Gini is a good player and was probably a bit underrated in his time here, as he did much of the unglamorous stuff to keep our shape. Seemed he wanted a longer deal, then Barcelona were in for him and that was it. Only it wasn’t, as Barcelona didn’t have a pot to piss in, so PSG came in. He went there on good money but he has been a bit part player and needs a move. Relatively speaking, I’m sure he will be managing just fine with the cash in a world class city and all, but from a footballing perspective it is a waste for him.
So what next?
My tuppence worth is don’t go back. Rush coming back from Juventus is the exception to the rule.
We’ve all moved on.
While there is a temptation to add another midfielder to boost the numbers, before going big on the midfield next summer, I would rather Jones and Elliot be given as many minutes as possible, assuming form and fitness is fine, to both grow as players here and now, while also showing they can be relied on for the longer haul.
Arguably Wijnaldum would be “safer” than Jones or Elliot, but it doesn’t really tell us anything. Let the younger midfielders have a go, rotating in with our established/older midfielders, and who knows, they might just show us that the bulk of the future midfield is already here.
That’s the debate. He was definitely influencing games less. There is always the debate on cause vs effect, but there were definitely those who thought his drop off was primary and not just a result of the challenges the team in general were facing. His subsequent inability to establish himself at PSG bolsters that line of thinking.
I havent heard that one specifically, but there are undoubtedly a bunch of reasonable explanations for his lack of impact there as well. But this means we’ve either got a complex situation where a bunch of unrelated issues all have to exist to explain it, or there is one simple explanation - he’s gone off the boil.
that’s not what I said. Robertson is a better defender. Alonso is a better attacker as a defender. they play in different systems and the result of our debate was Alonso was a murderer LOL
Robbie Fowler too. Don’t care how well it worked out, he’s someone that should have never been allowed to leave.
So was pretty much everyone and all his midfield partners kept getting injured or played at centre back.
I remember this argument when we found out he was leaving. He played so many minutes it was impossible to work out how we would replace those without bringing someone in. Then we didn’t and most of the lads stayed fit but Thiago aside, none of them really played to the same level of consistency Gini did, even if that level was some way below what Thiago was doing for us last season.
Pretty sure if we look back at Hendo as a teenager we will see someone who was also very skillful. I am sure many of you guys know that ‚skill skool’ YouTube video.
We do have growing revenues, including cash from another excellent run in the CL, and a reset of some of our wages being paid out, so there may still be money in the kitty to pay for these targets next summer, particularly if we can cover much of the cost of Nunez and Diaz with sales this summer (or from funds we had available and carried over last year?).
