O'Neil In, Out and Shaking it all about

[Kenny]

If he wanted us to lower the fee for Pedro I'd tell him to find a buyer for Guedes & Silva first.

Feed that back to Hobbs...

Hobbs was fairly tough in the Nunes stuff so I may be travelling back in time and thinking we are still in the Jeff era of deals.

 

[Kenny]

I just can't see it at all. The owners have said as much.

Selling a player for say £70m and then using that to fund more transfers is pretty much what they want isn't it?

A self sufficient club that creates the money it then spends via finding promising talents and then selling for a profit and repeat

 

[Tony Towner]

Mendes is the only reason.

Lets see if we get anyone over he line this week that is linked to him and then expect a "favour" on the fee for Pedro

Yep, I said the other week it wouldn't surprise me if he went for anything from 30-80m as you don't know where we are in the order of things or who'll be coming in and at what price from his list.

I'd put his market price at about £70m assuming an injury free second half of the season, unless Chesea are interested and then it becomes closer to 100.

 

[Johnny75]

1) Plenty in terms of what we are spending now. A decent sale should see plenty being spent and still have money left to pop on the FFP bollocks
2) I think that it is the set up. GO will get a say to a degree but it will be a set up where players are suggested to him. We had a split on that under Lopetegui - Cunha, Sarabia 100% his players but Gomes and Dawson were not. When he sad he wanted a more experienced back up keeper I doubt he had Bentley in his book of targets. Lemina probably falls into the category where Lopetegui liked him and he was on the Hobbs list already.

I don't see GoN having the same experience or ability of identifying players as Lop did. He's too new in the job.

 

[Johnny75]

Selling a player for say £70m and then using that to fund more transfers is pretty much what they want isn't it?

A self sufficient club that creates the money it then spends via finding promising talents and then selling for a profit and repeat

No, they want an asset they can sell.

The aim is to avoid relegation and maximise the clubs value through transfers (maximum profit, buy cheap sell high). Shi and Fosun said as much this season with his 'challenger' rubbish.

 

[Kenny]

I don't see GoN having the same experience or ability of identifying players as Lop did. He's too new in the job.

So the set up will be what you suggest/want. He will of course have a clue on some players but we have an easy out if the club don't like them "can't afford them mate...how about this chap from Brazil instead?"

 

[Kenny]

No, they want an asset they can sell. The aim is to avoid relegation and maximise the clubs value through transfers. Shi and Fosun said as much this season with his 'challenger' rubbish.

Taking his AI letter as gospel now...

 

[Johnny75]

So the set up will be what you suggest/want. He will of course have a clue on some players but we have an easy out if the club don't like them "can't afford them mate...how about this chap from Brazil instead?"

I would think so and Hobbs has earned that credit to do so.

Our recruitment team looks good at the moment.

 

[sycophantia]

I wonder if transfer values are on their way down, or at least going to be static for a while? Not much spent so far this window by anyone, have even the big clubs been spooked by ffp or is the current situation just a blip?

 

[Johnny75]

I wonder if transfer values are on their way down, or at least going to be static for a while? Not much spent so far this window by anyone, have even the big clubs been spooked by ffp or is the current situation just a blip?

I would say it's a blip so everybody can get their houses in order before going again when the rules are rehashed.

 

[Tony Towner]

PL clubs spent a record £2.36b in the Summer window. I think it's more a case that they spent the seasons budget then. None of the bottom 4 have the finances to try and spend their way out of trouble like we did last year.

 

[The Dude]

As I've said before no-one is going to offer silly money for Cunha unless he carries on this goal involvement form through to the end of the season. Not impossible but unlikely. I still don't think we're playing him in his best position either, which is behind a proper striker.

It'd take £60-70m for us to be even tempted I'd say, and I don't think he's the sort of character to do a Nunes and refuse to train or any of that shite.

I'm not sure his best position is behind the striker. I've no evidence other than what I've seen with my own eyes, but I think an even more withdrawn role would suit him.

That though would require packing the midfield and losing a forward, perhaps to the detriment of the team. He's most effective when dropping deep to either win the ball (he can tackle) or receive the ball and progress it.

If his finishing matched the rest of his game, we'd have no chance of keeping him. He presses, tackles, has a range of passing, links up play, makes intelligent runs and no shortage of pace.

He has all the attributes for the archetypal box to box midfielder with the exception of long range shooting - which brings us back to finishing.

Cunha, Joao Gomes and Lemina (maybe Doyle too) are all metronomic in their style of play. If one is having an off day, the others pick up the slack, we're very lucky.

 

[The Dude]

Selling a player for say £70m and then using that to fund more transfers is pretty much what they want isn't it?

A self sufficient club that creates the money it then spends via finding promising talents and then selling for a profit and repeat

And paying dividends. People don't want to hear that but a self sustaining business has to make a profit for it's shareholders, else it's not a viable business.

 

[Wolftone]

It's interesting to look at the first few posts on this thread and compare them to the comments in Gon's post-match Chelsea presser.

 

[Kenny]

He isn't a Premier League manager. He might be one day

I think that day arrived a lot quicker than I thought.
Also, anyone got anything for a sore throat? A lot of pain from the force of GO ramming my words back down it

 

[ROVERT47]

It's interesting to look at the first few posts on this thread and compare them to the comments in Gon's post-match Chelsea presser.

It’s just your average football fan stuff at the end of the day.

 

[Tom Hark]

No one does recency bias like a football forum. Anyone know if the pies are any good at the Bernabéu?

 

[Del Woppio]

It's interesting to look at the first few posts on this thread and compare them to the comments in Gon's post-match Chelsea presser.

It's almost as if opinions can move in line with achievement

 

[YoungWolf]

I think that day arrived a lot quicker than I thought.
Also, anyone got anything for a sore throat? A lot of pain from the force of GO ramming my words back down it

As I said in Chelsea verdict. The good sign is we’re improving. Up until probably November I thought we were a very poor team. And tbf to him, although I thought we were well prepared in pre-season by Lopetegui he still didn’t get a pre season to put into his place his ideas in a solid block of work without competitive games.

It’s enjoyable to watch us press and force turnovers near the opposition goal and he’s getting the best out of our attacking players. And there’s plenty more room for us to improve too.

 

[Alan]

The thing for me is the buy-in he’s managed when things were pretty toxic (taking Doherty at his word here) at his arrival.

The players seem genuinely invested in each other and that can make such a difference to a team, flowery as it sounds.

Of course, winning cures all.