Men's Soccer (Football) Thread Soccer • Page 622

Suspect United are done for the day now. They might struggle to fill the subs bench for the rest of the season if so.

Antony, Rashford already gone. Malacia on the way out. Licha torn ACL and done for the season. Mount and Shaw perma crocked. Sure some others I've forgotten about.

 

Sounds like we’re trying to add one more defender before the window closes. I don’t know much about this guy but Burnley fans don’t seem very happy about the idea of him leaving. So that’s a plus.

News coming out that Dragusin tore his ACL. So makes sense to add another.

 

Not surprising, they've only conceded 9 goals all season.

 

Well, the Burnley writer just shot this down pretty fast haha so probably not happening

 

I don’t really think we’d mind. Mostly because it’s not about goals with Henry, and also cause Haaland is so good at finishing that he’s gonna pass everyone in that metric lol.

He dropped deep to link play and was very unselfish, often passing when he could easily score himself. He was so devastating when dribbling that players like Danny Mills basically never got over what he did to them. And yes, he was a good goalscorer. There’s a reason Henry still wins almost every best-PL-player-ever poll but it’s not just scoring goals.

 

No idea how good this guy is but he’s gotta have more legs than Kovacic

 

My dream scenario for Tel, short of just playing him over our other options.

He gets the opportunity for quality minutes at the top level. If he plays well, he builds value and experience that we benefit from, either as our player or selling at a potentially sky high fee. If he doesn’t play well, that’s fine too, because he’s still only 19.

the worst case scenario was always keeping him and continuing not to play him, followed closely by a sale or loan w obligation. Here’s hoping he brings some needed happiness to Tottenham.

 

I’m trying to lower expectations a little bit. He’s being widely celebrated by our fans but he’s still 19 years old coming into a tough situation. But it sounds like he has something to prove so hopefully we get the best out of him.

 

He’s good enough ~40% of Barca fans wanted to sell FDJ and keep him a few years back.

 

Good for Spurs lol

 

Very glad to miss out on that one

 

Also good for Spurs

 

If I was getting loaned out to Prescot Cables, I'd wind it in.

 

Omar Marmoush - 75m
Nico Gonzalez - 60m
Abdukodir Khusanov - 40m
Vitor Reis - 37m
Juma Bah - 6m

218m spent this month for City

 

Panic. Stations.

 

Sounds like Spurs are done.

Kinsky
Danso
Tel

Looks pretty good on-paper but I still hate them.

 

The only thing I am surprised with from City is that they are spending this much in the January window but that is also because they should have started turning over the squad two summers ago but did do it as much as needed or in positions that needed it. I am not sure why they thought to wait as it's typically not like the front office or what Pep normally wants.

 

Saw a fact that before today, City had done half of all PL spending in the window.

 

Sooooorta feels like they’re spending in bulk now because they might get a transfer ban? I don’t know what expectations are for their punishment, if anything.

 

I can see how it would look like that but when you look over the past few years, you can definitely see why they are the position they are in.

It's a few things like some of the players they brought in did not hit like they thought and then they let some players leave because a team met their evaluation of the player and they don't want to force players to stay. Then the guys who are still there who are apart of the core that are in the aging soccer player realm agewise. I mean they have four midfielders all over the age of 30 and all of them are their regular starters right now. There was just a poor transition from the last generation of core players to now.

 

And just for context this is all the guys who are 30 and over:

Bernardo Silva - 30
Gundo - 34
KDB - 33
Kovacic - 30
Stones - 30

Then you have a few guys right on the cusp:
Ake - Turns 30 this month
Akanji - Turns 30 this year
Grealish - Turns 30 this year

Then add Kyle Walker to this list even though he just left.

That is just a giant chunk of the core of your team at that 30 or older range so there is a scramble to backfill a ton of these guys.

 

You can argue it’s poor management and I wouldn’t disagree.

But, I also understand keeping things relatively the same for as long as they did because it was working so well. Riding it into the ground is perfectly fine when it results in so many titles haha

Might lead to a tougher rebuild, but they’ll be ok, I’m sure.

The tough part is that they didn’t hit on a couple of the newer signings, as you mentioned.

 

Yeah that is the rub right, they won because they had that core and they rode it into the ground.

But that was a change though from what the previous style of squad management was and from what I understand Pep typically likes. Which I am guessing here but had to be partly driven by the front office not knowing if over the past few off-seasons if Pep was going to stay long term so it made some sense to keep the same squad around.

 

Apparently, his conversation with Ange convinced him.