SpartyBlue

Regardless of what you think of Gana, it's a weak point to use our position in the table as part of an argument against him. We were clearly playing at a high level over the last 2 or 3 months of the season and that happened with Idrissa in the team.

He’s also been underwhelming on the field the last couple years. If we were going to make a high risk move like this we’d want to be very sure we were getting the goals.

Well, in the case of the Knicks they have mismanaged that franchise for awhile. They are still much more of a draw than Cleveland, Detroit etc.. all things being equal. Also, the nets signed big time free agents and they are now based in Brooklyn so NY still wins. I’m speaking more about top to bottom parity. As good as the warriors are (were) they could still get beat on any given night by the worst team in the league. Financially and in every other way the difference between Man City, Bayern, Barca and the worst team in those leagues is far greater. Look no further than what they spend on players. Basketball might have the biggest gap of the 4 major American sports and it’s still not that big. Often the worst teams are just one great draft pick away from completely overhauling their franchise.

Part of the effect of the American system (combined with a salary cap) is that there is a lot more parity. There are certainly advantages to being a really attractive city like New York or L.A. but any team in the league can be competitive and, with good management/drafting, compete for a title. The gap between the top and the bottom in the premier league is much wider and it’s worse in Germany, Spain, Italy etc..

You’ve hit on the main difference with contracts. As far as I’m aware, a player can sit out and still collect his wages. This, combined with a diminishing club fee as a player’s contract winds down, gives his team very little leverage to force him to play. I suppose there already exists a free agency of sorts in football so I won’t ask about that but what does everyone think of allowing trades? I know there can be player swaps as part of deal but I’m talking about straight swaps where the club has the power. For the most elite athletes in American sports they sometimes have no trade clauses inserted into their contract or a list of places where they would be willing to go. Most, however, are at their whim of their clubs.

Point (s) taken. I suppose neither of us can know the nature of Brands relationship with the Barca higher ups. I would hope they see him and us as tough but fair when it comes to transfer dealings. It’s certainly a fine line to walk.

Excellent post and relatable for a fellow yank. When I first started watching “soccer” seriously it seemed outlandish that a team had to pay millions to another team for the right to pay a player many more millions. Of course we do have cases where a team might agree to pay a percentage of a players salary as part of a trade but the idea that you had to pay a club to take a player as standard operating procedure seemed very strange. The other thing that struck me was just how much power the players have. There are certainly holdouts in American sports but it’s somewhat unusual and it’s generally done to get a better contract with your current team. While it happens occasionally in football, the idea that Lebron James, for instance, would hold out and refuse to play until the Cavaliers agreed to trade him to the Lakers is difficult to imagine. In a sport like baseball it would be unthinkable. The one feature I loved was relegation. think relegation would be amazing in American sports. We don’t have the structure for it except in baseball and possibly hockey but it would completely eliminate tanking which has become a major issue, particularly in basketball.

You’re only telling half the story here. On Geri, we provided a place for him to develop while he still belonged to Barca so they would have been perfectly happy with how that worked out. Gomes was always going to be moved on, considering how his tenure went there. They would have been happy enough to get him off the books and it’s not as if there were other clubs offering significantly more. Then there is Mina. He may well come good but, as of now, they will feel like we paid far more than he’s worth. If we had gotten the best of Barca on all our dealings with them then I could see paying full price as an acknowledgement of that but that’s pretty clearly not been the case.

I think we have been a bit spoiled by Digne. Coming to a new team, climate, culture and hitting the ground running like he did was remarkable...and unusual. I’ll give Mina a pass for last year. He also came late in the window if I recall. I would think that both he and Gomes should be markedly improved with a much more stable situation and an idea of what the premier league is about.

Thank you. I’ve been an intermittent contributor around here as you can see by my modest post count but I do appreciate the welcome. Good shout on Ajax. It’s a difficult problem for us. In order to attract the type of players who will allow us to consistently compete with the top 6 and truly bridge the gap we need European football/monster spending. Unfortunately, those types of players are not likely to come to a club who doesn’t play in Europe. I think we are going about it the right way though. We took a bit of a gamble on Richie and it worked out. We were able to steal a guy like Digne who was blocked at Barca. We are not so far away now. If we were to crack the top 6 this season with a new stadium on the horizon I think the floodgates might open. Suddenly, we are a very promising club with a great history who has a lot going for it. Once the perception of us starts to change we should be able to attract a higher caliber of player and consistently put ourselves in the top 6.

As an American, I'm always struck by this notion that every team needs to be constantly adding to their squad or falling behind. While there is certainly excitement over free agency in American sports the urgency isn't the same. Often just having the same team back and healthy with another year for the younger players to progress is just fine. There is so much turnover in football that I wonder if teams might sometimes be better off getting the guys they have to work better as a unit and develop together rather then bringing in 3,4,5,10 new players each window. We were a top 4 side or so the second half of the season. If you told me that we had all the same 1st team players back again with one or two additions and some deadwood cleared out I'd be thrilled. I don't always see the need for an arms race, particularly when we are competing against teams with more bullets than us. Just my take, I'm curious what others think.

I'm a little surprised there isn'tt more mention of Digne's performance. He was a problem for them all day. Of course hes been so good consistently that maybe we are just coming to expect it.

I hope there is an option to buy here. I wonder if we agreed to a buyback clause on Mina in exchange for a buy option on Gomes.

It’s an exciting looking team for us and offensive minded, to be sure. My concern would be Gueye in that formation. He’s not the type we’d want to be bringing the ball up the field a lot which means that it would fall to Gylfi to come back often. I’m wondering if that would tax him too much over 90 minutes when he’s also supposed to be the engine of our offense. Perhaps the box to box role is exactly what he’s made for, I defer to others there, but I’m going to be curious to see what the plan is in that area early on.

It isn't plausible though. You're admitting as much by saying its probably not likely. It would be pretty stupid to lie about something like this when it could be easily disproven by Chelsea, Ross, his agent etc... and I think we can all agree that, in addition to being upfront with Everton supporters so far, Moshiri isn't stupid. Beyond that, I'm not sure how this would be effective as a deflection even if it was his goal. Those who are upset about the lack of a big name striker and a defender aren't going to forget about it because of this stuff with Ross.

I expect you to head to the Werner thread next.

1. It doesn't 2. This guy has been linked for, what, 3-4 days?

I thought Williams was quality when he first arrived but has looked a touch slow since then and as a result has been a bit clumsy. The Split penalty was a good example. Given the situation at the time, that was as unnecessary a challenge as you're gonna see. Agree with the rest. "It's a project" as Koeman likes to say.

Fair enough. I think the jury is still out on the whole team. Normally I give it 10 games or so but it will probably take a bit longer this season to know what we really have. In terms of pace and creativity, I'm looking forward to Bolassie getting fit. He can be a bit of a headless chicken sometimes but he gives us an element we don't seem to have much of at the moment.

Fair enough on Williams but I've not heard many describe Sig as average. At worst he's a hardworking, attacking mid who is world class in deadball situations.

Your premise seems to be that we had the option to get a real quality striker in and that we are just dragging our feet. Perhaps that is true for other clubs and maybe it was true for us in the past but I think that's an unfair assumption given the level of activity we've seen under Walsh & Co. As we go for a higher quality of player it's going to be harder for us. We are going to be competing against richer clubs, many of whom can offer CL football. It will require patience from those making the decisions and from our supporters (as unrealistic as that may be). Nobody gets to where we want to get to overnight anymore. I'd rather us not sign a striker this window and wait to find an option that will really improve us than make a panic buy and sign some mediocre option to a long contract which will stifle the growth of guys like DCL and Sandro while not moving us forward. In the grand scheme of things it's far more important to get the right players in then to do it quickly. Whoever we bring in may be here for many years. missing 5 or 10 games is a small matter when weighted against that.

You're making a lot of assumptions which aren't going to be relevant if we sign a decent option. I will say that it doesn't matter what we "look like" we are doing. Neither of us are privy to what's going on behind the scenes but given our spending this window and the quality we've brought in I think those pulling the strings have earned more faith than you seem to have in them. I think most would agree its been a very positive window given our circumstances. The fact that the new players are going to take some time to gel together and that we aren't immediately going to be a top 4 team doesn't diminish that.

Few things that could be said about this post but why don't we wait until the window closes to see if the sky is falling/not falling debate is necessary.

Skimming their forum it appears he has a year or less under contract so perhaps they would be agreeable after all.

I don't see how their management could possibly let their top 2 scorers go like that but who knows.