NEIL ATKINSON was joined by Jay McKenna, John Gibbons and Rob Gutmann in the run up to Liverpool’s visit to the Stadium Of Light to take on Sunderland.
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NEIL ATKINSON was joined by Jay McKenna, John Gibbons and Rob Gutmann in the run up to Liverpool’s visit to the Stadium Of Light to take on Sunderland.
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Re: Valdes, I just think the club wasn’t willing to pay 100K-a-week for a goalkeeper who hasn’t played in almost a year and hadn’t proven his fitness. United are filthy rich, it’s nothing they can’t afford, so they decided to go for it.
I’m really glad yous touched on transfers but don’t think you went anywhere near in in enough depth.
Consider this. The only players over the age of 27 at the club are Gerrard, Skrtel, Kolo, Johnson, Jones, Lambert and Lucas.
Gerrard, Kolo, Johnson & Jones are all out of contract come the summer with major rumours that Lucas will be gone too leaving Skrtel and Lambert, of which only Skrtel is a regular starter.
With it being almost illegal at the club to buy anyone over the age of 24 where does all the experience, know how and the winners come from to lead the youngsters?
We will be left with a wealth of inexperience throughout the club…..from top to bottom.
Cech makes perfect sense (mightened come this window) but because he’s 32 (still got at least 4 seasons left in him) and will want decent wages he’s albeit off limits to us. Luis Adriano, top goal scorer in the CL and a great scoring rate over the last 5yrs, will be available for free in the summer. We desperately need another striker because Borini, Balotelli and Lambert arnt good enough but because Adriano is over 27, gonna want decent wages with little if any sell on fee the liklihood of us signing him is next to zero. It’s simply a bizarre strategy that massively limits the players you have available to fit your remit.
I dont believe 4th is beyond us yet but if we don’t strengthen this window it most definitely will be. A keeper and a striker are a must and I appreciate we are under scrutiny for FFP but there must be something we can do. We drop out of the CL, with the increased money next year, we will be out of it for many yrs to come.
It’s interesting that you list our 7 senior players, or over the age of 27 at least. I know our policy and often state how I feel it’s holding us back a bit. But, if you asked me to name 7 players who I would like to see replaced then the correlation is almost exact. Jones, simply not good enough. Lambert – I can fully appreciate why he was bought but he’s not good enough. Gerrard – probably the exception but I’m one of those who feels more excited about the future than gutted he’s leaving. Kolo – still a good squad player. Always good to have some experience to stand in but don’t really want to see him starting (although based on the alternatives I can accept it). Lucas – he has had good spells at the club and has done well this season. That said, I want a bit more quality there. Johnson – If we assess him on the last few seasons then he hasn’t offered anywhere near enough and Skrtel – probably the one I would keep but I’d prefer it if he was our 3rd choice centre half. I’m convinced he has too many mistakes in him. Enrique is another of the experienced players I’d be happy to see replaced. I see our young players as the exciting ones at Liverpool. I’m sure you do need senior players in a squad but ask me how many of those 26 years and down players I’d sell and I’d start drawing blanks. For me though, this isn’t about age it’s about quality and I think it’s getting scarce in the over 27 bracket.
P.s had to laugh during the podcast when the contributors were saying they’d like 2 keepers. There’s a lot of things I’d like but I’m not holding my breath. I think I’ll be amazed if we sign 1 in this window regardless of how desperate we are. Since the podcast was recorded there has been a strong suggestion we’ll go for Cech in the summer. I just hope that means we’ll also go for one now too. I’ve lost faith in the transfer committee to identify new players though. Evidence suggests they’re not that much more well informed than all of us.
So you wouldn’t sell Borini, Ilori, Assaidi, Aspas, Alberto, Balotelli, Yesil, Coates etc. They’ve cost a fair bit of money between them. At a conservative estimate I’d say we’ve spent £57mil on that lot and they’ve had very little or any impact on our team.
Point being, we are continually spending this type of money on distinctly average or less players when I would have rather we spent that money on say 3 players who are worth that money, generally that would mean more experienced players. Of course the scouting has to be right too but continually throwing money at potential means we are always doing nothing in the present.
Mmm. I think it would be interesting to add up the total appearances this season in the 2 lists. The previous 7 you mention followed by your second list. I think you’d probably understand then why I think it’s a poor retort. What you miss is the nature of every clubs transfer policy. You can’t pay good money for all your 1st team and then think, right! now we’ll spend top money on the back up players. Doesn’t work like that. You have to scrape around the £7m market. So, what do you do? Do you think – we have £7m for a squad player, let’s buy a 30 year old who we know is reliable, nothing more or do you think – let’s get a young up and coming player who shows promise, might get a lot better but if he doesn’t then we can easily move on for 50 or 60% of the price paid? Obviously, it’s a question that many are asking but my point is more about clubs having to take a gamble on potential talent. Not all will work out and in fact, very few will work out across the board, if we include other teams plus academy’s. So, I don’t agree with your point of comparing first team players with £7m gambles we’ve taken. Those players were bought over several windows. If we’d bought them all in one window and didn’t get any other ‘bigger’ players then I’d be furious. It’s not been like that though. I’d go as far to say that if we’d simply landed Sanchez, Mario wouldn’t have followed and we’d be looking at our players ‘IN’ this summer and thinking we’d done a good job. That’s the lesson for the club. Look at what went wrong there and change the policy to make sure it doesn’t happen again. My overall point though comes down to this – don’t just keep experience because they’re experienced. Balotelli’s experienced. He’s won the PL. If they’re not good enough, replace them.
Your ramble is incoherent in the context of my initial post. So I’ll just leave it here.