Do we need to invest in January?

[DEFchenkOE]

There simply must be players out there who could improve our attacking midfield options, and who are affordable /attainable for a big wealthy premier league club like us.

I refuse to believe it's not possible, even in January.

When was the last time the club successfully plugged a hole in the squad in January? Genuine question as the last time I remember this happening is when we resigned Keane and Defoe.

I can't remember when we actively went and scouted a player that has come in Jan and hit the ground running. After our summer window I don't have any faith that will change.

 

[DIEHARD]

Im going to give Levy the benefit of doubt and say that he is trying to juggle the stadium, training ground and the players accomodation. Finances are tight.

Now that these projects are real and confirmed, I think we should leave of him for a couple years till the club settles. The things that he is doing behind the scenes will set us up for the next 20 or 30 years.

Finances are tight but we have spent money so it's not like we have none... The problem is we fuck around until deadline day then realise we are desperate which means we end up buying shite

 

[Archibald&Crooks]

Finances are tight but we have spent money so it's not like we have none... The problem is we fuck around until deadline day then realise we are desperate which means we end up buying shite

You more or less said what I was going to so I deleted my post....certain people get upset when I bang on about shortstuff

 

[DEFchenkOE]

By the way, one more name to add as a target who fits the remit Poch wants in the mold of Sadio Mane. His name is Keita Balde from Lazio. I watched him again today, and he's got absolutely electric pace. He's also very good technical (came from La Masia), is experienced in the tough terrain of Serie A, is only 21, and is showing serious improvement from last season already. He also has turned down contract offers from Lazio, and has only 1 year remaining after this one. He's better than Zaha right now in my opinion and three years younger. Too bad Baldini's not at the club any longer, as this is one of those targets he'd likely have brought to Poch as an alternative to Sissoko late in the summer.

I really like the look of Balde, he seems like exactly the type of player that we need. But do we have scouts watching these kind of players?

I generally would love to know how our scouting network operates. For years now it seems to be all over the place. We have unearthed a few gems like Bale, Berbatov, Modric and our previously policy of buying lots of young British players and hoping that some came good seemed to work for a while. But I rarely see us going into other leagues and picking up specific targets that address weak spots in the first team.

 

[Hoops]

You more or less said what I was going to so I deleted my post....certain people get upset when I bang on about shortstuff

Let me guess...starting price.

 

[widmerpool]

When was the last time the club successfully plugged a hole in the squad in January? Genuine question as the last time I remember this happening is when we resigned Keane and Defoe..

Dele Alli was a winter transfer, if disguised with a loan-back.

 

[Wheeler Dealer]

Dele Alli was a winter transfer, if disguised with a loan-back.

Could have had Moussa Dembele from Fulham on similar deal, but £5m and loan back was not right, so we buy Janssen for £19m 6 months later, whilst Dembele is scoring for fun at Celtic, and we've bought, well not sure what we've bought to be honest.

 

[widmerpool]

Could have had Moussa Dembele from Fulham on similar deal, but £5m and loan back was not right, so we buy Janssen for £19m 6 months later, whilst Dembele is scoring for fun at Celtic, and we've bought, well not sure what we've bought to be honest.

Quite. Although Janssen would probably score for fun in the SPL, to be fair.

 

[Drink!Drink!]

For me - and in respect of sensible finances - we should be testing the water to see if there are any takers for Son, get that deal done early and look to recruit some creativity into the team. Up and coming or the finished product, either would be better than the coward.

 

[THFCSPURS19]

Could have had Moussa Dembele from Fulham on similar deal, but £5m and loan back was not right, so we buy Janssen for £19m 6 months later, whilst Dembele is scoring for fun at Celtic, and we've bought, well not sure what we've bought to be honest.

Souleymane Coulibaly's doing really well in the SPL. Means fuck all. Gary Hooper ripped up the league 3 seasons in a row but only achieved one PL season for Norwich and I don't even think he was a starter. Now he's playing for Sheffield Wednesday in the Championship.

 

[Bobbins]

Souleymane Coulibaly's doing really well in the SPL. Means fuck all. Gary Hooper ripped up the league 3 seasons in a row but only achieved one PL season for Norwich and I don't even think he was a starter. Now he's playing for Sheffield Wednesday in the Championship.

That's the trouble with the SPL - we all know it's bad but I think people forget just how bad it is sometimes.

It looks like we missed a trick with Dembele but it's very hard to know for sure given the level he's playing at.

 

[Ed Cohen]

When was the last time the club successfully plugged a hole in the squad in January? Genuine question as the last time I remember this happening is when we resigned Keane and Defoe.

I can't remember when we actively went and scouted a player that has come in Jan and hit the ground running. After our summer window I don't have any faith that will change.

When was the last time the club successfully plugged a hole in the squad in January? Genuine question as the last time I remember this happening is when we resigned Keane and Defoe.

I can't remember when we actively went and scouted a player that has come in Jan and hit the ground running. After our summer window I don't have any faith that will change.

Kilnsmann 97/98? Came in mid-season and banged in the goals that kept us up!

 

[THFCSPURS19]

For me - and in respect of sensible finances - we should be testing the water to see if there are any takers for Son, get that deal done early and look to recruit some creativity into the team. Up and coming or the finished product, either would be better than the coward.

We're struggling to score so let's sell one of our only goalscorers. Great transfer strategy.

 

[widmerpool]

Kilnsmann 97/98? Came in mid-season and banged in the goals that kept us up!

And another re-signing. Like the return of Eunice in 2010.

So that's what we should be doing, clearly. What would West Brom want for Chadli?

 

[Drink!Drink!]

We're struggling to score so let's sell one of our only goalscorers. Great transfer strategy.

Son disrupts our cohesion as a team. His attitude is very, very poor. His only determination is to avoid any and all physical contact. Since he has joined us in the vast majority of games he has played he has been very poor - surely no one can argue with that. Scoring a couple of screamers every 7 or 8 games does not compensate. For me keeping Son is going back to that time when we accepted the mediocre.

Believing that Son will be a top 4 quality consistent performer is akin to believing in unicorns

But for me it makes me angry to see such a coward wear our shirt

 

[Wheeler Dealer]

Souleymane Coulibaly's doing really well in the SPL. Means fuck all. Gary Hooper ripped up the league 3 seasons in a row but only achieved one PL season for Norwich and I don't even think he was a starter. Now he's playing for Sheffield Wednesday in the Championship.

You're right there as the Eredivisie is on par with SPL and we got seduced by their top goal scorer last season, so why not Dembele for £5m instead of the £19m we've wasted. Dembele also scores in CL in a group containing Man City and Barcelona.

 

[Blake Griffin]

It's time to put to rest the idea that the winter window represents far more inflated prices than the summer. We saw this past window that the explosion of cash in the Premier League has escalated prices for clubs in the summer window where most bidders are competing against one another and driving up prices to astronomical sums for bang average players. Sissoko cost more than Luis Suarez, and cost only slightly less than Juan Mata (the latter sold in winter windows past).

It seems the best value in the January window tends to be player's with proven talent, who just happen to have moved to clubs in the recent past that aren't great fits for them or that are slightly out of form. We saw this with Imbula and Porto, who Stoke snapped up at a fairly reasonable price given what all midfielders would go for the following summer. Also, take Lacazette last January for another example. He wasn't having a great season at Lyon at that point, and there was serious talk that a bid from Newcastle of even less than 30 million pounds could've been accepted by Lyon. Lacazette himself mentioned a prospective bid and mentioned he didn't want to leave Lyon. This is the type of deal we should be hunting for, if any.

By the way, one more name to add as a target who fits the remit Poch wants in the mold of Sadio Mane. His name is Keita Balde from Lazio. I watched him again today, and he's got absolutely electric pace. He's also very good technical (came from La Masia), is experienced in the tough terrain of Serie A, is only 21, and is showing serious improvement from last season already. He also has turned down contract offers from Lazio, and has only 1 year remaining after this one. He's better than Zaha right now in my opinion and three years younger. Too bad Baldini's not at the club any longer, as this is one of those targets he'd likely have brought to Poch as an alternative to Sissoko late in the summer.

you cannot compare what sissoko cost in 2016 to what suarez cost in 2011, or even what mata cost in 2014.

also, you love to tell everyone how we've wasted the previous windows buying bang average players yet you were one of those who thought sissoko was a fantastic signing? i don't really know what the imbula example is supposed to show either, what's he done at stoke exactly?

 

[THFCSPURS19]

Son disrupts our cohesion as a team. His attitude is very, very poor. His only determination is to avoid any and all physical contact. Since he has joined us in the vast majority of games he has played he has been very poor - surely no one can argue with that. Scoring a couple of screamers every 7 or 8 games does not compensate. For me keeping Son is going back to that time when we accepted the mediocre.

Believing that Son will be a top 4 quality consistent performer is akin to believing in unicorns

But for me it makes me angry to see such a coward wear our shirt

His attitude is not 'very, very poor'. If it was, he wouldn't be starting and he'd be in the situation Sissoko is in now. Whilst his defensive instincts aren't great, in terms of pressing he puts in as much effort as anyone else.

 

[Shadydan]

Son disrupts our cohesion as a team. His attitude is very, very poor. His only determination is to avoid any and all physical contact. Since he has joined us in the vast majority of games he has played he has been very poor - surely no one can argue with that. Scoring a couple of screamers every 7 or 8 games does not compensate. For me keeping Son is going back to that time when we accepted the mediocre.

Believing that Son will be a top 4 quality consistent performer is akin to believing in unicorns

But for me it makes me angry to see such a coward wear our shirt

Whether you believe that to be true and in all honesty I think you're being unfair you said we have to replace him with someone more creative, I don't think it's as easy as that sounds.

 

[Lemon]

We need whoever the modern day Monchi is IMO.