Not a go at you @matty, but I have laughed a few times already this season when someone has had a go at a player/voted so and so man of the match and then revealed they have only seen very abridged highlights.
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We still seem a bit between styles. When Slot inherited the team he wanted to move from full throttle to more control. It partially worked but a lot of games at the end of the season we started with no control and only got results as we played catch up, full throttle second half.
This season feels the same. We are failing to control and only get on top when we need to push on for goals to win or draw. Both leave us defensively open.
So I really see this as a test of Slot. I am not for one second belittling his first season but he is now trying to impose more of his style, with more of his players.
It’s a real test of shaping something.
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Yeah I might have done that with Dom a few weeks back because I only watched half a game.
I’ve yet to see us score late on this season bar Chiesa’s against Bournemouth and Dom’s against Arsenal.
Can’t believe there’s even a discussion around keeping Nunez. Seeds for moving on from him were sown well before the end of last season and the loss of Jota.
He got seven goals and seven assists all season and was largely garbage bar the odd flash of his talent.
As much as it may appear that we’ve changed too much this summer there is zero case for keeping Nunez and risk losing the opportunity to bring in Ekitike and Isak. It’s still September and Ekitike has almost equalled Darwin’s goal count from last season.
Ultimately there’s a strong case for every move we made this summer. Maybe in hindsight we should have tried to do more last summer but, there’s very good reasoning behind why we didn’t and we won the league so hard to argue that was the wrong move. Realistically the only move we made this summer that I think has any case for being “one too many” was letting Diaz go, not that we directly replaced him with anyone anyway.
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Now that Hughes is in situ I doubt we will have such a radical upheaval in one window moving forward. Things will be spaced out and I would imagine the business will be done in a more incremental fashion.
With that said, in just looking at the summer window just gone, there’s a good case for every move we made and I am delighted with the business we have done. So far it hasn’t fully clicked, but we are top of the league and there’s more to come. I think the key to winning the Prem will be staying there or thereabouts while we work our way to form. Let’s see if we can do that. It should not be overlooked that Arsenal have strengthened again and have been investing heavily for a few years.
I definitely see a good case to say we should have kept Diaz, as he is a smashing player. The flip side is of course he wanted to leave, and usually we don’t keep players against their wishes. We aren’t Newcastle! In addition his contract was hitting the two year marker and so the transfer fee would have started to diminish. I see Hughes’s fingerprints here, in choosing to collect the decent fee and reinvest.
As I look at the current squad, I would be tempted to play a 4-4-2 diamond. I think it will offer more solidity and a better balance between defence and attack. I don’t think we are especially great on the wing right now, and a tweak might see an uptick.
Grav at the base of the midfield. Szobo right, Mac left, Wirtz at the tip. Two from Isak, Ekitike and Salah up top - plenty of minutes for all of them. Frimpong and Kerkez to give us some width, Van Dijk and Konate in the middle, with Alisson in goal.
Some great players will be on the bench and can rotate in as needed, but I think that sort of set up is better than what I’ve been seeing so far, for this group of players.
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Shocking game. Shocking defending and we have a huge hole in the middle of the pitch, no taking control of the match.
Poor end in the one. Don’t understand why the whistle wasn’t blown when Kerkez booted the ball out at 96:30 when there was only 6 min of ET…
Not shocked at all. Not by result. Not by performance. Palace are now 18 games unbeaten in all competitions. 3 games of those against us. Maybe they got our number at the moment. At least we have a chance to put that right in the league cup next month.
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I’m not sure the club felt they could justify giving him the contract he wanted at his age and position.
There is the old adage that you let their legs go on someone else’s pitch. Well, if that’s true, then you have to let them go before their legs go, and then mean they depart while it still looks like they could be useful.
I think the club had to make a pragmatic decision on Quansah.
Everything we heard from the club last year, when Newcastle were sniffing round him, was that he was a player the club really believed in and he was absolutely not for sale. And then we have the agreement with Leverkusen being not only a buyback, but also a pre agreed contract with the player himself.
This suggests that the club definitely do not feel Quansah is done at the club.
But he is 23, and while the depth would be nice at this point in time, at this point in his career he is going to stagnate playing occasional football as fourth choice.
I appreciate it feels a mistake now, but it won’t feel a mistake if he smashes it at Leverkusen, and returns to the club in a few years to lead the defence as first choice starter.
I think the Quansah deal could prove to be an incredibly astute bit of long term planning. The reason it feels like a mistake now is because the lad who came in to replace him did his ACL on his debut.
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Trent might have stayed if we gave him VVD-level wage (we never did, even though it should be more reasonable than giving Flo 200k-per-week). The same could be said for Diaz he had got higher wages (he certainly deserved 200k-per-week than Flo as well).
I think this is paramount not just for Mo but for Ekitike and Isak as with the fullback overlapping we will hopefully get in more crosses and cutbacks which hopefully Mo, Isak & Ekitike will thrive on.
I was actually ok with Frimpong today against Gala as he got into the box and attacked their fullback quite a lot and he has a very good understanding with Flo, just needs to improve the end product or final cross. I think also with Mo moving inside Frimmy will benefit from give & goes to use his pace to beat the defence.
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Diaz is 28. That is hardly an age at which a player loses his legs. He isn’t very injury-prone, so he has surely ± four more years at his current level. That’s also why Bayern came in for him and were interested to make him one of their key players.
I’ll give you Quansah. Long-term, it’s a good move, and if the Guehi move had come off as the club expected to happen, then we’d be fine, even with Leoni being out. The Guehi transfer falling through, coupled with Leoni’s long-term injury happening at the same time, is a real stroke of bad luck. Maybe the club shouldn’t have trusted Crystal Palace as they did. The latter broke the mutually settled gentlemen’s agreement, and thus we’ll suffer as a result, at least until January.
I think we’re seeing the impact of this far less in terms of direct chance creation and more in the fact that the ball just doesnt stick as well when it’s Gapko who we’re looking for when trying to get the ball forward. The impact of that in our inability to gain a big foothold in a game seems magnified when Mo is so out of the game as he has been for most of this season.
Diaz, Harvey, and Quansah were all elective moves that in isolation are entirely defensible, but become more questionable, especially when taken as a collective, when they are made in the context of the overall summer and the number of other moves we already had to make. The form and recent results doesnt necessarily mean the decisions were wrong, but the longer this takes for us to start consistently looking like a team the less able Slot and Hughes are going to be able to believably swat away those accusations that it was too much in 1 summer.
We didnt do it because we felt we had to. We accepted he was not going to sign a new deal on terms we were willing to offer and so we were already looking at what came next as we prepared to have him leave for free next year. When the offer came in a strategic decision was made that it was better to take it and put it towards the Slotification of the side now than hang on for another.
I get you dont like the move and probably feel vindicated, but continuing to mischaracterize what we did and why with the dumb version of the argument for allowing him to leave, and doing it in pretty much every thread, is really unhelpful.
agree with Hope…( i think i do anyhow, i must admit though i am on the fence a bit )
whilst these are all very reasonable REASONS for letting individual players go, the point of Hopes post is, that it hasnt served the club well.
the INDIVIDUAL reason for letting Quansah develop elsewhere is sound as an isolated decision, but letting 6/7 players go at one hit might be a bit too abrupt.
the three that stick out are Diaz, Quansah and Elliot…all three players could have been kept for 6-12 months for this assimilation period, and i know it wouldnt have been ideal for them, but this is football at the top level, we cant please every player in every moment.
we’d just finished as league champions, not fourth place, the squad needed fresh players, but did it need the overhaul it got?..strangley enough, even if we did ALL our business we did and kept those three, the squad still wouldnt be bloated.
i know we could never facilitate for the Jota moment, but i see that as the moment we decided we should get BOTH Ekitike and Isak…
i know it feels top heavy, but it should be
Left Cody/Diaz
Centre Isak/Hugo
right Salah/Chiesa - Salah needs sitting in my mind
Rio will get his chance, didnt need to be this moment or never
then you have Wirtz, Dom, Macca, Harvey, Curtis and Gravenberch fighting for three spots, and i concede thats maybe one too many all things being equal, but its not 6 into three really, its wirtz/Harvey plus dom/Macca/Curtis plus Ryan/system change
the defence nothing is needed to add.
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Strong feeling that we should have also seen Mo go this summer with that reasoning…
yeah…Mos the elephant in the room here
if the club really is ruthless as it needs to be to stay at the top, then the next few months will be interesting if Mo doesnt start adding to his game, AFCON could be a real pivotel point for this teams identity
slight change of tack here, but not irrelevant to the subject, especially considering the cover at CB, is how we manage this with VVD… the guy is definately the best centre half i have ever seen play the game live , maybe even the best player (and ive see Messi) he really is one of the all time greats, and hes still probably the best CB in the league…how long that is possible is kinda sad way of thinking, but Slot and co have to do it…CBs cant hide like a winger…weve failed to protect him this window…
which is incidently another reason for keeping Quansah around, to protect VVD
One point Diaz wasn’t leaving for free next year he had 2 years left. He could have still been sold in 12 months if needed to be. Also we have let Konate go into the last year of his contract when its been widely reported he has rejected so whats the difference.
The last point calling my point unhelpful is poor this is a discussion forum. You have made your point which you are entitled too as I’am.
Fair point about the specifics of the contract, but the overall point is the same - a player whose sell on value was about to precipitously drop due to the contract stand off we found ourselves in. Once we lock in and decide we’re not going to pay him what he wants, transition planning has to commence and when an offer came in for him that high we seemingly decided it was in our best interests to take it at move on immediately than draw it out and try to replace him down the line with less funds available to do it.
I said at the time that I didnt agree with the move because it felt like we were being too clever…too sure of our ability to improve and underestimating the impact of making so many changes. I still stand by that, but I at least frame the counter position Hughes and Slot used fairly.
It is a discussion forum but there is a point where something becomes closer to spam than discussion, and repeatedly raising the worst version of an argument just so you can knock it down, and doing so regardless of what is being discussed, is pretty much that.
I think we will to have to agree to disagree on this at the minute.
The sale of Diaz and him not been replaced with a similar type player is an issue at the minute.
If it becomes less of an issue going forward I will be happy to admit it was the best way forward.
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I appreciate the quick edit, but I will reiterate that I did not like the sale either so we dont even disagree on the merits of the move.