If he gave his word then changed his mind please explain what other options were there to get it done.
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Yes chief, itās a fan forum where most people express their opinions whilst some people just make snipey digs 
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McAlister never played the role he did last season till he came here. A position isnāt set in stone for a player managers see different things.
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Just factually incorrect.
Good luck to Slot having all of three weeks to convert midfielders into new roles instead of us just getting in a player whose role that is.
Zubi was a clear and obvious upgrade to the team, whilst those two are still relatively unknown quantities. Ederson was amazing against us last season but weāve been burnt that way numerous times before. Could be that they just donāt rate many of the gettable options out there as being any better than Grav/Jones/Trent etc.
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Ederson and Zubi are VERY different players. Itās a blunt comparison, but itās like losing on Alonso so thinking we should go after Masherano as an alternative.
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I half wonder if Gravenberch might step up? He has some things to work on, but there are a lot of athletic and footballing gifts there to be honed.
Iām sad that Zubimendi had a change of heart, but we might still come out of this smelling of roses.
Also, itās easy to have a go at Hughes and co, but I donāt see this as their incompetence; rather, the fella changed his mind. So we move on.
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So McAlister had played as the deep lying play maker before had he hmmm ok.
The club has been after a number 6 for at least a couple of years now. Tchouameni, Caicedo, Lavia, and now Zubimendi. Shocking if this doesnāt get sorted. Endo is nothing special. Last year, the window was terrible, and this one, so far, is not faring much better.
With limited time left, my concerns grow. Player negotiations get tougher, prices rise, and selling clubs become more hesitant, finding it harder to replace a player. This causes a ripple effect. Fair play to Real Sociedad, perhaps making it more difficult, but thatās their prerogative. Perhaps they wouldāve been more accommodating with more time.
Thereās still time, and Iād imagine the club is already working on other players, but they need to get this right. The team needs strengthening. Thereās also a possible knock-on effect, with the contract situations around Alexander-Arnold, van Dijk, and Salah, based on how the team looks and how competitive it is.
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Another concern is the supposed interest the club had in Gordon, let alone the price. Gordon isnāt anything special.
Mac Allister is good. No qualms there. The rest well not convinced. Endo just average. Gravenberch nothing special. Szoboszlai had a good first few months. Then pretty average thereafter.
My view was the same before the window closed and remains so now. If Gravenberch and Szoboszlai become good players, then my view will change. Hoping so. Certainly not writing them off anyway. Wait and see.
Also thought there were other weaknesses still not addressed at the time.
Maybe I donāt understand what you are defining as an opportunistic move. Two years ago everyone knew Tchouameni would be leaving Monaco that summer it was just a case of where heād end up. That was an opportunistic move to get involved in that. With this one, there was nothing about the timing that indicated his status at Sociedad had changed or that he was primed to be picked off after turning down other offers previously. I do not understand at all the news that weāre not going to pursue anyone else, but even with that seemingly odd development, it still looks a move pursued because it was a position weād like to strengthen and he was identified as our top candidate.
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Maybe it was opportunistic in as much as this was a very obvious fit for the type of player Slot was looking for, ie one that didnāt require much (if any) time spent identifying the target. And now that obvious option has fallen by the wayside, we now have to put in all that effort, crunch some numbers, scout a bunch of alternatives, reach out to agents (remember, Zubi shares an agent with Hughes lol, making it another easy move to initiate)ā¦ which suggests that would could be aiming for a big January having had time to properly come up with alternate names and put in some groundwork with them that we didnāt have the time for this summer.
Endo was quite good last year. Maybe not the very best but in the next category and certainly well above average.
And if you look, Endo struggled when the team around him was constantly changing. It happens sometimes with defensive; players that they need to know the players around them well to get their own positioning correct.
Iām not saying he is the solution (far from it). He doesnāt fit what we want.
But to assume that āmuch betterā who is also a good fit is readily available is probably harder than you think. Who do you think has a similar skillset, quality level and is available (when compared to Zubimendi)?
Ederson is probably a bit better than Endo but again a different skillset.
One possible explanation might be that this is a profile of a player we havenāt previously scouted and the way our models work cannot just magic out analyses of completely different profiles. There is likely not just a big data dump process that needs to be performed but also a new model built to identify who the data driven targets should be. It is possible we just donāt feel we have the information to move forward on anything else, but did on this player because Zubi is a relatively known quantity and there are personal connections within Hughesā network that could be used to vet some elements of the deal? But now that has fallen through we dont feel weāve got enough information to identify alternative targets?
Disappointing if the truth is anywhere near this, but it might make sense.
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We should really see much more from all of last years signings from other leagues, particularly Gravenberch and Szobozlai who now have a good idea of the league.
They arent machines you buy and switch on.
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Well from a stats point of view, which is always thier starting point, they have all the data and therefore can run it through whatever quereys they like and pretty quickly pull up a long list.
I very much doubt slot turned up and said he wanted a deep lying playmaker and everyone was lost.
On the use of āTop candidateā, i belive it to mean the best option including considering the fiances, and not the best playerā¦therefore its not to mean the next candidate isnt actually a better player.
He got better terms at his boyhood club. Agent games.
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