- Aug 13, 2005
- 46,701
- 104,999
The thing is its not entirely true, there have always been some who are like that but most were absolutly gutted when Modric left and Berbatov left. Now we are bigger I think it hurts less, because getting a top player isn't as hard
Things like Walker were not hard to take because Walker wasn't even starting at that time and we had tripps. Eriksen was so drawn out people were just sick to death with it, but again, we have other good attacking players. When we were less good the main reactions was denial, pain, anger and all these typical things.
Southampton fans weren't that upset when PEH, because PEH always split opinion, was never universally well liked and they played the best football of their season when he was out of the squad. People say that 'ohh its just a defense mechanism' because they are trying to justify why fans arent that bothered by it. Thankfully, while PEH will 100% have many people who don't rate him 6 months from now, he will be playing a different style and different system and may thrive here. But it did annoy me that people seemed to act as if we were signing some adored figure from Southampton, we were not.
Having said that, the general reaction of Doherty leaving is definitely more in keeping with losing players that are rated. And this matters a lot to me. People may think that there is more value in the player threads, but go to any player thread on this site, even Kane, and it's filled with criticism, because people use those threads to vent frustrations after games, while most fans ignore them. Reaction to leaving for me does show something of value. Particularly on forums as the people on forums tend to be more invested in the club than say, Mark, from twitter.
I was gutted when Walker went because it was obvious it signalled the beginning of the end of a great team that should of been added to and not taken away from. Plus I had no faith we’d replace him effectively at the time, which has proved correct.