Be honest, should the £12m paid for GR been spent elsewhere?

[alpine_saint]

Might the problem Adkins/Cortese faced have been something like this:

 

1. Mr X is better than Fox at left-back, but the transfer fee demand is £5m and the salary demand is £40K a week on a three year contract. That's a total outlay of £11m. Although we'd definitely be a better team with Mr X than with Fox, we don't think we'd be £11m better. It just isn't worth the outlay.

 

2. Mr Y would be a better choice centre back than Seaborne. But the total outlay would be, say, £3m. That would be £3m well spent if we had to rely on Mr Y for 10 or 12 games, because Seaborne is quite sh1te frankly. But, in all likelihood, we aren't going to have to rely on Seaborne at all. We basically think that Fonte-Hoovield-Yoshida can do an acceptable job (and replacing them runs into the sort of problems outlined in the Fox scenario above).

 

3. We know we're taking a bit of a gamble here. We may regret it. If we do, at least we can revisit it in January.

 

4. We might just peruse the free agents to see if we can pick up a value for money offer to mitigate some of this gamble between now and Xmas.

 

5. Ramirez could revolutionise the team. He has genuinely world class potential. £12m is a steal, frankly. We weren't really expecting to be able to attract him, but he seems well up for it. To be honest, we rate him as a £20m+ player and just the sort of bloke who could, over 2 or 3 years, take us to the next level.

 

1. I dont know how you can put a cash value on it apart from the 10s of millions we lose if we DONT stay up.

 

2. The basic premise, as seen after 3 games, is flawed (that the triumvirate of Fonte, Hooiveld and Yoshida will do the job)

 

3. By which time we may be well adrift any incapable of catching up. This is the PL, FFS. Did we manage to catch up after Wigley screwed the 2004/05 season ?

 

4. Yes, absolutely. But decent CBs and LBs are not going to be free agents, imo.

 

5. How will that revolution reach the defence ??

[Olallana]

Doesn't mean it will translate to English football wasn't Delgado a top international? We have no idea how Gaston will adjust to the PL one things for sure his price tag is going to put him under huge pressure from the word go.

 

Delgado didn´t arrive to us after two seasons playing in Europe, Gaston does.

I´m 100% sure that Gaston has talked to toher Uruguayan players in the PL about the style of play and feels that it suits him perfect. I have seen him in Bologna for at least 15 games and he has been dominating top teams in Italy almost on his own. Big big difference from the Delgado case.

[alpine_saint]

Delgado didn´t arrive to us after two seasons playing in Europe, Gaston does.

I´m 100% sure that Gaston has talked to toher Uruguayan players in the PL about the style of play and feels that it suits him perfect. I have seen him in Bologna for at least 15 games and he has been dominating top teams in Italy almost on his own. Big big difference from the Delgado case.

 

Didnt speak to Diego Forlan then....

[Wes Tender]

i for one am glad we pulled out of the buttner deal purely to put all our efforts in to getting ramirez, so what you cant look for more than one player on once it was the right decision. Its clear that the number of pages on a thread he directly relates to the effort wasted by the club in signing a player. We know for a fact that saints had a limited budget and couldnt afford a defender if we bought the if players we did and good decisions made too. It was definitely best to ignore all the top class defenders knocking at NAs door at 5pm on the last day of the season and try to complete deals in a mad rush at the end of thewindow like everyone else.

 

Maybe a defender or two short, maybe unlucky in the window maybe not, maybe Yoshida will be great maybe not, maybe we'll bring in a transfer maybe not, maybe a forum is for discussion opinion or maybe its for speculating so that your opinion is validate - we'll see - enjoy the ride numpties

 

You are being sarcastic, aren't you? Indulging in a little irony? I do hope so, but with some on here you can never tell.

[Dig Dig]

Well, possibly. But then I dont know what targets we were talking to, and which of those were angling for a move and which of those were dug in deeper than an Alabama tick.

 

Exactly....you know the square root of FA but doesn't stop post after post of mindless speculation and insinuation.

[Sidney Fudpucker the 3rd]

You haven't even seen Gaston Ramirez or Maya Yoshida play for Saints yet and you start a thread like this...

 

Why not? Do you honestly believe that if they'd started yesterday our defence wouldn't have still leaked 3 goals?

[ALWAYS_SFC]

Why not? Do you honestly believe that if they'd started yesterday our defence wouldn't have still leaked 3 goals?

 

 

No one knows do they but i bet you will post it as a fact though

[ALWAYS_SFC]

***

 

 

He has point Alps you are a bit prone to what he suggests

[Matthew Le God]

Why not? Do you honestly believe that if they'd started yesterday our defence wouldn't have still leaked 3 goals?

 

I have no idea, I've never seen either of them in action. You seem to be jumping to the other extreme of what you think I said.

[Sidney Fudpucker the 3rd]

I have no idea, I've never seen either of them in action. You seem to be jumping to the other extreme of what you think I said.

Not at all. I just don't see how the signing of GR & EM will benefit a team that clearly can't defend at this level.

[alpine_saint]

He has point Alps you are a bit prone to what he suggests

 

As I wrote (and was deleted), welcome to a chat-site....

 

I am not the only one who does this. I think everyone does it (except maybe MLG who appears to deal exclusively in the minutae of cold, hard facts, so I hear...)

[Dig Dig]

Not at all. I just don't see how the signing of GR & EM will benefit a team that clearly can't defend at this level.

 

 

When Aresenal conceded 8 against Utd exactly 1 year ago yesterday, did you say that they clearly can't go on to defend at this level?

 

Or did they work hard as a team to improve defensively with the personnel they already had and end up finishing 3rd?

[ALWAYS_SFC]

When Aresenal conceded 8 against Utd exactly 1 year ago yesterday, did you say that they clearly can't go on to defend at this level?

 

Or did they work hard as a team to improve defensively with the personnel they already had and end up finishing 3rd?

 

Excellent question..cue "but our boys are rubbish"...

[Whitey Grandad]

We don't know the budget so it might not be an either/or.

[alpine_saint]

We don't know the budget so it might not be an either/or.

 

Well, not in terms of money at least.

[Matthew Le God]

Not at all. I just don't see how the signing of GR & EM will benefit a team that clearly can't defend at this level.

 

Yoshida is a central defender. Ramirez is (it seems but only from 3rd parties) a very good player and it isn't just defenders that defend, it is the entire team when you don't have the ball. Neither of us have seen either of them play, so lets not jump to conclusions quite yet.

 

The defence wasn't that bad for large spells of all three games, remember two of them were against the two best English teams. We won't be up against many (if any) teams that will put our defence under as much of a test as Man Utd and Man City did. The Wigan result although disappointing didn't expose our defence that much really.

 

Yes, there is room for improvement and Davis, Fonte and Fox are weakpoints, but you have used "at this level" based on close defeats against the two best sides.

[Winger]

Excellent question..cue "but our boys are rubbish"...

 

I don't post very often but have to agree with Alpines logic here, let's face it, we had already spent £30ml, we could have probably tempted a club to sell a good defender for 1 more million.

 

We may have overpaid to get the top class defender in but if we are too far behind by January, relegation will cost us a good deal more.

[Sidney Fudpucker the 3rd]

No one knows do they but i bet you will post it as a fact though

 

You know when I referred to people on this forum who don't like it when people say things that are of a different opinion? Well you fit the mould perfectly. I started this topic as a point for discussion, not to get into tit-for-tat arguments but seeing as that's the way you seem to operate I've duly obliged.

 

FWIW. I apologise for my error with regard to the Jose thread. Unlike your perfect self I don't have a photographic memory for everything I've posted. I don't believe that Yoshida is the answer at this level and I think he's a huge gamble. I hope he proves me wrong, I really do, but he played for a team with one of the worst defensive records in the league and that is a fact.

[ALWAYS_SFC]

I don't post very often but have to agree with Alpines logic here, let's face it, we had already spent £30ml, we could have probably tempted a club to sell a good defender for 1 more million.

 

We may have overpaid to get the top class defender in but if we are too far behind by January, relegation will cost us a good deal more.

 

I suspect we did make strong attempts to sign other players and were unsuccessful,but to what extent will probably remain undisclosed.

[SaintBobby]

1. I dont know how you can put a cash value on it apart from the 10s of millions we lose if we DONT stay up.

 

2. The basic premise, as seen after 3 games, is flawed (that the triumvirate of Fonte, Hooiveld and Yoshida will do the job)

 

3. By which time we may be well adrift any incapable of catching up. This is the PL, FFS. Did we manage to catch up after Wigley screwed the 2004/05 season ?

 

4. Yes, absolutely. But decent CBs and LBs are not going to be free agents, imo.

 

5. How will that revolution reach the defence ??

 

1. The problem is you have to put a cash value on it. I guess relegation costs us a few tens of millions (depending on whether/when we get promoted back up). So, spending £150m to stay up is probably bad business.

 

2. Hard to say after 3 games - to my mind, the Wigan game is the most worrying. Yoshida - impossible to say yet. If he's sh1t hot, that makes a big difference. I don't think the defence has been as poor as some are saying.

 

3. I think it most unlikely that we will be that far adrift by Xmas.

 

4. It's a mend and make do. IMHO, a positive way of looking at it is that we are really pretty strong in all but two positions. Not sure that's true of many smaller Prem teams.

 

5. I would have a guess that the big gameplan would mean that - if we continue to progress - our next big marque signing would be a defender, not a creative South American winner.

[mcjwills]

Short and to the point "NO"

[alpine_saint]

1. The problem is you have to put a cash value on it. I guess relegation costs us a few tens of millions (depending on whether/when we get promoted back up). So, spending £150m to stay up is probably bad business.

 

2. Hard to say after 3 games - to my mind, the Wigan game is the most worrying. Yoshida - impossible to say yet. If he's sh1t hot, that makes a big difference. I don't think the defence has been as poor as some are saying.

 

3. I think it most unlikely that we will be that far adrift by Xmas.

 

4. It's a mend and make do. IMHO, a positive way of looking at it is that we are really pretty strong in all but two positions. Not sure that's true of many smaller Prem teams.

 

5. I would have a guess that the big gameplan would mean that - if we continue to progress - our next big marque signing would be a defender, not a creative South American winner.

 

Bobby, no CB (or CB/LB pair, even) in the world is going to cost us 120million

 

Why should we "mend and make do" after a 3 month transfer window ? Also what do we do if one of the 3 gets injured (highly likely, to be fair)

[Dig Dig]

You know when I referred to people on this forum who don't like it when people say things that are of a different opinion? Well you fit the mould perfectly. I started this topic as a point for discussion, not to get into tit-for-tat arguments but seeing as that's the way you seem to operate I've duly obliged.

 

FWIW. I apologise for my error with regard to the Jose thread. Unlike your perfect self I don't have a photographic memory for everything I've posted. I don't believe that Yoshida is the answer at this level and I think he's a huge gamble. I hope he proves me wrong, I really do, but he played for a team with one of the worst defensive records in the league and that is a fact.

 

Gary Cahill was playing for a team with one of the worst defensive records in the league when he moved to Chelsea and that's a fact.

 

Defensive records are really indictative of individuals, more over the team as a unit.

 

As a Unit, we're ok, no one is strolling through us at will. Just some sloppy individual error's are costing us some goals whilst we adjust to the premier league........Nothing more.

 

You want sensible discussion but you've not said anything remotely positive at all over these last couple of weeks so don't expect people to want to jump into sensible discussion with you when all you ever do is come in from one angle. The same applies to your new Internet friend Alpine.

[ALWAYS_SFC]

You know when I referred to people on this forum who don't like it when people say things that are of a different opinion? Well you fit the mould perfectly. I started this topic as a point for discussion, not to get into tit-for-tat arguments but seeing as that's the way you seem to operate I've duly obliged.

 

FWIW. I apologise for my error with regard to the Jose thread. Unlike your perfect self I don't have a photographic memory for everything I've posted. I don't believe that Yoshida is the answer at this level and I think he's a huge gamble. I hope he proves me wrong, I really do, but he played for a team with one of the worst defensive records in the league and that is a fact.

 

I have absolutely no problem with others opinions,but OPINION is the key word here

You however, post using the word FACT...

 

Just for your assistance... FACTS are for things/events that have actually happened not what you might think/hope/want to happen

[Saint Billy]

Oxlade-Chamberlain ?

 

Walcott ?

 

Bale ?

 

Left us before they became the full biscuit, and apart from Bale who is absolutely world class Walcott has not lived up to his early promise and the jury is out on Chamberlain imo.

 

As we do not have that sort of flair player in our ranks we have had to buy it in.

[max_saints]

I don't think that 12million could be used anywhere, it was always going to be Ramirez or nothing. it's called a marquee signing just like man utd buying rvp when they clearly needed a central midfielder more. I think in terms of general squad improvement that was all we had in terms of funds

 

OR another theory is they clearly had funds for GR AND a couple of defenders but were just unlucky on the last day of the window. there were many reports that pointed out that NA was expecting a few more signings but that just unfortunately never managed to happen.

 

IMO the logical thing would be to bake a perfect cake (ie. beef up defense) before putting the icing (GR) but then again we don't know who calls the shots up there

[max_saints]

I don't think that 12million could be used anywhere, it was always going to be Ramirez or nothing. it's called a marquee signing just like man utd buying rvp when they clearly needed a central midfielder more. I think in terms of general squad improvement that was all we had in terms of funds

 

OR another theory is they clearly had funds for GR AND a couple of defenders but were just unlucky on the last day of the window. there were many reports that pointed out that NA was expecting a few more signings but that just unfortunately never managed to happen.

 

IMO the logical thing would be to bake a perfect cake (ie. beef up defense) before putting the icing (GR) but then again we don't know who calls the shots up there

[Window Cleaner]

No beef about the purchase from me, just the time it took to get it done. Most of the other Prem sides hd their new aquisitions on display last weekend(and don't we know it), ours just disappeared off to international duty and we might not even see them in time for the Arsenal game. So top marks for the purchase but a 1 out of 10 for the delay.

[Gingeletiss]

You know when I referred to people on this forum who don't like it when people say things that are of a different opinion? Well you fit the mould perfectly. I started this topic as a point for discussion, not to get into tit-for-tat arguments but seeing as that's the way you seem to operate I've duly obliged.

 

Then pray tell, why have you not responded to the excellent post by Minsk.........

 

And now to answer the OP:

 

1. I am amazed that any Saints fan could have felt 'annoyed' over the signing of such a highly rated player.

 

2. Yes, there were, and still are, other areas that needed attention. In particular goalkeeper and defence. However, we did sign two goalkeepers (admittedly one was for the development squad), an England U21 international RB and a full Japanese international CB. So we didn't exactly ignore those areas.

 

3. You state we ignored those areas in favour of 'unknown' strikers and attacking midfielders. I presume you mean 'unknown to you' as I had certainly heard of all our signings before they were recruited. In fact, I am sure the majority of posters on here had heard of Ramirez (the prime 'annoyance' of yours) and Mayuka before they were linked with us.

 

4. Why do people still think that the signing of any and all new players at football clubs, and particularly at Saints, is all down to the manager? That sort of thing went out of the window many years ago at most clubs. It has been widely stated that Saints have a committee for the recruitment of new players. I am sure Adkins does have a high degree of say in that committee but it is not all down to him to identify players, negotiate with them and their agents and hen to get them to sign on the dotted line. This does not mean anyone is a Cortese signing either; it is a group effort. And, in any case, Adkins clearly admitted, on a number of occasions, that he wanted to bring in 2 CBs; it is also pretty clear that he would have also liked to bring in a new LB, so any criticism of him 'not buying enough defenders' is well off IMO.

 

5. I have kept the most pertinent answer to your post until last......... Where has anybody said that Ramirez was signed at the expense of signing other possible options, especially in other positions (i.e. CB and LB). How do you collate, and justify, our signing of a fantastic young creative attacking player as being the reason we didn't sign any other defenders apart from the full international CB and the U21 international RB? Please find me a statement from Adkins or Cortese that says this is so. Also, please give me a list of all the players we asked about or negotiated with and the reasons as to why these deals didn't come off, particularly indicating those that were scratched solely because of the funds being used to purchase Gaston!

 

I and many others look forward to your response!

[Smirking_Saint]

SaintBobby makes some V good points

 

And every team more or less tried to do business on the last day, I do agree with Alps as far as SAF is concerned in his T dealings but he is really the only manager who consistantly manages this and is V good at it to his credit.

 

Personally I think the TW should end before the season starts.

[Winger]

Let's face it, if you forget the Wigan game, the four players that scored the other six goals we conceded cost a total of over 100 million.

 

In the next few weeks we are going to face the likes of Podolski, Bent, Fellaini, Berbatov and Defoe, all of these players will score goals that will defeat us if we continue to make silly mistakes in defence.

 

It's not a nice feeling but we could end up with only a couple of points fron the first eight games.

 

What will we be saying about our defence and our transfer activity in the window if this happens.

 

Having said that, this league is such a huge step up from the championship and our expectations need to be realistic

 

Let's just enjoy the ride, if most of our home games are like yesterday's, it is going to be great to watch.

[DT]

Have been saying this for ages. Defence is very poor, and without any depth. Yoshida untested.

I'd have spent £5m on an excellent CB, and then another £5m on another. The rest I would have spent on a keeper. Oh, and Fox isn't up to it either. To ignore all this is negligence.

[Alanh]

Its clear we have defensive frailties, but I am not convinced that we cant improve these through better organization and adjusting to the pace - anyone would think its a simple solution and that with enough money spent on quality defenders we will just get clean sheets and never loose - we stuck 2 past a defence that had Ferdinand and Vidic from open play... our defence needs confidence and improved concentration and orgniation especially at set pieces.

 

The reason for the need for a more creativity in the attack is not for against sides like Man U or City, who play tehir own more expansive attcking game and allow us to get forward, but to unlook thos esides we NEED to beat, the Wigan's of this world etc where these sides will be happy to sit deeper when we have the ball and lets us pass it around - without a huge amount of success. At present our attacking style will work better against the top sides, but I believe is ineffective against the more lesser sides.

 

Sure we can always improve the quality of defence, but I suspect that we missed out on a couple we will never know about rather than an either or decsion.

 

Completely agree. Those saying nothing was done about the defence are ignoring the fact that we brought in Clyne who has been a top performer in each match so far, and Yoshida who is captain of his country. I fully expect him to claim Fonte's place and hope he forms a strong defensive pairing with Jos. In this window we have brought in a keeper, 2 defenders, a CM, a winger and 2 strikers (if Mayuka is s striker). That stikes me as strengthening across the whole team rather than selectively ignoring certain areas as is being suggested by some.

 

To answer the OP, until we see GR play there is now way of telling whether it is £12M well spent so too early to answer the question with any certainty.

[SaintBobby]

Bobby, no CB (or CB/LB pair, even) in the world is going to cost us 120million

 

Why should we "mend and make do" after a 3 month transfer window ? Also what do we do if one of the 3 gets injured (highly likely, to be fair)

 

The point is that even if our transfer+wage budget is say, £60m, it's not obvious that you can do a deal for a LB which is actually worth it.

 

Of the, say, 20 under consideration, you might conclude that 10 are no better than Fox, 6 don't want to come here and 4 are just too expensive in terms of fees/wages. It seems to me that something very much like this has happened to us here.

 

The challenge for any club is that, say, we rate our centre backs at 6/10. We can't afford 8/10. But is it worth spending £xm to get to 6.5/10 or 7/10. Sometimes, the answer will be "no".

 

Of course, such assumed cool-headed logic is often buffeted by real world events (we get gazzumped, the player's dad wants a slice of £, the wage demands suddenly increase by 100% as we near completing the signing, the player gets badly injured a week before we want to sign him etc etc).

 

I agree with you that we don't have great quality at CB. I think the "depth" issue is a risk, but not as big a risk as you imply. On balance, we are likely to be able to field any 2 of Fonte, Hoovield and Yoshida between now and January. If one gets injured (which is not "highly likely"), Seaborne and/or Stephens gets promoted to the bench. I only break into a sweat when one of those two actually need to take to the pitch. But, the odds are they probably won't have to (at least in League games).

[Dig Dig]

Then pray tell, why have you not responded to the excellent post by Minsk.........

 

 

I and many others look forward to your response!

 

It's called cherry picking. Ignore the posts which are difficult to respond to and focus on complaining about how victimised he is for his revolutionary alternative point of view

[DT]

Yoshida played for the team now propping up the Dutch first division, with 1 point out of 12, by the way. We are pinning our hopes on him quite a lot.

[Village Saint]

Personally I was annoyed by the signing as there were other areas that desperately needed attention and £12m would have gone a long way to solving our problems. If the fans could see the areas that needed addressing then why were they ignored in favour of signing unknown strikers and attacking midfielders? £12m would've added depth and quality to the squad. It's great that the club are trying to make a statement of intent but how about doing it after you've got the bread and butter of the team sorted?

I've just read a thread about which out of contract players we should be looking to sign for the problem areas. A list of goalkeepers, left backs and centre backs. The very areas that we all knew were a problem at the start of the season... You have to laugh.

I like Adkins, he's done a fantastic job, but this has raised my first doubts about him. How could he get it so wrong? If this was an episode of The Apprentice his failure to address the problem would have him staring at Lord Sugar's pointed finger and hearing the words, 'your fired'.

 

You are quite simply an idiot.

[alpine_saint]

You are quite simply an idiot.

 

The reasonable quality of discussion after the first few "troll" shrieks suggests otherwise.

[Bearsy]

If we hadn't signed a winger, I'd be starting a thread saying Be Honest Wouldn't the £12m We Spent On Dann and Olson Be Better Spent On A High Class Winger.

 

I ain't even sure £12m would've got them deals done either. Championship clubs are right robbing bastards this season!

[ART]

Delgado was going to be huge for us, put us on a whole new level. I can recall all the excitement, the claims we were to become a top club.

 

In leaving the Championship Saints had the best strike force, yet it's these players we've discarded, brought in new strikers. Our defence let us down for a big part of last season, yet also Adkins choice of players and substitutions. Maybe Ramirez is going to be what Van Persie was for United yesterday and the defence will get by. Sadly I don't believe this will be the case and failing to get hold of a first rate goalie and central defenders is going to be our undoing. A couple of injuries and we shall relive the Michael Svensson scenario but worse.

[View From The Top]

Why? Because I've had the ******** to be be honest and face facts. Because I don't have a rose tinted view of what's going on? It's a forum. It's all about opinions. Not being lambasted for not having the same blinkered opinion as everybody else.

 

Maybe due to the fact that you consider Clyne a sh.it signing.

[alpine_saint]

Delgado was going to be huge for us, put us on a whole new level. I can recall all the excitement, the claims we were to become a top club.

 

In leaving the Championship Saints had the best strike force, yet it's these players we've discarded, brought in new strikers. Our defence let us down for a big part of last season, yet also Adkins choice of players and substitutions. Maybe Ramirez is going to be what Van Persie was for United yesterday and the defence will get by. Sadly I don't believe this will be the case and failing to get hold of a first rate goalie and central defenders is going to be our undoing. A couple of injuries and we shall relive the Michael Svensson scenario but worse.

 

Careful, or your post full of common sense will be accused of nothing but moaning.

[ALWAYS_SFC]

Why? Because I've had the ******** to be be honest and face facts. Because I don't have a rose tinted view of what's going on? It's a forum. It's all about opinions. Not being lambasted for not having the same blinkered opinion as everybody else.

 

Here he goes again...

[Dig Dig]

Delgado was going to be huge for us, put us on a whole new level. I can recall all the excitement, the claims we were to become a top club.

 

In leaving the Championship Saints had the best strike force, yet it's these players we've discarded, brought in new strikers. Our defence let us down for a big part of last season, yet also Adkins choice of players and substitutions. Maybe Ramirez is going to be what Van Persie was for United yesterday and the defence will get by. Sadly I don't believe this will be the case and failing to get hold of a first rate goalie and central defenders is going to be our undoing. A couple of injuries and we shall relive the Michael Svensson scenario but worse.

 

Other than Sharp, who have we "discarded" exactly?

[Whitey Grandad]

Have been saying this for ages. Defence is very poor, and without any depth. Yoshida untested.

I'd have spent £5m on an excellent CB, and then another £5m on another. The rest I would have spent on a keeper. Oh, and Fox isn't up to it either. To ignore all this is negligence.

This was my view but I had been hoping that it would have been sorted over the summer.

[alpine_saint]

Other than Sharp, who have we "discarded" exactly?

 

Chaplow, Hammond, DeRidder, Goolie

 

OK, so they are all nominally midfielder not strikers, but tbh all this formation palava makes me think we play into two units now - defence and attack.

[Dig Dig]

Chaplow, Hammond, DeRidder, Goolie

 

OK, so they are all nominally midfielder not strikers, but tbh all this formation palava makes me think we play into two units now - defence and attack.

 

 

Guly has appeared in every game thus far, starting 2. Chaplow and Hammond are CM's who are not good enough for the prem and neither were even gaurenteed starters at championship level and De Ridder has long been out of favour. Poor examples.

 

It's called squad evolution.

[The Kraken]

If we hadn't signed a winger, I'd be starting a thread saying Be Honest Wouldn't the £12m We Spent On Dann and Olson Be Better Spent On A High Class Winger.

 

I ain't even sure £12m would've got them deals done either. Championship clubs are right robbing bastards this season!

 

Thing is Bear, we've effectively signed three new players that can now be construed as a "winger". Ramirez is one, Mayuka seems to be a striker/winger, and JRod is being played out there. Add to that, we currently have Lallana who is skipper and a natural wide player, Puncheon and Guly, we're overloaded now and have a selection headache in that deprtment.

 

In contrast, as of yesterday we had a centre-back pairing who have severe question marks over them and a replacement centre-back who has not played any league games at Championship level (never mind Premier League) and who has just returned from a major head injury after pretty much a season out. We also have a left back with defensive issues, and whose backup is a 17 year old prospect who looked a little overwhelmed in a Development squad game. And a goalkeeper who had 1 year at premier League level and was lambasted by fans of the side he played for as being the worst goalkeeper in Premier League history (and who has already given many cause for concern with his performances and distribution), yet only addressed this area by signing a couple of supposedly reserve keepers.

 

The amount we spent this window was highly impressive. It just goes against the normal grain of building a side from the back, we have kind of done the reverse and the defensive additions (Clyne aside) almost seem more of an afterthought. I'll reserve judgement of Yoshida until I see him, but it seems like we're placing a lot of eggs in that one basket if we're expecting defensive solidity at any time soon.

Edited 3 September, 2012 by The Kraken

[Bearsy]

Au contraire, you're talking out your arse krak! (Lol @ arse crack - good one Bearsy!)

 

We ain't got any wingers! Punch is sh!t*, everyone knows that! Guly is sh!t! NA wants to play Lallana in midfield! Rodriguez is only getting stuck out on the wing cos we ain't got no-one else, and Mayuka IMO is a striker signed as a Billy Sharp upgrade which is why Sharpe immediately got the old elbow!

 

* Punch may or may not be sh!t

[The Kraken]

Au contraire, you're talking out your arse krak! (Lol @ arse crack - good one Bearsy!)

 

We ain't got any wingers! Punch is sh!t*, everyone knows that! Guly is sh!t! NA wants to play Lallana in midfield! Rodriguez is only getting stuck out on the wing cos we ain't got no-one else, and Mayuka IMO is a striker signed as a Billy Sharp upgrade which is why Sharpe immediately got the old elbow!

 

* Punch may or may not be sh!t

 

From what I've seen Ramirez isn't a proper winger, he's one of these number 10 fellas (which is handy as that's what number he'll wear).