The9 Posted 6 May, 2018 Share Posted 6 May, 2018 And then compound it even further by not buying a centre back. For the third successive transfer window. They bought Hoedt and Bednarek in the last one and with Van Dijk sticking around and Yoshida, Stephens and (in theory) Gardos, if anything we had too many of them at the start of the season (certainly now having lost the best one they don't look good enough, but it's taken time for Hoedt to show that often enough for it not to be luck or colleagues - I think it was already evident with Stephens/Yoshida by then but some people only see what they want). I think what you meant was "not buying two centre backs definitely good enough for the top half of the Premier League immediately". All indications are that Bednarek might have what they seem to think Stephens had, which would be great, but we still need at least one left-sided CB to go alongside him. FWIW I think Stephens might still make a decent full-back (maybe not the kind of full-back we use though) and he might be ok in the Championship if that happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chewy Posted 6 May, 2018 Share Posted 6 May, 2018 They bought Hoedt and Bednarek in the last one and with Van Dijk sticking around and Yoshida, Stephens and (in theory) Gardos, if anything we had too many of them at the start of the season (certainly now having lost the best one they don't look good enough, but it's taken time for Hoedt to show that often enough for it not to be luck or colleagues - I think it was already evident with Stephens/Yoshida by then but some people only see what they want). I think what you meant was "not buying two centre backs definitely good enough for the top half of the Premier League immediately" All indications are that Bednarek might have what they seem to think Stephens had, which would be great, but we still need at least one left-sided CB to go alongside him. FWIW I think Stephens might still make a decent full-back (maybe not the kind of full-back we use though) and he might be ok in the Championship if that happens. Yes, I meant ready for the first team. We didn't replace either fonte or vvd with anything like the right quality. Fwiw I like the look of bednarek so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The9 Posted 7 May, 2018 Share Posted 7 May, 2018 Totally agree. Had the correct and only obvious outcome been made after the Leicester (home) match in December, or even after Spurs(away), Palace (home) in January the present mess could have been avoided. You've picked the right games, with hindsight losing to Augsburg pre-season with Ward-Prowse as a support striker and gaps all over the midfield showed all the tactical nous Pellegrino had, and burning through winnable games with a bunch of tactically inept draws playing like Puel had pitched up and told them they had 3 matches in the same day is still what's costing us now. It's taken three games just for Hughes to put us in a position where our defensive midfielders aren't constantly wrong side and chasing runners from the halfway line towards their own box instead of already being there protecting the defence, how a team gets that out of position to begin with I have no idea. We were even doing it against Wigan. I think the win over the worst Everton side in years at St Mary's was a false dawn that bought Pellegrino time he did not deserve. And of course the dubious trigger-happy firing of Puel before him made them less keen to have to pull the trigger again - same with me, I thought he was awful but there was always something else happening as mitigation, and then the appalling timing of the "stick by him" announcement right before our entirely predictable twentieth (or so) tactical failure against Palace which was entirely down to the manager not responding to Palace's change of formation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The9 Posted 7 May, 2018 Share Posted 7 May, 2018 Yes, I meant ready for the first team. We didn't replace either fonte or vvd with anything like the right quality. Fwiw I like the look of bednarek so far. I think we can agree on that. But what the hell have they been seeing on the training pitch that Hoedt and Stephens have been ahead of Bednarek all season? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The9 Posted 7 May, 2018 Share Posted 7 May, 2018 Krueger needs to go whether we stay up or not. A total fraud - corporate speak bull**** at it's finest. He's overseen a huge rise in our non-tv revenues, so he's been a huge success in terms of his actual role. Whether he should be having input into team-based decisions or recruitment is an entirely different question - as is how great our revenues will be without the level of relative success we've had in the past 5 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CB Fry Posted 7 May, 2018 Share Posted 7 May, 2018 Still can’t read and comprehend simple sentences eh? Still following me around? Go be a massive bellend somewhere else please!So that's a yes, then. Thought so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PapaWaiToGO Posted 7 May, 2018 Share Posted 7 May, 2018 And then compound it even further by not buying a centre back. For the third successive transfer window. We bought Hoedt in the summer. I'm not defending Les, but with Carrillo he was between a rock and a hard place. With hindsight we can say he's garbage, but if we hadn't bought him in the Jan window in the Jan, the backlash would arguably been have been worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Posted 7 May, 2018 Share Posted 7 May, 2018 You've picked the right games, with hindsight losing to Augsburg pre-season with Ward-Prowse as a support striker and gaps all over the midfield showed all the tactical nous Pellegrino had, . Yes - I think Augsberg, and then Wolves were clear warning shots as to what was ahead, but everyone was hoping these were just early 'teething errors', but it was evident before Christmas that we were in a dire position lacking tactics and leadership. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Posted 7 May, 2018 Share Posted 7 May, 2018 And then compound it even further by not buying a centre back. For the third successive transfer window. We've got , the appointment and rtention of Pellegrino, lack of quality CB signings, not bringing in a Striker, the signing of Carillo for £19m, and add to the that retaining faith in Forster (a new contract even )... It really does make for an absolute clusterf^ck of the nth degree... Take a bow Les. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toon Saint Posted 7 May, 2018 Share Posted 7 May, 2018 How bad was pellegrino really? Anyone think we would be down already had we stuck by him? I think we would be. Some will say we were a point off the drop when the gump was finally sacked, but the general trajectory was blindingly obvious from around late October, bar the very occasional fillip. Of course Les and Wilson pushed hard down on the accelerator in January by selling our best player and spending £19m on a lamppost. If we had appointed Hughes even 4-5 games sooner we would be safe by now. I’m warming to the idea of keeping him on next season whatever the outcome on Tuesday. I think a bit of continuity will be key in what is likely to be a very disruptive summer at boardroom level. But not much point worrying about that until the dust settles on Wednesday morning! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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