it’s more of a market thing imo i’m not sure there are that many non skint clubs with a need
Florian and the (Slot) Machine
- Thread starter Momo
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If there's a Dutch manager at a rich enough club we could sell him easily
He's imposing himself more, and that's an excellent place to start
I was always confident he'd be good for us, just a shame it took til now for him to make more of a difference
Mitigating circumstances.
I wonder about the last bit. Leaving aside Diaz's one pathological hater on here, my impression is that most of us are aware of the loss involved and the fact - because it IS a fact - that we haven't addressed it adequately yet. I'd like to see Chiesa given a run in that position personally.
This has been done to death. I think it's more that they didn't want to offer him a huge new contract (and Bayern did) and the offer from Bayern was really good for a player of his age. Pure economics rather than any dislike of Diaz as a player. Our failure (Slot's failure) was relying on Gakpo to replace him full time.
Agreed. It’s not that we sold. It’s that we never replaced those brilliant runs (oft without direct end product, but with plenty of indirect.)
We should have sold. We just didn’t fecking replace with a similar level. So many errors by this new management team. They broke up the band and thought they could recreate it. Turns out it is not that easy.
We should have sold. We just didn’t fecking replace with a similar level. So many errors by this new management team. They broke up the band and thought they could recreate it. Turns out it is not that easy.
Well, the newly minted management team, the one that is top of the world at that point, went out and bought the best player in Germany, one of the best young strikers playing in Germany, the best 9 in the Premier League for an excess of 300m. On paper it should more than compensate for an aging LW who was more effective playing as a 9. We bought two top class 9s to replace him after all!
Of course 6 months on, it hadn't worked out, they should rightly be responsible for it. But let's not pretend to know any better when we are simply typing on the keyboard.
Of course 6 months on, it hadn't worked out, they should rightly be responsible for it. But let's not pretend to know any better when we are simply typing on the keyboard.
It doesn't help that the manager is an idiot.
This is just silly. He was never more than a stand-in no.9 and none of "the best player in Germany", "one of the best young strikers playing in Germany" or "the best 9 in the Prem" that we bought was a LW. As for your final sentence, try telling the guy you see in the mirror every morning.
It's disappointing Diaz left, and we absolutely miss him. But the football guys played that one right. They approached him early enough to renew his contract, it was clear he didn't want to sign (either at all or on mutually acceptable terms) so, with regret, they sold him, got a decent fee and reinvested that into the squad.
Which was exactly what we should have done with any number of other players in the past, most notably Trent and Konate in recent history. Give them enough time to sign and sell them if they don't, while we still can. I can kind of understand Trent as, with Klopp leaving, it was harder to sell the next five years, same reason Mo and Virgil went down to the wire. Konate less so. We should have been in advanced talks with him this time last year at the latest and should have sold him in the summer if he hadn't signed by then. We'd have only lost 12 months of him (not a great loss given the season he's having) and could have pushed harder and earlier for Guehi in to replace him.
Based on my understanding of their contracts, we should be having those discussions now with Alisson, Gomez and Curtis, and should be opening discussions with Dom, Mac and Gravy in the summer with a view to being well progressed this time next year. I'm assuming we'd be looking at exits for Ramsay, Harvey, Kostas, Mo, Endo, VVD and Bajcetic, whose deals are also up in summer 2027, meaning next summer is the last opportunity to get decent fees for them / or to shift their wages off the books if they're not looking up to scratch by then.
This whole thing of keeping players past their sell-by date, no matter how good they are, has to stop.
Which was exactly what we should have done with any number of other players in the past, most notably Trent and Konate in recent history. Give them enough time to sign and sell them if they don't, while we still can. I can kind of understand Trent as, with Klopp leaving, it was harder to sell the next five years, same reason Mo and Virgil went down to the wire. Konate less so. We should have been in advanced talks with him this time last year at the latest and should have sold him in the summer if he hadn't signed by then. We'd have only lost 12 months of him (not a great loss given the season he's having) and could have pushed harder and earlier for Guehi in to replace him.
Based on my understanding of their contracts, we should be having those discussions now with Alisson, Gomez and Curtis, and should be opening discussions with Dom, Mac and Gravy in the summer with a view to being well progressed this time next year. I'm assuming we'd be looking at exits for Ramsay, Harvey, Kostas, Mo, Endo, VVD and Bajcetic, whose deals are also up in summer 2027, meaning next summer is the last opportunity to get decent fees for them / or to shift their wages off the books if they're not looking up to scratch by then.
This whole thing of keeping players past their sell-by date, no matter how good they are, has to stop.
And on a similar note, we need to stop keeping fringe players around for too long.
Nat Phillips was 27 when he left us and had made 39 appearances. He was never going to make it.
WTF is Kaide Gordon still doing at the club? A handful of appearances and for my money he's looked bang average every time. I personally would add Bajcetic to the list too. Not going to make it here. Owen Beck is 23 - is he the succession plan for Robbo? Fuck me.
City have sold loads of players in recent years better than all of them and they are a far more attractive proposition to a young kid as a result - come to us, you'll get your chance and if it doesn't work out we won't stand in the way of you going somewhere else to make a name for yourself (have a word with Cole Palmer if you don't believe us). Go to Liverpool and they'll keep you languishing in the reserves (where you'll get handed your arse on a plate every week because your team-mates are all shite) or maybe on loan at Wigan/Preston/Blackburn, or somewhere else where they live on pies and keep whippets, in the forlorn hope you might suddenly become a superstar overnight when no-one is looking.
If you're really lucky, you might come back and get to sit on the bench and keep Rio company as the pair of you watch your team-mates collapse defensively every week while the manager (sorry, "head coach") plays some other bugger out of position because he doesn't trust you, even though you're a specialist in that position.
Or if you're luckier still, you lose a couple of headers in the first game of the season against a battling championship team like, say, Ipswich, you get subbed off at half-fucking-time and then singled out in post-match interviews for criticism by the "head coach" and then barely kick a ball (when you do, confidence destroyed and match sharpness lacking, you don't fully do yourself justice) and then you are sold off to Leverkusen with a buy-back clause that you'd have to be fucking mad to allow the club to exercise. Only when you leave the club do you get the senior England cap you clearly deserved a couple of seasons before.
Fuck that shit.
Nat Phillips was 27 when he left us and had made 39 appearances. He was never going to make it.
WTF is Kaide Gordon still doing at the club? A handful of appearances and for my money he's looked bang average every time. I personally would add Bajcetic to the list too. Not going to make it here. Owen Beck is 23 - is he the succession plan for Robbo? Fuck me.
City have sold loads of players in recent years better than all of them and they are a far more attractive proposition to a young kid as a result - come to us, you'll get your chance and if it doesn't work out we won't stand in the way of you going somewhere else to make a name for yourself (have a word with Cole Palmer if you don't believe us). Go to Liverpool and they'll keep you languishing in the reserves (where you'll get handed your arse on a plate every week because your team-mates are all shite) or maybe on loan at Wigan/Preston/Blackburn, or somewhere else where they live on pies and keep whippets, in the forlorn hope you might suddenly become a superstar overnight when no-one is looking.
If you're really lucky, you might come back and get to sit on the bench and keep Rio company as the pair of you watch your team-mates collapse defensively every week while the manager (sorry, "head coach") plays some other bugger out of position because he doesn't trust you, even though you're a specialist in that position.
Or if you're luckier still, you lose a couple of headers in the first game of the season against a battling championship team like, say, Ipswich, you get subbed off at half-fucking-time and then singled out in post-match interviews for criticism by the "head coach" and then barely kick a ball (when you do, confidence destroyed and match sharpness lacking, you don't fully do yourself justice) and then you are sold off to Leverkusen with a buy-back clause that you'd have to be fucking mad to allow the club to exercise. Only when you leave the club do you get the senior England cap you clearly deserved a couple of seasons before.
Fuck that shit.
Not sure you understand the definition of fact.
I think we need to rehabilitate Bajectic's value a bit before selling (not that he's likely to get much time on the pitch under Slot), but otherwise agree.
I'm not the one making snide digs at people who have other opinions on Xmas day. Based on Diaz of all people, who had left 6 months ago. Get over it for goodness' sakes.
This post fact universe we've been living in for about a decade is interesting. I mean I could just say that Liverpool are ten points clear at the top and I've got loads of tickets for the match tomorrow and it might make me feel better. I think Philip K Dick said it best, and he knew a thing or two about the line between truth and fiction. "Reality is that which when you stop believing in it doesn't go away". I've put that in inverted commas as if it's a real quote but I can't be arsed googling as I have a hangover you could donate to medical science and I'm still in bed. The fact is we sold mane and we replaced him with Diaz. He wasn't as good as mane but he was really fucking good. We then sold Diaz and we didn't even bother replacing him. Now we're shite. I think they're the points that even if you stop believing in them, they still exist.
I thought we did replace Diaz? Maybe not like for like, but we brought in a creator and two goal scorers for Nunez, Jota and Diaz. So, part of Wirtz and Ekitike for Jota and Diaz. We didn't really replace his trickery or ability to beat a man, but it's not as if we're down an attacker. We should still be trying to get someone that helps create that extra bit of space with pace and bearing a man, especially as Salah doesn't seem to be doing it as much any more.
That's a weird way of looking at it, but OK.
I didn't even name you. Once again, you really need to take your own advice.
I don't agree. Not all attackers are interchangeable. Horses for courses.
Not sure you understand the definition of "definition".
That's actually my point. I had actually forgotten about Elliott, but we got three pretty expensive attackers in for the three that aren't here(Nunez, Jota, Diaz) . They're not like for like, and never really would be, but we did replace them.
Let's agree to differ. If (as you rightly say) they're not like for like I don't see them as replacements - additions, yes, but that's a different matter as there are still gaps in our system.
Maybe semantics, but I think when you look at it, primarily from an attacking sense, you should try and replace talents and abilities, trying to shoe horn in exact replacements is something that will end up leaving you short. The two biggest things we didn't replace, imo, are Diazs ability to beat a man, and Trents long passes from deep.
Or anything else, that is.
Or, (because 2 don't replace 1) :
Nunez replaced by Ekitike
Jota - Isak
Diaz - Wirtz
Elliott - Rio
Same number of players but slightly different positions and tactics. Which aren't working as yet!