The positive view of that is there is still talent everywhere, you just have to find it and give it a pathway to succeed.
It’s that second part that is tough for a club like us.
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This is terrible planning. We had only Rio and Gakpo as Wingers for when our best wide forward maybe ever declined and left.
Awful planning. Truly.
Now we have to do something about it. Two excellent wingers needed.
Yeah with him specifically there was maybe a six month window to make that call, as Leipzig obviously did and for them it’s lower risk.
In general of course people in our club are paid mega bucks to be getting the next top wide players, be it Diomande or the others. As somebody just said, a lot of talent around relatively.
And what if the guy we had been following for a few years and had planned on bringing in this summer is no longer the best option because of the other worldly emergence of Diamonde? Does pivoting to what now looks like the best option represent bad planning?
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Why would we only have one option? that would be very poor.
Never mind who we buy this summer, we should also have had one player at least here a year or two ago, getting used to the league and getting minutes to then be ready to step up now we really need them.
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Thats obviously not the point is it and it should be absolutely clear that is not the way we approach transfer either.
The point is we would have had a plan for this summer that was years in the making. The fact a new player has emerged on an outrageous trajectory to the point our previously tracked options are no longer the best option does not represent a lack of planning.
But ignore that…you have agreed with Sweeting’s point about giving emerging players the pathway to development being our challenge yet are ignoring it in your argument. Paying the money to keep Mo meant playing him every week. Where is the room to get that ready made replacement in waiting the minutes you talkabout?
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No that isn’t the point, and we don’t have one plan just for this year. We have a rolling plan.
As I mentioned, proper planning would have had a player (or two) here already and bedded in ready to go right now. Hell, even before last year so they could have contributed after selling Diaz and we wouldnt have seen such a shitshow.
And no, I agreed with Sweeting’s point about there being a lot of talent around that we could get, not that it’s some impassable challenge to give players minutes and develop them.
Especially when our options were a kid, Gakpo and an ageing Salah.
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I never said it was impossible but its obviously more difficult when you’re competing for top trophies.
Teams like Leganes and, to a lesser extent, Leipzig are signing players with a view to platforming them and selling them. We don’t really operate like that, we want to sign players to win us major trophies - so the pathway is more difficult.
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Of course but that´s why people at the club are pàid the big bucks to make sure we do it.
Be it buy now and a player joins later, or them comiing in and making sure they get enough minutes.
Yeah but its nearly impossible because of the variety of leagues and standards. There are thousands of players to pick from. How do you judge a lad playing in the 6th division in USA, a kid in the U18s and someone in the Norwegian league to know for sure who is worth dedicating the time to developing?
These lads taking an intermediate step, or maybe even several, is unfortunately just a fact of life when you’re of a certain standard in the first team. I do think we will try and get more of these players earlier but it will also mean lots more misses.
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I mean, you´ve gone for the obscurest places, but for example Abde at Betis was not difficult to know about. A while ago, but Dembele when he was at Rennes.
Even our signing now, Munoz. He was not difficult to know about if you have scouting networks and teams like big clubs have. We emply so many people and use reems of data to keep an eye on stuff like this.
Based on hindsight which remains undefeated in football
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Not really. I said a year ago it was madness to let Diaz go and not replace him.
I said 2 years ago we needed to get Salah´s replacement in as he was at that age of decline. I was wrong in the sense that Salah would go on to have a very good season, but if I can see the impending issues, people paid millions should definitely have some ´foresight´.
Its still hindsight.
Because its based in large part on the poor season that we had. Without the poor season its not an issue
I chose USA 6th tier because that’s roughly where Diomande was. Then last year he played barely 500 minutes in the Spanish 2nd division, scoring twice.
If we had signed him at that point as Salah’s successor we’d be lambasting the club for lacking ambition. This year is honestly the first chance any “big” club would be able to sign him with any confidence.
Even Munoz - he moved to Osasuna one year ago. For us to move for him now we obviously knew who he was at Real Madrid Castilla but we waited for him to take that step up before signing him. There are levels of the game we just can’t bank on that performance will translate, so all we can do is wait and see. It ends up costing more but it has a higher success rate.
However the cost of signing players is becoming so ridiculous that I think it will cause a reevaluation of that strategy. We’ll probably try to sign these lads now before they are first team ready and loan them out to get their seasoning, rather than waiting. Although I’d still expect 1/2 “big” money outlays per year.
Abde turns 25 this year and this season is the first time he’s got more than 4 league goals in a season. Why would we have had any confidence in him before now?
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Our model is not to buy every promising young player in the world.
Look at Chelsea who do that. How’s it working for them?
Within limits of what they can do, we’re not doing badly. But there’s room for improvement.
However there’re constraints. The academy system is not at the level of the Segundo in Spain which is far more competitive. Then you have Brexit
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It’s amazing how certain players can drop off and age so quickly - we saw similar to Macallister with Fabinho. Suddenly looking like he was walking in treacle.
Although I suddenly saw Fabinho’s face appear in one of the Brazil games recently!
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Talking about what has already happened is like predicting yesterday’s stock market—it’s too easy to say. While many aspects of football can be coached, I think the real distance between top talents comes down to what they figure out on their own. I see thousands of comments saying things like “buy someone to understudy Virgil van Dijk” or “understudy Mo Salah,” but most of the qualities that make those players special simply aren’t learnable. If you give Harvey Elliott ten more year playing next to Salah, he doesn’t magically acquire Salah’s traits. If we could actually train someone to be that physically dominant and intelligent like VVD, it would be a illegal science.
Football, like many other sports, requires a rare combination of raw talent and built experience. Instinct is something that requires real-world experience to develop. It’s just like telling your son a thousand times not to waste his time chasing girls; he still has to get his heart broken to truly understand it.
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In that telling I guess Florentina was the homely girl with the big boobs who treated Mo like a prince and lifted his spirit and confidence
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