Carl Anka - Summer 2017 contender for worst transfer window

[Baird of the land]

23 hours ago, S-Clarke said:

He's bang on, it's very depressing. I'd say the window before that was a start of the downturn as well, given we splurged £16m on Boufal. We just got the big signings all wrong for 3 consecutive years. 

Our scouting needs to be spot on for our model to work. We can't absorb a bad signing in the same way a bigger club can. But we've had to absorb 4 or 5 bad 'big' signings and it's almost killed us. It still might.

I saw an article the other day that had us as one of the biggest spenders in Europe since 2011, ahead of Dortmund. We are also one of the highest in terms of fees received - £448m in 10 years. We got it right in Koemans first season, but I think a lot of that was down to the manager we had. A strong manager was required to attract the right players and have enough about him to put his own views across. I don't think Les really liked that and it always felt a bit tense between Keoman and the 'board' at the time.

We unsurprisingly then went down the road of hiring one of the most passive yes men in history. You wouldn't hear Puel say boo to a goose and he just went along with the carnage that was about to occur. Similar for Pellegrino as well, not strong enough managers.

There are certainly shoots of recovery now that Reed and Wilson are out of the way and Ralph is having a big say....

Puel was certainly more accepting of the club philosophy whereas koeman was pretty hostile to it.

I’m not a puel fan and found his football exceedingly dull but I don’t how that how he went along with carnage.

Boufal/gabbiadini as manager influenced buys are nowhere near the level of bad of Pellegrino year. 

[Fan The Flames]

19 minutes ago, Saint86 said:

I'm sure i remember being told it was Cortese that was spending money we didn't have as well. Yet it would seem financial ruin has only really been a threat after he was ousted and Les got his hands firmly on the wheel 🙄

Or when the owners changed or when covid dented the income, maybe.

Les's legacy has left us with little headroom in the transfer market, that's all and it's being worked through. We are as far away from financial as a top flight club with our sort of owner can be.

 

[Red]

12 hours ago, Saint86 said:

I'm sure i remember being told it was Cortese that was spending money we didn't have as well. Yet it would seem financial ruin has only really been a threat after he was ousted and Les got his hands firmly on the wheel 🙄

Of all of the things you could accuse NC of this is not one. Personally I think NC was our savior for the simple reason had he not brought us to Markus attention we would have been administrated and probably competing with Pompy if we were lucky! But people forget easily enough I guess.

As for the garbage that he spent someone else's money - hello, that's what the Chairman/CEO job is. Does anyone honestly think an individual can spend without budget approval from the board/owner - this would be fraud and he would be in jail now. Yes, there might be disagreements between chairman recommendation and board (or in our case Kate) backing the same, which is why he left as he felt (right or wrong) he could not improve us further without backing. Owner/Board perfectly in their right to not agree with him and move on (remember at the time Kate issued a rare public statement saying that the club was sad to loss NC due to a difference of opinion or words to that effect).

Anyway, is it not time we moved on from that time - we are where we are now and raking up the past is not going to help us.