It’s all very well buying all the talent, but it’s a team game. I’m old enough to remember Notts Forest winning the league and the European cup with a team of sub stars. You need to decide what game you’re going to play and acquire players accordingly.
You mean you are old enough to remember Nottingham Forrest winning the Fist Division and European Cup, Notts is Notts County - 2 clubs you do not want to mix up and make comparissons
I am a little lost on the idea that Hughes just looks at the side and thinks we need players?
I am sure the idea is that Slot identifies areas that need strengthening and thent he Stats guys do their business and present players to Hughes and Slot etc.
Then collectively they make a decision on the signings, I don’t think any player would signed without Slots input.
Bit rough mate, pulling him up on that extra ‘r’ in Forest. Don’t they spell it Nottm also?
Interesting to see they won the ‘Fist’ division though. Sounds painful
Definitely. We need to see good football. If it comes after getting a little foothold with a couple of wins, even if the performance is iffy, I’ll take it at this point.
As things stand the pattern of play is not clear, I’m not sure what Slot is even trying to do, or how the new signings all fit in. Over and above that the confidence looks shot, such that conceding a goal leads us to fall apart and concede more.
We didn’t wait until deadline day. We signed Leoni and spent almost the entire window haggling over Guehi.
With respect to Guehi, we had a target we prized. The seller didn’t agree until deadline day, and then withdrew. You’ve followed Edwards long enough to know that when he wants someone, he targets them. He doesn’t pivot unless he knows a deal isn’t possible. Perhaps it was a miscalculation on his part, but the deal was done until Glasner threw a fit at the last second. There was no time to pivot.
Some argue that they should have sourced a backup option. But it’s hard to persuade a good, dependable CB to come here when it appears that they’ll be, at best, the fourth choice CB behind Van Dijk, Ibou, and Liverpool’s main target (Guehi). It’s not fair to unsettle a player elsewhere as a backup choice, and they’re not going to come here if they’re expected to ride the bench for most of the year.
Because he was the best striker in the league last year and a longterm target.
Because he was an outstanding young talent and Slot felt we could use more than one 9 to replace Nunez and Jota.
We evidently believed that a combination of Gakpo, Wirtz, and some Ekitike would suffice without blocking Rio. Of all of your questions, this is the one that I most agree with, though. It was a miscalculation by them unless they were planning to shift to a front 2.
They believed he would work as a number 10, a false 9, and mixing him in as a LW at times. The issue is that they underestimated how difficult his transition would be from the Bundesliga to the Premier League. But I still think he’ll come good.
All the talk of what was done in the summer is a distraction from what is the key issue is the players we have available performing to the level it should be.
Someone mentioned what is Slots remit its simple develope a system and style of play to win football matches. We are now 4 months into the season and this isn’t happening.
We shouldn’t forget how last season went, a bit of context is always needed.
Gakpo was reverted back to LW basically since Slot took over and Diaz was from around a year or so ago converted to a centre forward option. It was initially Jota, then Diaz and Nunez also of course had his amount of games up top.
Both Gakpo and Diaz had quality seasons, their best up until that point at Liverpool.
It was clear pretty early that we would aim for a new striker the following summer. I made a prediction I think a month or two into the season that Slot would probably look at the side and think he needs a better #10 and #9.
Obviously Jota’s tragedy meant that we had to add another body.
I also thought it was a real possibility that we go into this season with 5 senior forwards instead of 6.
I would argue that there is a good case to be made for Diaz being out best overall attacker. Salah was clearly our best goalscorer and creator. But he could do what he did because the entire team was geared to creating favourable conditions for him. And Diaz had a huge part in this.
Letting him go was probably a lot less embarrassing for the club if Diaz, or more so his father, had decided to throw his dummy out the pram to get his move away… I mean strike action was trending amongst forwards in the summer…!
