Shorey was a much better player for Forest than Konchesky. Take that with as many pinches of salt as you wish.
If you can get a few bob out of Konchesky, whilst nicking Shorey on a free... I'd say great deal.
Fairly soon Wes Morgan will be the only defender we've got left. I appreciate that he's about the size of four defenders, but that doesn't make him an entire back line in his own right.
A defence consisting of 4 Wes Morgan's
Nigel Pearson just leaked a bit.
The Pearson Plan gathers pace.
To turn City into real contenders - for League 1 !
Konchesky consistently performed well last season and would be a big loss IMO. However, I think it is not about ability anymore, rather than the wages they are on - it'll be Beckford and Nugent out of the door next!
It's the cost-cutting bit that worries me the most. Pearson's incompetence can be easily removed, but if the owners have either lost a) their commitment, b) their interest, c) their bottle or d) they're unwilling to invest any more of their private wealth, I struggle to see how the hell we're going to improve and start going forward again. It would appear that their deep pockets were only accessible for 18 months or so - now it's back to penny snatching and Poundland purchases.
It is possible that it's to do with FFP regulations - that Pearson is looking to keep his key players (Schmeichel, Nugent) but lose other high-earners that he feels he can replace.
Or indeed he may feel that the defence he has is highly overrated and wants a new one.
Either of those feels more likely to me than "Pearson's an atrocious manager and the Thais are having a fire sale".
But this attitude of some supporters that we should get rid of players despite losing heavily on their apparent valuations also baffles me.
Like a player or not, they are still an asset of the club.
So if we let Sol go at £750k and Peltier go for £350k (both about half their probable value) does this not add to our ever-increasing debt ?
I seem to recall that the Super Thai Guys are not just giving us the money - aren't these loans?
There's 1001 ways to get around the FFP regulations, many of which will be exploited by clubs bigger and smaller than ourselves. That really should not be an issue. They're there to try and reduce debt and to show that the football world actually gives a toss about losing some clubs - in reality they don't and everything will be business as usual within a year or two of FFP being created.
I seriously do not know how anyone could think our defense is 'highly overrated'. Peltier maybe, but Mills was regarded as the best centre back in the league a year ago, Bamba is an international, as is SSL, and Konchesky is a former England and PL pro. I'd say almost every team in this league would take a back 4 that consisted of SSL, MM, SB and PK. So why is it not good enough for us or NP?
This is simply the wrong time to be pulling the plug on the investment from the owners. We need to be in the Premier League, getting PL attendances and PL TV money before we can stand on our own two feet AND be a solid, PL club again. What seems to be happening now is the owners deciding 'we want promotion on the cheap', allowing NP to get rid of all his bogey players and Sven signings and being replaced by unproven youngsters. This approach might work, but it probably won't.
And as Prawn says, the owners are not merely giving it to the club, they're investing it with the condition they will get it back. Which means we're effectively £60m in debt, a debt that cannot be repayed without PL football. So if the owners reduce our chances of promotion by reducing their investment, it is ultimately the club that will suffer, not the Thais.
Prawn - "Like a player or not, they are still an asset of the club.
So if we let Sol go at £750k and Peltier go for £350k (both about half their probable value) does this not add to our ever-increasing debt ?"
They're only an asset to the extent that someone is prepared to pay a certain amount for them. Also remember that this is also offset by the amount of money we would pay to them to keep them at the club.
Taking the case of Matt Mills (forgetting what anyone thinks of him and focussing on the numbers), it is consistently rumoured that we pay him something in the region of £20k per week, and quite probably more.
£20k per week x 50 weeks = Approximately £1m per year as a (very) conservative estimate - obviously lots of this goes in tax but LCFC is still shelling out.
Add another rumoured £1m if he plays another game and we're essentially paying £2m if we want to play him next season as opposed to selling now. Instead, we could sell him for a reduced fee and cut our losses on a player who is widely accepted to be overvalued when we bought him - and if anyone's including Mills's original valuation in our assets then it's essentially a false number anyway.
What I'm trying to say is: Any damage has already been done. The deal made and the contract he's on are long since gone. If they are mistakes, they are irreparable ones. Any amount we get for selling him over the summer should be on current value but also consider the millions we could lose on him next season if we fail to sell.
This is why I don't think the amount we paid for a player is particularly relevant: We're face with the situation we have in the present, not twelve months ago - and we have to make the best of it here and now.
As for Sol and Peltier; I do agree that Sol was sold for too little and I think we could have got £1.5m for him. That's a disappointment. Peltier is probably worth around £500k but I don't think we've accepted an offer yet.
Foxello - We tried throwing money at the problem to reach the Premiership and we failed. The Thais are now trying the longer route. I like to think that they've learned from past mistakes, where we bought a load of expensive players but couldn't assemble a team out of them. Pearson clearly feels that this needs to be disassembled before the team can move forward. Why? We don't know. There could be any number of reasons. Perhaps they don't carry themselves well, having a por attitude in training. Perhaps they feel they're better than the club and aren't up for the fight. Perhaps Pearson's been trying to train them in ways that would turn them into the kind of solid defence he's forged time after time at his previous clubs but they just aren't receptive to it. If so, perhaps there's no time for sentiment - just sell them on and bring in others who will.
Peltier's alright but no better. Mills has shown precious little for me to believe he's worth keeping on current wage (we can do better with the money). Konchesky would be a disappointment but no more than that. Bamba is a big disappointment to me and as I've said has gone for too little. But I'm sure I'll get over it. Overall, looking at their continued lack of performance last season, I have no real issue with the defence being dismantled and Pearson looking elsewhere.
As for the Thais, I believe they've already spent £3m this transfer window.
I agree with what you are saying regarding the combined cost of transfer and wages Dunge but equally, you will still end up having to shell out to replace him.
So we might save £20k pw on Mills and then give £10k pw to De Laet who has less pedigree at this level.
Taking Mills aside, I think most agree that we appear to be getting short-changed on other players at the moment. Either Andrew Neville has lost the plot or is severely under pressure from Mr Grumpy or the board.
Something is amiss !
I'll grant you that Mills is a special case, given his abnormally high wage and transfer fee, along with this (strongly rumoured) clause in his contract that suggests we'll have to pay Reading a fee if he plays one more match. But De Laet doesn't seem significantly worse from scouting reports and I'm looking forward to seeing how he does. But if Mills goes for ~£1.5m I don't think it'll be a bad deal for the club.
Regarding other players, Peltier I think has proven to be overpriced - he's not worth nearly a million for me. He's a solid, Championship-level full back who looks like he'd need a lot of work on his game to make it at the top level - I don't think he has it in him so that takes away from his potential. That said, he should be worth £500k to an interested party and Leeds's reputed offer is poor.
That leaves Bamba, where I agree he's gone for far too little. Hopefully he's an anomaly. Still, I don't believe there's reason to panic just yet.
One thing that nobody has seemed to mention is that these players will be replaced when the window opens on July 1st. I really don't see what the panic is until the replacements are signed, then we can make our opinions known.
I would be upset to see konch leave but where all this love for peltier comes from is beyond me, average at best I would say.
For all of pearsons downfalls of which he does have plenty the one thing I defy anyone to argue against is his ability in the transfer Market. In his 1st spell here, at hull and since he came back the majority of his signings have been class. Something that the previous manager was not so good at!! (pantsil Johnson etc!!)
"Foxello - We tried throwing money at the problem to reach the Premiership and we failed."
Part of the "failed" problem was not just the money, but the struggle to get a team to gel as one. Perhaps Nigel has decided changes need to be made - but sees selling players early at undervalued prices is a sacrifice worth taking to be able to get a full pre-season with his full squad. He has, afterall, brought replacements in early as well.
"Foxello - We tried throwing money at the problem to reach the Premiership and we failed."
Dunge, the owners gave a manager £17m to spend, then sacked him 1/4 of the way through the season when we were 2 points (yes, 2 POINTS) outside the play off places. When that happened, our promotion push was severely harmed. Not killed completely, a quality manager could have still got this team promoted, but dented enough to make promotion unrealistic. So although we may have tried 'throwing money' at a promotion push, the fact we dismissed the person that most of the players signed for means we haven't tried throwing money AND giving a manager a full season.
"As for the Thais, I believe they've already spent £3m this transfer window."
Come on, we all know that £3m in today's market is peanuts. To be honest, that £3m could quite possibly have come out of the club's finances, not the owners'. And what have we got for £3m anyway? 2 young kids with barely a season of first-team football between them and a 25 year old who has never kicked a ball in the FL. I'd argue we've probably paid at least £1m too much for them, and my valuation would be £750k each for the United lads and £500k max for Vardy. To me, it just looks like we're trying to replace players with good track records, with cheaper, younger and in all reality, probably not quite as good players who will run around a lot but probably won't deliver the goods. This is where we were 6 or 7 years ago - bringing in young players who MIGHT be good when what we need if we are serious about promotion this season (which I've come to the conclusion, we're not) are players who ARE good and who WILL deliver the goods.
"I really don't see what the panic is until the replacements are signed"
Because, on the evidence provided so far, the players we have signed and the players we are being linked with are pretty average. Wilson = laughing stock in the SPL. Chambers = one of Forest's worst players last season. Shorey = Better than Konch? Church = rubbish goal scoring record. Dixon = another right back from Scotland - were Maybury and Neilson not good enough?!
"Something that the previous manager was not so good at!!"
Well the general consensus on this forum, and many others, is that our 3 best players last season were Schmeichel, Nugent and Konch. With Danns a distant 4th. All Sven signings. Yet whilst it isn't such a general consensus, a vast percentage of opinion I have seen suggests that Wellens, Gallagher and King were 3 of our worst. All Pearson old boys. There is a myth beginning to develop that all of Sven's signings were rubbish - it simply isn't true.
"Part of the "failed" problem was not just the money, but the struggle to get a team to gel as one."
And I'd argue a bigger part was that Sven was sacked far too early - Mills, Beckford, Schmeichel, SSL and many others all said they signed for LCFC because of Sven. That doesn't justify those who simply didn't bother to turn up last season, but it does perhaps give a reason as to why things went so sour after Sven left.
"Perhaps Nigel has decided changes need to be made - but sees selling players early at undervalued prices is a sacrifice worth taking to be able to get a full pre-season with his full squad. He has, afterall, brought replacements in early as well."
But why do the changes need to be made? Where are the reasons? This is a strong squad, most of the league would gladly take it. Last season was the season where we had the big changes, there's simply no need for yet another one. It isn't good enough for NP to just get rid of players because he doesn't like them, and it won't be good enough if he and all the media muppets start jumping on the 'we need time to gel' bandwagon. And the 'replacements' have about 40 games of Championship football between them. If we end up with a disjointed squad full of strangers, there's only one person to blame.
foxello, how can you say on the 'evidense' of who we are signing. So because you read in the dailey star that we are after someone that ammounts to evidense. i tell you what pal why dont you just go down tigers instead, they win most weeks so maybe that might cheer you up!!
The problem was Sven's spending wasn't sustainable - paying silly wages for back up players - Pantsil, Johnson, Ball, Vassell, etc were all excessive and yet they played minor roles. It may have been a gamble worth taking had we been in the automatic promotion places, but defeats to nobodies like Bristol City and Millwall at home wasn't good enough. Sven got his balance wrong and thought you could get out of this league playing international style football - when what was needed were good pro's from this division who had the nouce to get us promoted. e.g. Shaun Derry, Kevin Phillips, to name a couple. I'm not saying I was displeased with many of Sven's signings, but they were too lightweightin the middle or played out of position eg Danns on the left. Pearson moved him into the middle and look how effective he was. Nigel has his faults, but a bit like Hodgson, I believe he knows how to organise a team to make them hard to beat.
We should have kept Sven for longer. Part of the problem is that his sacking left a question in the air: Would it have worked eventually? I seem to remember the consensus at the time being that we were getting worse and worse and I remember everyone being miserable after we'd beaten Watford at home 2-0. "I've never left the ground feeling like that after a win before" said one poster who seemed to capture the mood.
There are various rumours regarding why they fired Sven, mostly around him running out of ideas or losing the dressing room. What Pearson discovered, if you've been listening to him, is that some of the dressing room was unrecoverable. If he's having a clear-out, it is a shame because on paper the talent is there. What we didn't have when Pearson arrived were the kind of steady performers who help to make a team - hence why we've bought who we have.
As for the names you mention - do they really need further comment until we actually sign them? That's if we actually sign them of course; for instance, I believe Leicester turned down the option to bing in Kelvin Wilson when Celtic offered him in part-exchange for Mills so it appears Pearson agrees with you in your evaluation of him.
I agree with MGLCFC a bit here. While I think Sven's sacking was premature and harsh, I also think he's probably the manager you want when you're in the PL but not the one who's going to get you there. I'm not sure about Hodgson, but NP strikes me as more of a Neil Warnock type. I still think that he may be the man to get us promoted but, harsh though it sounds, we'd probably want to jettison him once we reach the top flight where I doubt he'd cut the mustard.
If we'd employed the two men the other way round to how we did (and forgot about Sousa altogether!), I reckon we'd be enjoying the dizzying heights of the Premiership mid-table by now.
TIM - Unfortunately I think Sven may be over the hill as a manager. That is just my opinion and I think it's a shame as he's clearly a nice guy, an excellent representative of his team and wants his team to play good and entertaining football. He's the kind of guy you really wish well. However, I can't escape the fact that his record since leaving Man City is not good.
You're perhaps right dunge - he's certainly one of those managers I'd like to see do well. He gave us some exciting times if nothing else! It all feels a bit flat in comparison with this time last year I guess, but maybe that isn't such a bad thing...
TIM - I think you've hit the nail on the head - expectations last year were phenominal and I guess using the England analogy again, we are all a little less hopeful of success than we were this time last season, but if we can a ssemble a group of players who play for each other and the manager and are proud to represent our beloved city, then perhaps the lack of euphoria and expectation could work in our favour.
Mr 'U';
The links to those players came from better sources than the Daily Star, namely Sky, other more respectable newspapers and several in the know sources on Twitter.
"i tell you what pal why dont you just go down tigers instead, they win most weeks so maybe that might cheer you up!!"
Oh here we go again - someone disagrees with someone else's viewpoint and tells them to p#ss off somewhere else But yes you're right, Tigers do win almost every game - which is exactly the sort of standard we should be trying to set at this level. Or are you another one of these medicrity embracers who'd rather have chasers and hoofers equalling nothing more than mid-table dross than a good, talented squad? For the first time in....well, ever, we have money and fans still don't think we should expect anything more than rotting in mid-table.
Foxello, don't you think you should give these signings a chance before judging them? Like, for example, actually wait until they've actually played a match?
You seem to be very critical of his transfers, but one his greatest strengths is his ability (or Walshies ability) to pick up a player nobodies ever heard of and he turns out to be a very good player.
Also, he's signing unproven kids. Well isn't that what the likes of Norwich, Southampton, Reading did? They didn't have many star names. On paper, they had an average squad. On paper we had a good squad. But it's about how they perform as a team together and last seasons team wasn't good enough. It doesn't matter about their price tag or their 'big names'. Surely that's the one thing we learnt from last season?
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Konchesky to QPR?
Page 1 of 3
posted on 19/6/12
Shorey was a much better player for Forest than Konchesky. Take that with as many pinches of salt as you wish.
If you can get a few bob out of Konchesky, whilst nicking Shorey on a free... I'd say great deal.
posted on 19/6/12
Fairly soon Wes Morgan will be the only defender we've got left. I appreciate that he's about the size of four defenders, but that doesn't make him an entire back line in his own right.
posted on 19/6/12
A defence consisting of 4 Wes Morgan's
Nigel Pearson just leaked a bit.
posted on 19/6/12
The Pearson Plan gathers pace.
To turn City into real contenders - for League 1 !
posted on 19/6/12
Konchesky consistently performed well last season and would be a big loss IMO. However, I think it is not about ability anymore, rather than the wages they are on - it'll be Beckford and Nugent out of the door next!
posted on 19/6/12
It's the cost-cutting bit that worries me the most. Pearson's incompetence can be easily removed, but if the owners have either lost a) their commitment, b) their interest, c) their bottle or d) they're unwilling to invest any more of their private wealth, I struggle to see how the hell we're going to improve and start going forward again. It would appear that their deep pockets were only accessible for 18 months or so - now it's back to penny snatching and Poundland purchases.
posted on 19/6/12
It is possible that it's to do with FFP regulations - that Pearson is looking to keep his key players (Schmeichel, Nugent) but lose other high-earners that he feels he can replace.
Or indeed he may feel that the defence he has is highly overrated and wants a new one.
Either of those feels more likely to me than "Pearson's an atrocious manager and the Thais are having a fire sale".
posted on 19/6/12
But this attitude of some supporters that we should get rid of players despite losing heavily on their apparent valuations also baffles me.
Like a player or not, they are still an asset of the club.
So if we let Sol go at £750k and Peltier go for £350k (both about half their probable value) does this not add to our ever-increasing debt ?
I seem to recall that the Super Thai Guys are not just giving us the money - aren't these loans?
posted on 19/6/12
There's 1001 ways to get around the FFP regulations, many of which will be exploited by clubs bigger and smaller than ourselves. That really should not be an issue. They're there to try and reduce debt and to show that the football world actually gives a toss about losing some clubs - in reality they don't and everything will be business as usual within a year or two of FFP being created.
I seriously do not know how anyone could think our defense is 'highly overrated'. Peltier maybe, but Mills was regarded as the best centre back in the league a year ago, Bamba is an international, as is SSL, and Konchesky is a former England and PL pro. I'd say almost every team in this league would take a back 4 that consisted of SSL, MM, SB and PK. So why is it not good enough for us or NP?
This is simply the wrong time to be pulling the plug on the investment from the owners. We need to be in the Premier League, getting PL attendances and PL TV money before we can stand on our own two feet AND be a solid, PL club again. What seems to be happening now is the owners deciding 'we want promotion on the cheap', allowing NP to get rid of all his bogey players and Sven signings and being replaced by unproven youngsters. This approach might work, but it probably won't.
And as Prawn says, the owners are not merely giving it to the club, they're investing it with the condition they will get it back. Which means we're effectively £60m in debt, a debt that cannot be repayed without PL football. So if the owners reduce our chances of promotion by reducing their investment, it is ultimately the club that will suffer, not the Thais.
posted on 19/6/12
Prawn - "Like a player or not, they are still an asset of the club.
So if we let Sol go at £750k and Peltier go for £350k (both about half their probable value) does this not add to our ever-increasing debt ?"
They're only an asset to the extent that someone is prepared to pay a certain amount for them. Also remember that this is also offset by the amount of money we would pay to them to keep them at the club.
Taking the case of Matt Mills (forgetting what anyone thinks of him and focussing on the numbers), it is consistently rumoured that we pay him something in the region of £20k per week, and quite probably more.
£20k per week x 50 weeks = Approximately £1m per year as a (very) conservative estimate - obviously lots of this goes in tax but LCFC is still shelling out.
Add another rumoured £1m if he plays another game and we're essentially paying £2m if we want to play him next season as opposed to selling now. Instead, we could sell him for a reduced fee and cut our losses on a player who is widely accepted to be overvalued when we bought him - and if anyone's including Mills's original valuation in our assets then it's essentially a false number anyway.
What I'm trying to say is: Any damage has already been done. The deal made and the contract he's on are long since gone. If they are mistakes, they are irreparable ones. Any amount we get for selling him over the summer should be on current value but also consider the millions we could lose on him next season if we fail to sell.
This is why I don't think the amount we paid for a player is particularly relevant: We're face with the situation we have in the present, not twelve months ago - and we have to make the best of it here and now.
As for Sol and Peltier; I do agree that Sol was sold for too little and I think we could have got £1.5m for him. That's a disappointment. Peltier is probably worth around £500k but I don't think we've accepted an offer yet.
Foxello - We tried throwing money at the problem to reach the Premiership and we failed. The Thais are now trying the longer route. I like to think that they've learned from past mistakes, where we bought a load of expensive players but couldn't assemble a team out of them. Pearson clearly feels that this needs to be disassembled before the team can move forward. Why? We don't know. There could be any number of reasons. Perhaps they don't carry themselves well, having a por attitude in training. Perhaps they feel they're better than the club and aren't up for the fight. Perhaps Pearson's been trying to train them in ways that would turn them into the kind of solid defence he's forged time after time at his previous clubs but they just aren't receptive to it. If so, perhaps there's no time for sentiment - just sell them on and bring in others who will.
Peltier's alright but no better. Mills has shown precious little for me to believe he's worth keeping on current wage (we can do better with the money). Konchesky would be a disappointment but no more than that. Bamba is a big disappointment to me and as I've said has gone for too little. But I'm sure I'll get over it. Overall, looking at their continued lack of performance last season, I have no real issue with the defence being dismantled and Pearson looking elsewhere.
As for the Thais, I believe they've already spent £3m this transfer window.
posted on 19/6/12
I agree with what you are saying regarding the combined cost of transfer and wages Dunge but equally, you will still end up having to shell out to replace him.
So we might save £20k pw on Mills and then give £10k pw to De Laet who has less pedigree at this level.
Taking Mills aside, I think most agree that we appear to be getting short-changed on other players at the moment. Either Andrew Neville has lost the plot or is severely under pressure from Mr Grumpy or the board.
Something is amiss !
posted on 19/6/12
I'll grant you that Mills is a special case, given his abnormally high wage and transfer fee, along with this (strongly rumoured) clause in his contract that suggests we'll have to pay Reading a fee if he plays one more match. But De Laet doesn't seem significantly worse from scouting reports and I'm looking forward to seeing how he does. But if Mills goes for ~£1.5m I don't think it'll be a bad deal for the club.
Regarding other players, Peltier I think has proven to be overpriced - he's not worth nearly a million for me. He's a solid, Championship-level full back who looks like he'd need a lot of work on his game to make it at the top level - I don't think he has it in him so that takes away from his potential. That said, he should be worth £500k to an interested party and Leeds's reputed offer is poor.
That leaves Bamba, where I agree he's gone for far too little. Hopefully he's an anomaly. Still, I don't believe there's reason to panic just yet.
posted on 19/6/12
One thing that nobody has seemed to mention is that these players will be replaced when the window opens on July 1st. I really don't see what the panic is until the replacements are signed, then we can make our opinions known.
I would be upset to see konch leave but where all this love for peltier comes from is beyond me, average at best I would say.
For all of pearsons downfalls of which he does have plenty the one thing I defy anyone to argue against is his ability in the transfer Market. In his 1st spell here, at hull and since he came back the majority of his signings have been class. Something that the previous manager was not so good at!! (pantsil Johnson etc!!)
posted on 20/6/12
"Foxello - We tried throwing money at the problem to reach the Premiership and we failed."
Part of the "failed" problem was not just the money, but the struggle to get a team to gel as one. Perhaps Nigel has decided changes need to be made - but sees selling players early at undervalued prices is a sacrifice worth taking to be able to get a full pre-season with his full squad. He has, afterall, brought replacements in early as well.
posted on 20/6/12
"Foxello - We tried throwing money at the problem to reach the Premiership and we failed."
Dunge, the owners gave a manager £17m to spend, then sacked him 1/4 of the way through the season when we were 2 points (yes, 2 POINTS) outside the play off places. When that happened, our promotion push was severely harmed. Not killed completely, a quality manager could have still got this team promoted, but dented enough to make promotion unrealistic. So although we may have tried 'throwing money' at a promotion push, the fact we dismissed the person that most of the players signed for means we haven't tried throwing money AND giving a manager a full season.
"As for the Thais, I believe they've already spent £3m this transfer window."
Come on, we all know that £3m in today's market is peanuts. To be honest, that £3m could quite possibly have come out of the club's finances, not the owners'. And what have we got for £3m anyway? 2 young kids with barely a season of first-team football between them and a 25 year old who has never kicked a ball in the FL. I'd argue we've probably paid at least £1m too much for them, and my valuation would be £750k each for the United lads and £500k max for Vardy. To me, it just looks like we're trying to replace players with good track records, with cheaper, younger and in all reality, probably not quite as good players who will run around a lot but probably won't deliver the goods. This is where we were 6 or 7 years ago - bringing in young players who MIGHT be good when what we need if we are serious about promotion this season (which I've come to the conclusion, we're not) are players who ARE good and who WILL deliver the goods.
"I really don't see what the panic is until the replacements are signed"
Because, on the evidence provided so far, the players we have signed and the players we are being linked with are pretty average. Wilson = laughing stock in the SPL. Chambers = one of Forest's worst players last season. Shorey = Better than Konch? Church = rubbish goal scoring record. Dixon = another right back from Scotland - were Maybury and Neilson not good enough?!
"Something that the previous manager was not so good at!!"
Well the general consensus on this forum, and many others, is that our 3 best players last season were Schmeichel, Nugent and Konch. With Danns a distant 4th. All Sven signings. Yet whilst it isn't such a general consensus, a vast percentage of opinion I have seen suggests that Wellens, Gallagher and King were 3 of our worst. All Pearson old boys. There is a myth beginning to develop that all of Sven's signings were rubbish - it simply isn't true.
posted on 20/6/12
"Part of the "failed" problem was not just the money, but the struggle to get a team to gel as one."
And I'd argue a bigger part was that Sven was sacked far too early - Mills, Beckford, Schmeichel, SSL and many others all said they signed for LCFC because of Sven. That doesn't justify those who simply didn't bother to turn up last season, but it does perhaps give a reason as to why things went so sour after Sven left.
"Perhaps Nigel has decided changes need to be made - but sees selling players early at undervalued prices is a sacrifice worth taking to be able to get a full pre-season with his full squad. He has, afterall, brought replacements in early as well."
But why do the changes need to be made? Where are the reasons? This is a strong squad, most of the league would gladly take it. Last season was the season where we had the big changes, there's simply no need for yet another one. It isn't good enough for NP to just get rid of players because he doesn't like them, and it won't be good enough if he and all the media muppets start jumping on the 'we need time to gel' bandwagon. And the 'replacements' have about 40 games of Championship football between them. If we end up with a disjointed squad full of strangers, there's only one person to blame.
posted on 20/6/12
foxello, how can you say on the 'evidense' of who we are signing. So because you read in the dailey star that we are after someone that ammounts to evidense. i tell you what pal why dont you just go down tigers instead, they win most weeks so maybe that might cheer you up!!
posted on 20/6/12
The problem was Sven's spending wasn't sustainable - paying silly wages for back up players - Pantsil, Johnson, Ball, Vassell, etc were all excessive and yet they played minor roles. It may have been a gamble worth taking had we been in the automatic promotion places, but defeats to nobodies like Bristol City and Millwall at home wasn't good enough. Sven got his balance wrong and thought you could get out of this league playing international style football - when what was needed were good pro's from this division who had the nouce to get us promoted. e.g. Shaun Derry, Kevin Phillips, to name a couple. I'm not saying I was displeased with many of Sven's signings, but they were too lightweightin the middle or played out of position eg Danns on the left. Pearson moved him into the middle and look how effective he was. Nigel has his faults, but a bit like Hodgson, I believe he knows how to organise a team to make them hard to beat.
posted on 20/6/12
We should have kept Sven for longer. Part of the problem is that his sacking left a question in the air: Would it have worked eventually? I seem to remember the consensus at the time being that we were getting worse and worse and I remember everyone being miserable after we'd beaten Watford at home 2-0. "I've never left the ground feeling like that after a win before" said one poster who seemed to capture the mood.
There are various rumours regarding why they fired Sven, mostly around him running out of ideas or losing the dressing room. What Pearson discovered, if you've been listening to him, is that some of the dressing room was unrecoverable. If he's having a clear-out, it is a shame because on paper the talent is there. What we didn't have when Pearson arrived were the kind of steady performers who help to make a team - hence why we've bought who we have.
As for the names you mention - do they really need further comment until we actually sign them? That's if we actually sign them of course; for instance, I believe Leicester turned down the option to bing in Kelvin Wilson when Celtic offered him in part-exchange for Mills so it appears Pearson agrees with you in your evaluation of him.
posted on 20/6/12
I agree with MGLCFC a bit here. While I think Sven's sacking was premature and harsh, I also think he's probably the manager you want when you're in the PL but not the one who's going to get you there. I'm not sure about Hodgson, but NP strikes me as more of a Neil Warnock type. I still think that he may be the man to get us promoted but, harsh though it sounds, we'd probably want to jettison him once we reach the top flight where I doubt he'd cut the mustard.
If we'd employed the two men the other way round to how we did (and forgot about Sousa altogether!), I reckon we'd be enjoying the dizzying heights of the Premiership mid-table by now.
posted on 20/6/12
TIM - Unfortunately I think Sven may be over the hill as a manager. That is just my opinion and I think it's a shame as he's clearly a nice guy, an excellent representative of his team and wants his team to play good and entertaining football. He's the kind of guy you really wish well. However, I can't escape the fact that his record since leaving Man City is not good.
posted on 20/6/12
You're perhaps right dunge - he's certainly one of those managers I'd like to see do well. He gave us some exciting times if nothing else! It all feels a bit flat in comparison with this time last year I guess, but maybe that isn't such a bad thing...
posted on 20/6/12
TIM - I think you've hit the nail on the head - expectations last year were phenominal and I guess using the England analogy again, we are all a little less hopeful of success than we were this time last season, but if we can a ssemble a group of players who play for each other and the manager and are proud to represent our beloved city, then perhaps the lack of euphoria and expectation could work in our favour.
posted on 20/6/12
Mr 'U';
The links to those players came from better sources than the Daily Star, namely Sky, other more respectable newspapers and several in the know sources on Twitter.
"i tell you what pal why dont you just go down tigers instead, they win most weeks so maybe that might cheer you up!!"
Oh here we go again - someone disagrees with someone else's viewpoint and tells them to p#ss off somewhere else But yes you're right, Tigers do win almost every game - which is exactly the sort of standard we should be trying to set at this level. Or are you another one of these medicrity embracers who'd rather have chasers and hoofers equalling nothing more than mid-table dross than a good, talented squad? For the first time in....well, ever, we have money and fans still don't think we should expect anything more than rotting in mid-table.
posted on 20/6/12
Foxello, don't you think you should give these signings a chance before judging them? Like, for example, actually wait until they've actually played a match?
You seem to be very critical of his transfers, but one his greatest strengths is his ability (or Walshies ability) to pick up a player nobodies ever heard of and he turns out to be a very good player.
Also, he's signing unproven kids. Well isn't that what the likes of Norwich, Southampton, Reading did? They didn't have many star names. On paper, they had an average squad. On paper we had a good squad. But it's about how they perform as a team together and last seasons team wasn't good enough. It doesn't matter about their price tag or their 'big names'. Surely that's the one thing we learnt from last season?
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