Lighthouse

Well that’s nice but it’s got nothing to do with the original point I was responding to; that we only ever sign one or two players in a window, which isn’t true. P.S. It’s actually six if you include Walcott last summer.

They’re not endless though, we have to sell a player just to afford one in that price bracket. If you add up the total price we paid for every player in our squad, what does it come to? I can’t be arsed adding it all up but I’ll bet if you divided it by £30m you’d probably end up with about five players.

Last summer we signed five players, not including Small and Simeu.

That if you’re good enough you’re old enough, as has always been the case. You can’t just put a team of kids out but Baz will likely be playing behind ten players with over 1,000 top flight games between them, next year. Niemi, Cech, Oblak, Dida, Van see Sar, Akinfeev, Shovkovskiy. They’ve all been first team regulars and/or full internationals since they were 19-21.

The point is that even teenagers can perform at their best in big tournaments. It’s not confirmation bias, I’m not the one making definitive statements. What I’m saying is that plenty of young players have excelled despite their lack of experience. Raheem Sterling went straight into Liverpool’s team without going out on loan. John Stones was 19 and had only played 20-odd games for Barnsley when Everton signed him.

We’d all like to sign players with the calmness and consistency of Bednarek and Stephens, or the decision making and composure of Walcott and Long but what makes you think we can’t get this from Bazunu just because he’s young? Why will he fall apart at the first sign of adversity? Owen, Rooney, R9, Mbappe, Henry, Pele and countless other players have gone to a World Cup as teenagers, with a nation’s expectation on their shoulders, and been the star of the tournament. Why are you so convinced a 20 year old will be a quivering wreck for a Tuesday night trip to Brentford?

Any ‘keeper would look sh*t with a crap defence in front of them. Niemi 02-04 is night and day from Niemi 04-05. You could have Alisson or Ederson out there getting peppered with unchallenged shots from our own 6 yard box, they’d let in a bunch of goals too. We clearly need better players in front of whichever ‘keeper we put out but the window doesn’t even open until tomorrow. We’re all hoping we see the back of Bednarek as a bare minimum and get someone competent to play along side Salisu. Let’s wait a couple of months before making judgements on who we haven’t signed.

I’m a bit stumped, after everything we saw last season, as to why ‘experience’ is suddenly the go-to buzz word for our recruitment. It’s the one thing we’ve already got tonnes of in the squad, yet people are pulling their hair out over the idea of signing one inexperienced player. We could put out a front line of Walcott and Long, with Redmond and Moi in behind. Can’t get much more experienced than that and yet somehow I don’t fancy it.

Competent litter means good enough. That’s pretty much my point, decent players can pop up in all sorts of weird places with little or no previous experience in the PL. If our recruitment team have done their homework and think he’s good enough based on actual real world analysis of what he’s done on the pitch, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt until I have reason to think otherwise.

These are just internet rumours so far, the window isn’t even open. Let’s wait until we actually find out who signs who and how they play before getting too dramatic. Wherever Pope goes, he’ll be double the price being mooted for Baz, and then some. IF we’ve done our homework properly we could be getting a competent ‘keeper at a decent price and have more money to strengthen where it’s badly needed, I.e. everywhere.

People are talking about the likes of Pope and Henderson being £40m. We’re going to have to get an inexperienced player of some description, be he foreign or lower league. Niemi had only ever played in the SPL when we signed him and that’s barely Championship standard.

I haven’t the faintest clue how good this mush is, whether he’s being bought to come straight in or even if he’s the only ‘keeper we’re after. If we’re losing Forster, Willy and Lewis there’s clearly room to bring in more than one. Joe Hart went from being a League 1 player to competing for titles with Man City practically overnight, so being better than two of the crappest regular keepers in the PL isn’t beyond the realms of possibility. This is more than a little premature for someone who’s usually first to laugh at ‘hysterical wet tarts p*ssing their knickers.’

This based on a rumour about a ‘keeper on Twitter, two days before the transfer window has even opened?

I fail to see the relevance.

I’d go beyond ‘revisionist’ and just say it’s completely untrue and around a year out of sync with reality. Forster was dropped by MoPe after letting in 5 goals on Boxing Day in 2017. He didn’t play again all season, then made one rather random appearance in a 3-0 defeat at West Ham the year after, then went on loan. Whatever the truth is with regards to Forster, it comfortably predates Ralph’s tenure in charge.

So you never buy any petrol?

People sharing holiday photos on social media with cocky captions like, "how’s your week going?" You went on holiday, well done; this time next week you’ll be back pushing spreadsheets around some office meeting which could have been an email.

No, the mistake there would be not signing another ‘keeper. There is no scenario this summer which will make me think it was a mistake to let him go (ignoring the fact that he is no longer ours to let go anyway).

It’s official, he signs for Spurs. Good luck to him.

That’s always been a myth which annoyed me. He may have been wildly inconsistent in front of goal but I never saw anything resembling a lack of effort. Rasiak and Stern John were the lazy strikers back then. Saganowski was alway a willing worker, plus he also had a decent run of about 6 goals in 8 games when he came back from Aalborg under Mark Wotte.

He started in the first game of the ML era - Millwall at home, 1-1. Remember it well. Think he played about half a dozen times under AP and left in January.

Southgate is just McLaren with nice fixtures.

Er…. What!?

He wasn’t drunk.

After all the noises we’ve been making about signing the right people, scouting different leagues and long term projects; signing Phil Jones would be the equivalent of buying your wife a bag of charcoal from Londis at 8pm on Christmas Eve.