OGS.....

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bman2
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jason_uk wrote: 3 years ago
Sid wrote: 3 years ago Ole looks set for a new deal. It will be interesting to see how many years they'll give him.
Its the "safe" option.

OGS won't publicly kick up a fuss to Ed or the owners, and "should" continue to get us top 4, which is all the glazers really want.

Saying he should, I wouldn't be so sure he will, and can just as easily see a 7th or 8th place finish next season as compared to a top 4 place.
Oh I'm certain Ole will be given a new contract. Jose was given a new contract in his second season FFS, when it was already obvious we should have said thanks for the second place finish, but lets part ways in the summer.

The club is just so complacent. If Ole gets top 4, fine, they're not going to bother asking if we can do better. Look at the DoF situation, it's the exact same. Woodward keeps saying "our approach to transfers is great now", and he's formalized that by just giving our existing people titles like "DoF" and so on. It's just a name change.

But look at our transfers. It's true we haven't recently had any shockingly crap and massively expensive disasters like Di Maria and Sanchez. But that's not setting the bar that high. Are our transfers actually canny and competitive with other clubs that do transfers well?

Fernandes: our only clearly very successful signing. So that's great. Hardly an obscure find though, and we signed him midseason for some odd reason.
AWB and Maguire: good but not great players, but we paid great player prices for them. They wouldn't necessarily start for a different manager with different tactical priorities, because each has obvious weakness (Maguire's pace, AWB's attacking).
Beek, Telles: not hugely expensive, but apparently Ole has zero use for either of them. So why were they signed? Who made that decision? Not mega-expensive flops like Sanchez, sure, but objectively these are transfer failures.
Amad, Pellistri, James: potential to develop. Amad and Pellistri look promising, James less so. But lots of young players look promising without making it.

Who we know we wanted but failed to get: Haaland, Sancho, Bellingham. No club gets everyone they want, not even City. And I'm not saying we should have paid whatever Dortmund wanted for Sancho. But not getting either Haaland or Bellingham is not a great sign, given Haaland's ties to Ole and Bellingham being English. For all the club's talk about a "cultural reboot" and given youth a chance, even young English players like Bellingham are plainly not convinced.

We also wanted but failed to get that shitehouse midfielder at Newcastle, who turned out not to be even as good as his shitehouse brother who also played for Newcastle. Thank fuck for that.

Then there are the players we've let go who are doing well elsewhere: Lukaku, on his way to the Italian title, and could well be the player of the year in that league. He's obviously a 20+ goal a season striker in a decent setup -- did it at Everton, is doing it at Inter. The weaknesses in his game are clear, but surely with Bruno feeding him he'd have been a huge asset for us. Obviously one of the top strikers in the world at the moment, and obviously better than Martial, Cavani, and Ighalo. Apparently a striker is Ole's priority this summer. Just piss poor. Then there's Lingard, did well under Jose, did well for Ole when he first took over, now doing very well for West Ham. Smalling, doing well for himself in Italy, while our defence is a mess. And apparently another CB is Ole's other priority for the summer.

it's not about any one player, but when you put together the likes of Lukaku, Smalling, Lingard etc., and know that we're now still looking for CBs and strikers, it's hard to trust that our transfer strategy really makes much sense.

We fucked off Lukaku to go with Martial, and Martial hasn't delivered, and is rumoured to want out anyway. Lukaku could even sign for a club like City or Real this summer if they are priced out of the likes of Haaland and Mbappe.

So really the club's argument that we're making progress and on the right track just means that our league points won't be in the 60s like last season, and we haven't made any epically shit transfers like Sanchez recently. Big fucking deal.
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You make some great points Bman, but I'm just not having that City might sign Lukaku. Guardiola needs a CF that can control the ball, and that's not Rom. He also needs em to move between the lines and run for 90 minutes. Rom does 2/3 sprints in a straight line, gets knackered, then jogs for the rest of the game.

But I get your point. We need a top CF, and we just got rid of one that's banging em in in another country. But serie a is shite at the min. We comfortably beat second placed Milan who've been top for most of the season. Rom is no Lewandowski or Haaland. We should be looking at other targets rather than looking back at ones that just weren't good enough.
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dozer
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We're calling him Martial now and not panic buy?
Rashford will eventually turn into Martial.
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bman2
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dozer wrote: 3 years ago We're calling him Martial now and not panic buy?
Rashford will eventually turn into Martial.
Rashford might not become a 20 goal a season player, but he seems consistently more dynamic and more productive than Martial. I think he’s at least a solid CL quality wide attacker, and arguably a particularly good one given his all round play and commitment.
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bman2
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Sid wrote: 3 years ago You make some great points Bman, but I'm just not having that City might sign Lukaku. Guardiola needs a CF that can control the ball, and that's not Rom. He also needs em to move between the lines and run for 90 minutes. Rom does 2/3 sprints in a straight line, gets knackered, then jogs for the rest of the game.

But I get your point. We need a top CF, and we just got rid of one that's banging em in in another country. But serie a is shite at the min. We comfortably beat second placed Milan who've been top for most of the season. Rom is no Lewandowski or Haaland. We should be looking at other targets rather than looking back at ones that just weren't good enough.
A few journalists have been saying Lukaku is City’s backup if they can’t get Haaland. I agree on his shortcomings, and that he’s not Lewa/Haaland/Mbappe class, but quality high scoring 9s are rare right now. City need one, and I could see them going for Lukaku if they can’t get someone with a better all round game. Maybe he’d be a plan B, or maybe they can simply afford to accommodate his weaknesses because the rest of the team is so good - him hanging off the last man, with his pace, would add a different dimension to a team that right now already bosses the opposition in every other area of the pitch. The reason I could believe they might be considering it is how few options there are out there.
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It's weird how there's not many top strikers at the min. Everybody wants one. Remember the days of Yorke, Cole, Ferdinand, Shearer, Henry, Fowler, Owen. Most teams had a dangerous CF. Suppose the game has changed now and there's less focus on a CF to get 25 goals a season.
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bman2
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Yeah it is weird. Ibra, Cavani, Sanchez keep getting big contracts at big clubs — it’s a reflection of their talent, but also the lack of younger players competing for their spots.
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bman2
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I’m also not saying “Ole out, he sold Lukaku!” It’s not really about any particular transfer, in or out, or any particular player. I’m just saying that when I look at the big picture, I’m not convinced that the club is now handling transfers well. If you compare it to a club like Leicester, if they sell someone, like Maguire, they get good money for them and they have a good replacement already lined up. We sold Lukaku and didn’t replace him. We got £70M, which is ok, but since it looks like he’s going to help Inter get the title, they probably got the better end of the deal.

So I just don’t see evidence that we manage the squad well, in terms of incoming and outgoing players. Better that the catastrophe of the Jose era, ok, but that’s a really low bar. It’s not the same thing as actually being good at transfers.
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swampash
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I'm not totally convinced the modern game suits old style CFs.
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dozer
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swampash wrote: 3 years ago I'm not totally convinced the modern game suits old style CFs.
Hey swamps what happened to the bet donation?
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