The Daily ITK Discussion Thread - THE HISTORY OF ITK EDITION 18th June 2015

[Everlasting Seconds]

Licky bum.

It's perfectly egotistical. If more people donate, or are forced to pay, fewer threads will start with donation pleas, and more threads will start with a little piece of insanity to lighten up my morning.

 

[Gedson100]

I'm sure the fee is one aspect of the complication (re Trix ITK) with Southampton knowing they have to sell, wanting to get the best fee are happy to wait and see who pipes up in the next month or so, if ManC don't come in and bid 55m then our offer (whatever that may be) might end up being the best and they have to take it.

Another will be the player himself is thinking along the same lines. He knows we want him and would come to us, but if Arsenal, ManU etc make moves and sound him out then he's going to want to wait and see if anything concrete comes of it because as much as he'd come to us, he'd prefer to be playing CL and getting CL wages.

You've probably got similar situation with players like Kramer. Big boys are sniffing so he and club are waiting to see what materialises before decisions can be made.

You can understand some of the complications, we have interest in very good players but we have fiscal limitations, the players have interest in very good teams and very good wages, their clubs have interest in maximising the money they get for losing the player. All of those things have to align for us to get close to buying the player.

Sure.

IIRC it was suggested when we signed Eriksen that we had sat on that deal all summer as we tried to make other deals happen (ie. Willian) and when that went tits up we pulled the trigger. Levy's comment the other week in the q & A about deals happening late is pertinent for all the reasons you pointed out. If come the last two weeks of August and Kramer, Schneiderlin and Imbula or whoever are still with their current clubs, suddenly the dynamic changes; their agents will be banging the door down to come to us, to secure a deal and a payoff, we have the power and realistically can choose based on our pecking order. Of course there is brinksmanship here and the potential to lose is large if you end up with Stambouli as the last chicken in Tesco's after the rest have been already sold.

This seems to me to be why so many of our deals have been late but not last day. We're in the market and there's a sweet spot towards the end. The last day has died off in recent years and seems to be more about outs, at least for us.

 

[Nocando]

You're a waste of space.

You sound like my old head teacher. Anyway, like you, I soon showed him, those tickets don't go on cars all by themselves, just like this thread didn't get back on ITK track all by itself.

I thank you.

 

[spurs9]

See above.

I'd rather wait all summer and either get a player guaranteed to improve us or not sign anyone at all. We don't need squad thickening, we have good kids coming through who can fill this remit (or better). Dier, Mason and Bentaleb have just had their first full season's, so will be even more experienced next year, Onomah, Winks, Pritchard and Veljkovic will be added to the first team group as well as will Wimmer and Trippier.

We don't need any more padding.

This is spot on in terms of defence and CM, we just need to concentrate on shifting the players we have no plans for. In terms of AM & Strikers, I think we need to bring in at least a back up striker and also a pacey, tricky wide player for the right hand side.

 

[yankspurs]

Sure.

IIRC it was suggested when we signed Eriksen that we had sat on that deal all summer as we tried to make other deals happen (ie. Willian) and when that went tits up we pulled the trigger. Levy's comment the other week in the q & A about deals happening late is pertinent for all the reasons you pointed out. If come the last two weeks of August and Kramer, Schneiderlin and Imbula or whoever are still with their current clubs, suddenly the dynamic changes; their agents will be banging the door down to come to us, to secure a deal and a payoff, we have the power and realistically can choose based on our pecking order. Of course there is brinksmanship here and the potential to lose is large if you end up with Stambouli as the last chicken in Tesco's after the rest have been already sold.

This seems to me to be why so many of our deals have been late but not last day. We're in the market and there's a sweet spot towards the end. The last day has died off in recent years and seems to be more about outs, at least for us.

The downside to waiting until the last 2 weeks of August to do anything is that the players miss all of pre season with their new clubs and also come in after the campaign has already started. We need to get our signings done early this window so they have the pre season with the rest of the first team to get an understanding of eachother instead of learning on the fly. It's imperative for us to get off to a quick start in the upcoming season, especially with that shit show of a schedule during the run in. It'll certainly help if we get one or 2 first team quality players in time for pre season. Unfortunately, Dear Leader specializes in leaving it late.

So lets just hope things pick up with Schneiderlin soon.

 

[St José Dominguez]

Whether it's Schneiderlin, Kramer or someone else their level or even someone slightly below their level it is in my opinion 100% imperative that we make that signing.

The current crop of CMs at the club are either simply not good enough or simply don't fit what Pochettino wants. The youth players coming through it would be absurd to rely upon and hope they enable us to improve.

If we don't bring in a suitable CM this summer I have no hope of us improving this season and in some ways there's potential we could end up with fewer points.

 

[rawhide]

Why the fuck are our transfer deals always so bloody complicated? You'd think all Levy has to do is get the player and his agent into his cave / office and just hover his finger over the button that opens the floor into the shark pool.

"So you expect me to talk"

"No Mr Schneiderlin I expect you to sign*"

*It's actually quite easy to do a Sean Connery impression by saying MS' name















































































I bet you tried.

Sorry, but the pedant in me has to point out that in your little role play MS plays Bond, so Levy will be saying "Schneiderlin" in the accent of Auric Goldfinger.

And yes, I did the accent anyway.

 

[mill]

Licky bum.

Informer

 

[Grey Fox]

The " complications" could just be that Southampton are wanting to find a replacement before agreeing any deal 8n MS

 

[RButch]

I did a little comparison between a few CDM/CM's around the globe and Schneiderlin, (Squawka) LINK HERE.

He competes in every domain against what the footballing world considers, (for a variety of reasons) some of the best CDM's in the world.

Because I believe their potential ceilings are higher I'd still rather go for Kramer or Geis, but we must make a choice...

Get the real deal now, or invest in potential.

 

[eddiev14]

I did a little comparison between a few CDM/CM's around the globe and Schneiderlin, (Squawka) LINK HERE.

He competes in every domain against what the footballing world considers, (for a variety of reasons) some of the best CDM's in the world.

Because I believe their potential ceilings are higher I'd still rather go for Kramer or Geis, but we must make a choice...

Get the real deal now, or invest in potential.

I'd like to see that comparison with clearances included...

 

[RButch]

I'd like to see that comparison with clearances included...

I did,

Schneiderlin 1.94 per 90
Matic 3.72 per 90
Busquets 0.90 per 90
Matuidi 0.82 per 90
Carrick 2.28 per 90

If you compare defensive styles with the stats in the link, it would suggest that Schneiderlin/Southampton is/are proactive in defending, aiming to intercept and engage attackers rather than contain, force wide and clear.

 

[JUSTINSIGNAL]

The downside to waiting until the last 2 weeks of August to do anything is that the players miss all of pre season with their new clubs and also come in after the campaign has already started. We need to get our signings done early this window so they have the pre season with the rest of the first team to get an understanding of eachother instead of learning on the fly. It's imperative for us to get off to a quick start in the upcoming season, especially with that shit show of a schedule during the run in. It'll certainly help if we get one or 2 first team quality players in time for pre season. Unfortunately, Dear Leader specializes in leaving it late.

So lets just hope things pick up with Schneiderlin soon.

Have you not read any of the previous posts? It's not always Levys fault.

In a perfect world we would get all our signings done early but if you want quality players who have the ability to play for teams that are bigger than us, then unfortunately you need to wait until those clubs have finished their business and pick up the left overs.

 

[Spursidol]

Agreed. The only reason we should move on from Schneiderlin at this junction imho is if he signs for someone else or our backup targets may also be tempted elsewhere. We have too many there, it's the top quality we need or none at all.

If our talent ID team have done their job, they will have identified 3 or 4 players who are close to what Poch wants out of Schneiderlin and we should be moving on to one of these if MS does not arrive according to some deadline (eg next 2 weeks) so as to play in pre-season and get used to the system.

The waiting game is what we tried last summer - and found MS wasn't prepared to push, Southampton were prepared to stand firm, and we got Stambouli (identified by Southampton as a cheap replacement for MS). So not a route to repeat.

 

[L-man]

The " complications" could just be that Southampton are wanting to find a replacement before agreeing any deal 8n MS

I thought Saints pretty much have Clasie lined up for when they sell MS

 

[Bus-Conductor]

This is spot on in terms of defence and CM, we just need to concentrate on shifting the players we have no plans for. In terms of AM & Strikers, I think we need to bring in at least a back up striker and also a pacey, tricky wide player for the right hand side.

I guess a case can be made for going after a back up striker, if we offload Adebayor and Soldado, but we have Chadli, who IMO would be better as a striker than he is as a wide AM.

 

[spurs9]

I guess a case can be made for going after a back up striker, if we offload Adebayor and Soldado, but we have Chadli, who IMO would be better as a striker than he is as a wide AM.

I agree with you on Chadli in theory, but theories don't always play out in practice. Personally I think Chadli is a natural second striker and they don't always convert well into loan strikers, so I would prefer to have him challenging for the AML role with another and have him as a 3rd choice emergency striker.

But say we did off load Ade (even if we don't I don't think he will play for us again) & Soldado, if we have Chadli as a second choice striker, we will be light for AMs, as we will have Eriksen, Lamela, Pritchard plus possibly Townsend for 3 positions, plus we will be desperately lacking pace.

I think it would be a good idea to have a back up striker that can play as a wide forward (Martial & N'jie come to mind) and bring in a fast, tricky winger/wide forward than can play either side to add to Kane, Eriksen, Chadli, Lamela & Pritchard (seven players for 4 positions) which would leave room for players like Oduwa and Onomah to fill in for some game time, without compromising our first choice options. I also think that would give us a good selection of skill sets too. The hardest part of that would be to find buyers for Ade, Soldado, Lennon and Townsend.

 

[Gedson100]

The downside to waiting until the last 2 weeks of August to do anything is that the players miss all of pre season with their new clubs and also come in after the campaign has already started. We need to get our signings done early this window so they have the pre season with the rest of the first team to get an understanding of eachother instead of learning on the fly. It's imperative for us to get off to a quick start in the upcoming season, especially with that shit show of a schedule during the run in. It'll certainly help if we get one or 2 first team quality players in time for pre season. Unfortunately, Dear Leader specializes in leaving it late.

So lets just hope things pick up with Schneiderlin soon.

Well all that is entirely self-apparent.

In an ideal world, yes, you would get all your transfers done on July 1st and work from there but, an this is super relevant, we are not competing at the very top of the market and as such we are bound by the limitations of what goes on around us.

Take Schneiderlin. Would you settle for him being here in September or not at all?

If the only way we are getting Schneiderlin (or Kramer, or whoever we can get from out priority CM list) is to play a long game what should we do? We can offer for Schneiderlin now, Southampton and he know we want him, we can;t make him come immediately though, we have to wait. It isn't a case of "slapping in a £25m bid" if he's hedging. So do we therefore go after John Q Midfielder and sign him now, purely because he'll be here for pre-season and sit on our hands as Schneiderlin fails to secure a move out of Southampton? Of course not! We stay in the game as long as we need to to give ourselves the best chance of getting the player. If a CL club comes in on August 15th we can do nothing but at least we were there if the move became possible.

Ditto other players. The market necessarily accelerates as it comes nearer to the window shutting.

The issue is with the transfer window shutting when it does. If it opened a month earlier and shut on July 31st, everyone would be sorted, but it doesn't, so what are you gonna do? The best you can.

 

[Spursidol]

I guess a case can be made for going after a back up striker, if we offload Adebayor and Soldado, but we have Chadli, who IMO would be better as a striker than he is as a wide AM.

Chadli has played a few times as a striker, but not on a regular basis.

If we play about 60 games (as we did last season) then we shouldn't expect Kane to start more than 40 which means the other striker needs to start 20 matches, That's too much to risk for a player like Chadli who hasn't played striker on a regular basis. And if (god forbid) Kane is injured, then we are totally reliant on a standin striker.

No thanks, another striker is a 'must' for me - very happy if they can also play as a WF so that person can re-inforrce our AM options too, that would be excellent planning,

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Chadli has played a few times as a striker, but not on a regular basis.

If we play about 60 games (as we did last season) then we shouldn't expect Kane to start more than 40 which means the other striker needs to start 20 matches, That's too much to risk for a player like Chadli who hasn't played striker on a regular basis. And if (god forbid) Kane is injured, then we are totally reliant on a standin striker.

No thanks, another striker is a 'must' for me - very happy if they can also play as a WF so that person can re-inforrce our AM options too, that would be excellent planning,

I really think it's going to be hard to find a quality experienced striker who would come to us to be stand in for a handful of games next season.

Even experienced strikers are a gamble (Torres, Soldado, etc etc) especially when they are just going to get games in fits and starts.

Chaldi effectively plays as a wide striker anyway, and he's experienced in this league, he has the attributes, I'd happily take him as striker back up.