Chez

Cash flow may be important. We have a lot of debts to pay. If we sell Lavia, KWP/JWP early, that issue will probably go away, but if not, there may be a little more pressure to sell. I guess it also depends on what the owner does.

Can't imagine we will bring many, if any, in before the 35+ man squad (and huge wage bill) is reduced.

I don't think they do. However, I guess the only circumstance that he does stay would be if the other Prem clubs all offered us peanuts for him. No one came up with the monies to prise Berge from Sheff United and there obviously was no (low figure) escape clause. Not sure if Lavia has one in his contract - he might - or what value that might be, but if not, we do hold some cards.

I remember reading that at the time and I just thought it was a load of bollocks. My earlier musings about him possibly falling out with the board/owner about the amount of money he could pay Poch and players is perhaps more likely to have been about how much they paid him - with him creating that story to strengthen his position. Interesting comment from Poch in there "I would not understand staying in this role if Nicola was not here” He obviously joined Spurs soon after Nik Nak left.

The recruitment, even that of lots of young inexperienced players, would have been fine if we had senior players already at the club that were really good. But we didn't. We had lots and lots of below average Prem players, like McCarthy, Perraud, Diallo, Djenepo, Walcott, Adam Armstrong etc. We needed first team players that were immediately better than those we had. Instead, we added young talent that, in time, could help elevate us. We barely survived last season. We needed to turn a sinking ship around. Unless we strengthened the starting side, the end result would likely be more of the same. We were lucky that we landed with Lavia and ABK otherwise things could have been even worse (that's hard to imagine I know). This is what we had: McCArthy KWP Bednarek, Salisu, Perraud Romeu, JWP S Armstrong Djenepo Adams A Armstrong ...and we did not really improve it.

maybe he pissed off everyone that came into contact with him, so he burned all his bridges? I am slightly surprised he didn't get another job in football. It's not easy finding successful football CEOs, although maybe overspending ones are not attractive to owners?

Nik Nak certainly was a cock.

It's not a skewed version of what happened. It's just me day dreaming what might have happened. Happy to concede the reality was that we improved without him and the spending gamble I proposed.

good point. Our scouts are pretty clueless and signing yet another player ill-equipped to play in the Prem is not baffling at all. However, I am still baffled why they thought a winger with no trick or pace would help us create more chances and win more games.

What's baffling is why we signed him.

Ballard and Mara?

I agree. Nik Nak was not likeable, but his small man mentality saw him keen to take on all comers and prove what a big man/club he/we were/could be. As a result he seemed to be taking us to places I never thought we could go. He departed in January 2014. Six months later our manager left and we sold all our best players. I wonder if before he departed, he asked the board/owner to spend big on new contracts for Poch and the top players to ensure they didn't join the big clubs. They said "no" and probably brought up his overspending on the training ground. They then had a big argument, fell out and his departure was a fait complete.

that's some take. No idea why you think JWP has not been giving his all. Has he not been be working hard enough or putting his body on the line?

As discussed on the SR thread. We have a huge squad, signing 16 players in two windows, so a lot need to go before we can add you'd think. Something like this: Bazunu, Lis, Oliver Wright maybe steps up? [Willy and McCarthy to depart] Bree, Tino, Payne [AMN, KWP to depart] Larios, Small [Vokins, Perraud to depart] Bednarek, Lyanco, Stephens, ABK [Salisu, DCC to depart] Alcaraz, Diallo [JWP, Lavia to depart] Sulemana, Edozie, S Armstrong, Aribo, Djenepo [Orsic, Ely to depart] Onuachu, Mara, Tella, Ballard to step up [Theo, A Amstrong, Adams to depart]

Yeah, his form has dropped off a cliff. For the first, I think he thinks AMN will deal with the long ball, he then realises he hasn't, looks around, sees Awonyi has got ahead of Bednarek (also was shit for that goal, as he should never have let Awoniyi get ahead of him), but it's too late to do anything. It looks horrible. He looks like he just can't be arsed, but possibly it's just bad defending - simply not considering that Johnson might get on the end of it, spotting the potential for Awoniyi to get into the box and getting back into place to cover AMN (what a terrible decision by the way to have AMN mark the super fast Johnson instead of KWP). This is a prolonged issue of our defenders not sniffing out trouble. For the second, he gets tight enough, but just can't do anything to stop the volley. Possibly not strong enough, or maybe just doesn't consider that volley is coming and try to reach out and block. Difficult one to blame him. The not given foul on Walcott killed us. I think what troubled me more was the incident when he got injured. Johnson clearly has a lot of pace, but ABK doesn't take this into account and gets his angles and spacing all wrong when going out to him. ABK looked quick earlier on in the season, but he got absolutely left for dead, subsequently falling over and getting injured. Only a brilliant block by Bednarek prevented an almost certain goal. It was really poor defending. Not easy contain a speedster, but he sold himself and showed his limitations pace wise too. He's still young. If he'd come through our academy we'd still be excited about him as a prospect. Getting a Germany cap means he will get offers you suspect.

Getting players out the door is not something that usually happens quickly. The likes of Orsic and Salisu may have sorted moves out already, but unwanted and overpaid players often hang around all summer picking up wages. I am sure SR will be looking very carefully at the wage bill for next season and won't want to add to it before it is trimmed considerably (as you said). That means we may miss out on some good opportunities, assuming we intend to sign anyone at all. We have bought 15 or 16 new players in the last two windows. There may be a reluctance to bring in more, despite some obvious needs.A lot of players could go and we'd still have reasonable size, if not impressive, squad.

So many players have been in the start XI, that doesn't narrow it down a lot! Usually it's players that aren't getting games that are told they can go if they want, so Djenepo and Diallo. if you don't mind me asking, where did you hear it: the 8 players told they can leave/are leaving?

Real Bettis shirt might offer some ideas. I can't seem to get that image to load up though: You can see it here: https://www.footyheadlines.com/2023/04/betis-23-24-home-away-third-kits.html

Not sure you can garner much insight from these two 2023/34 Hummel kits...

Not sure I agree about the `going through the motions' part. He certainly hasn't been as effective as he was earlier in the season. He's been a bit unlucky with injuries. Since the dislocated shoulder he hasn't been anywhere near as good.

you mean `sign Ben Mee on a free'? You could argue he'd of been a better option than the DCC signing. If you are going to sign a more experienced, slower, ball winner, then Mee was well proven. Maybe they were still looking at potential resell value with DCC.

If DCC, AMN, Orsic and Aribo are the quality of experienced players we are going to sign, perhaps don't bother. Stick to signing youth talent. At least one or two of those have been good.

Surprised its just eight, unless AMN, Theo, Willy and Ely don't count. DCC, Orsic, McCarthy, Salisu and Adams. Possibly both Armstrong's...

Sorry, why didn't Ralph appeal to SR? You've not made that clear. Are you suggesting that he wanted to be the guy that had the final say on the players that they bought? He seemed to have had limited input in transfers as far as I could see. Jones got the opportunity to set the criteria of the type of player he wanted (he mentioned that a lot in interviews), so he had some input, albeit not the actual selection of players.

calm down lad. I was just having a bit of fun.