- Jun 11, 2008
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Osbourne.Dumb question probs. but who's ossie?
Osbourne.Dumb question probs. but who's ossie?
So...But it weakens us nonetheless. I lean slightly on the BSoDL side of the fence, but even so, it's a fair point to make. We've sold a handful of serviceable squad players and a first-teamer without anyone else coming in. Replies to the effect of "we didn't really need these guys anyway" are slightly missing the point.
That said, it's no surprise that the ITK is a little bit cautious about stuff like Barkley. The advantage of getting a couple of your guys in early is three-fold. They join up with the squad earlier, and it stops the natives getting too restless...but it also means that you reduce the chance of Everton/Porto/whoever messing you about.
'tis a bit concerning that Barkley is the prime target. I mean, he's better than Sissoko but he's so samey with what we have. I want explosive, direct, attacking, dribbling, £70m wing forward with 5 star skills and 5 star weak foot and 19 dribbling.
Or, just like anyone a wee bit sparkly, I want dingling and dancing, swinging and swaying, lightning rod like snazzy feet to actually give us that plan b or just something a bit different. And I do not, at any point, mean GKN or N'jie, despite his blonde stripe hairdo.
Take the Walker money, do not pass go, do not collect 200 potatoes and give it directly to AS Monaco enterprises in return for one ex-chart topping Lemar. It's not that easy, I know.
Exactly. People have such short memories. We made no new striker signings in 2014, sticking with Soldado, Adenayor a a recently broken through Kane. By the end of the season Kane was a twenty goal striker. We signed no new CM in 2015, sticking with Mason, Bentaleb and an often injured Dembele. By the end of the season we finished third with a centre of Dembele and Dier, with Dele just ahead of them. We made no new signing for attacking midfield last summer, by the end of the season Son, Alli and Eriksen had forty league goals between them.So...
The "it weakens us" argument fails to take into account a couple of things that a number of people have been banging on about for ages.
1. The squad will improve from being together and the removal of any bad apple, disruptive influences (allegedly Walker)
2. The sale of meh squad players creates opportunities for our talented young players to get important game time and show how good they actually are. I'm thinking KWP, Onomah (both World Champions) and Edwards (now a European Champion). There are probably others, but you know, these guys are winners already.
Are we really weakening ourselves, or are we just feeling a little envious and left out of the "expensive, shiny new thing" experience?
Thing is, with all due respect, Pochettino doesn't give a flying fuck what you want. Never has, never will. So if what he wants is someone who fits in with exactly what has worked so far, but improves our overall average level, and given that he has so far been a brilliant manager for us, I fucking hope he gets what HE wants.
I love a good old fashioned tricky winger, he'll see my username, but so far Pochettino's success has been sans tricky winger so my guess is he probably wants to build on what has worked rather than fix what isn't broke. And Barkley at the very least represents a far better attacking midfield option than all of Sissoko, Nkoudou, Onomah and, quite arguably, Lamela.
Because it's not as easy as walking into a store, look at the price tags, pick the guy you want and pay for him, although a lot of FM fans seems to think it's that easy