffa get on with it, he knows what he's doing!

[Kenneth]

Its amazing, last year we needed to "Trim the ****ing squad, its quality we need not quantity" and this year "We need some more bags of meat making up the numbers, Raffa can't build a squad!" and "We have no strength in depth, lets play our kids".

We just need to glue the troglodites mouths shut, ban their IP addresses and let the team get the **** on with it. The squad is as strong as last year and the 1st team is about the same, we just stopped trying to keep clean sheets because said troglodites weren't content with achieving way above our investment and fancied watching Keegan style football "Let the lads off the leash Raffa", "Attack, Attack, Attack", "winning ugly is below us", "oh **** we haven't won in 10"

Let Raffa get on with it, he knows what he's doing!

WHatever we say, the team are getting the **** on with it. Badly.

[BillobShaisley]

It's a fine line and confidence has now been hit too. Of course i'm not happy about the results but I try not to let that frustration come out as an angry rant at the team. Without a beachball vs Sunderland and some bad luck vs Chelsea we'd be looking a whole lot better.

[Charly]

:We just need to glue the troglodites mouths shut, ban their IP addresses and let the team get the **** on with it. The squad is as strong as last year and the 1st team is about the same, we just stopped trying to keep clean sheets because said troglodites weren't content with achieving way above our investment and fancied watching Keegan style football "Let the lads off the leash Raffa", "Attack, Attack, Attack", "winning ugly is below us", "oh **** we haven't won in 10"

Let Raffa get on with it, he knows what he's doing!

If you think that, why do you even use a football fans forum? What did you expect to see here? Peoples differing opinions maybe?

Perhaps we should close the site. **** it, shut the whole internet down.

Oh, and if you are going to use a word like "troglodites" in relation to other people, make sure you check its spelling first, lest it seems ironic.

[Charly]

We need someone who will dominate the midfield with their use of the ball, and be a creative spark with a decent long passing game. I don't see Barry as that type of player. I can't imagine a midfield of Mascherano and Barry being much different to a midfield of Mascerano and Lucas (No doubt someone will laugh at this), but that's what I believe.

You really do need to check out Gareth Barrys stats at Villa. His goal scoring ratio is the same as Aquilani, and has as many assists as Gerrard.

To compare him to Lucas is just silly.

[Exiled_red]

You really do need to check out Gareth Barrys stats at Villa. His goal scoring ratio is the same as Aquilani, and has as many assists as Gerrard.

To compare him to Lucas is just silly.

Yeah Barry has 52 goals in 441 games so a goal every 8.5 games But how many of those are penalties?

I stand by my comment that he's a similar type of player to Lucas. He's not a ball winning midfielder like a Mascherano he's not an attack minded player like a Gerrard or a Lampard, which is why for England he plays the more defensive role in midfield, his game mostly involves short passing, which is a similar role to Lucas IMO. Note I said he's a similar type of player to Lucas, whether he's better or worse than Lucas it doesn't matter because as I said before that is not the type of player we need, which is why we are struggling at the moment.

[BillobShaisley]

If you think that, why do you even use a football fans forum? What did you expect to see here? Peoples differing opinions maybe?

Perhaps we should close the site. **** it, shut the whole internet down.

Oh, and if you are going to use a word like "troglodites" in relation to other people, make sure you check its spelling first, lest it seems ironic.

Because not all fans are troglodites (however its spelt)

But those who can't see the contradictions and fickleness of their opinions should have it pointed out to them.

IMO of course

[Charly]

as I said before that is not the type of player we need, which is why we are struggling at the moment.

I would still argue this point.

He is quite similar to Alonso, without his range of passing. ALonso-Monster partnership almost propelled us to the title last season. Rafa seems to be very inflexible with his 451 tactic, so he should have replaced like for like that area of the pitch.

HE may have bought in Aquilani to play in Gerrards role, with Gerrard playing in ALonsos. THis I can accept... but, why is he not playing Benayoun (injuries allowing), our most effective attacking player this year, behind the striker now? No matter how you spin it, Lucas is not good enough for the first team, as he does not excel at any particular role, whereas the Gerrard-Monster-Benni triumvirate would allow each player to shine in their best position.

[Exiled_red]

I would still argue this point.

He is quite similar to Alonso, without his range of passing. ALonso-Monster partnership almost propelled us to the title last season. Rafa seems to be very inflexible with his 451 tactic, so he should have replaced like for like that area of the pitch.

HE may have bought in Aquilani to play in Gerrards role, with Gerrard playing in ALonsos. THis I can accept... but, why is he not playing Benayoun (injuries allowing), our most effective attacking player this year, behind the striker now? No matter how you spin it, Lucas is not good enough for the first team, as he does not excel at any particular role, whereas the Gerrard-Monster-Benni triumvirate would allow each player to shine in their best position.

I think if you take away Alonso's long passing, you lose alot from his game that's one of the key reasons he was so successful. The ability to spot players in space and switch the ball 40+ yards, these types of passes brought our wide players into the game, and made us tick. If you were to take that aspect of his game away (or replace him with Barry) you have a fairly deep lying midfielder with a good short passing game, which is basically a Lucas type player. That's my view however I don't think we'll ever agree on this so maybe we should agree to disagree