If we don't fix our set-pieces (corners, especially) and ability to make high value decisions in the final third - done well in the last few games, but overall it needs improvement - we won't, simple.
Also, poch has to tweak his player management a bit and drop out-of-form players when he should.
The game is about fine, fine margins at this level; if you don't have that fine tuning to match those fine margins, then you won't win it.
We can win a title every now and again with the model we have. I didn’t think the signings we made in the summer was enough to improve us sufficiently and I said so at the time. I came up against a lot of opposition for that. We signed defenders but spent 10 million on a 32 year old to boost our attack, not good business.
We could and should have won trophies but we decided as a club, that we are too good for the FA cup, the league cup and the Europa cup. I don't know where the fuck this idea comes from. We've only won the league twice and been in European cup once as champions.
Nearly 10 years without a trophy is bollocks, we need to win something and stop making excuses.
I believe our model can get around the problem of losing players. We need to fine tune out scouting system and make it better. We spent 70 million on players that have not shown themselves to be good enough. We need a commitment to the DOF model. We need to take a bit more of a chance on youth. Have them play in premier league matches not just two or three matches in the cup. I want to see Onomah coming back rather than us waiting until the closing minutes to buy a substandard midfielder for 20-30 million pounds.For me it’s wages. You can build a great team over a couple of years like Poch has done but you can’t sustain it without a big wage. When a player is on 60k here but can get 150k elsewhere, we will always struggle to keep them. If they’re on a similar wage structure to the other big clubs, then they’ll be less desire to move on their part. And other big players will be more content on the bench, as you see with other big clubs.
I don’t know what everyone is on but I genuinely imagine that almost every single player could double their wages if they left in the summer. There’s more greed than loyalty in football, that’s just the way it is nowadays. I’ve made my thoughts clear on how I feel about being taken over and unfortunately I still believe it’s the only way we’ll compete with the oil clubs on a regular basis. If there was a wage cap of £100k a player, most players would have chosen us over City and we’d have won the league by now. Unfortunately there’s no wage cap...
I’m proud of what we’ve done and how we’ve done it but my opinion is that, unfortunately, if we want to seriously challenge for titles... and do it on a regular basis.... we need a very decent investment and to pay everyone what they’re worth within the current market.
I don't think he was bought purely as a backup to HK but also as someone that he could learn off. FL wasa top striker with different skills to Harry and is someone who has a lot to give in terms of experience. That can only be beneficial to both Harry and the club.
A boring, and not the easy or popular answer, but simply we must keep improving all facets, both with and without the ball, and work to minimise mistakes. In particular there are too many crunch games I feel where we lose because we commit an error or concede avoidable goals, obviously the mentality and resilience of the squad has come a long, long way in recent years but we still can be a bit weak on the very biggest occasions.
Last season we beat all of the big sides at home apart from liverpool, with whom we drew. We were also by far the better side in each of those ties bar Liverpool.We need to raise our game against the big teams in the league and beat the likes of Chelsea, Utd and City on a regular basis. A lot is down to belief that we can do that. We don't really have that.
Though van dyke was going city now.Liverpool are about to drop £75m on Van Dijk and have Naby Keita coming in next season for near enough the same amount. We're nowhere near that level of spend. Money is the difference.