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Jose Mourinho - SACKED

Err sorry - but thats not right!!

Last season we got 71 points
This season we have 48
So thats 119 in total

Therefore at best we're 6th, maybe lower but the screenshot doesnt extend down below Liverpool!!

Liverpool got 97, plus 89 so far this time.... so they should be top

Or am I missing something? Is this from a few years ago?

Yep. Skysports did it during the peak of the Poch era, either 2016/17 or 2017/18.
 
We had austerity enforced by the stadium rebuild.

As i said before, Arsenal managed to buy players over £10m each and every season before and after the rebuild.

You say we had austerity because of the stadium build yet managed to post an even bigger increase on profits year on year? Not revenue, actual profits. We don't invest in our squad appropriately by DESIGN. And this fancy stadium won't change that.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeoz...fit-due-to-champions-league-run/#1ea9f80441c1
 
I think he probably did..... Replace quite a few players with new ones...

I think that's right. His approach must be mentally and physically very tiring and I think that too many of the players hit a wall. It did mean that we overachieved and were excellent for three seasons though.
 
I was talking about the quality of what we have in terms of what Jose has to work with.

I don’t disagree though, I have a mate who I (used to) go with who is always asking for a ‘statement’ signing. Sometimes I argue that it as important as a ‘good’ signing but I think Klinsmann or to a lesser extent Davids was the last time I felt we’d signed a superstar, albeit in their twilight years. I’m a little ashamed to admit that I was excited at the prospect of Dybala, partly because he was a player my 7 year old recognised as a FIFA cover star!
However Modric, Berbs, Bale, Eriksen, Alli, Son prove it doesn’t have to be a ‘name’ to be a good signing.
Ndombele was a statement signing, but the statement seems to be that we are just not very good when it comes to breaking our transfer record! I understand our constraints due to our wage budget, then financing the stadium but since we established what now seems to be a golden era of a first x1, assembled for a relatively low cost, we have struggled to replace the players with similar quality even when spending bigger (Sissoko, Sanchez, Aurier, Janssen, Moura, Ndombele, Sessegnon represent a huge investment and nine of them would displace our peak X1 under Poch. Obviously 2 of them need more time but Lo Celso looks like the only decent business we’ve done in recent times.
Clinton and Kevin, maybe even Moura and Gedson make me wonder what the manager actually asked for - I can only assume it was ‘someone who runs fast, ideally one footed with little control over what is going to happen next, with limited physical structure and only played in weak European leagues. Or we just filter on pace 85+ in championship manager and sort by price lowest to highest...
I'd be quite happy if all of our next 6 signings were for £25 million or under. We need quite a large number of players so don't have the luxury of buying a ready made, finished article already proven in the PL. Therefore any signing we make is going to be something of a gamble. Let's get in a decent DoF and operate in the 18 to 23 age range and sign players from the lower leagues here along with Belgium, France, The Netherlands, Germany. Portugal, Turkey, Greece.... Ignore Spain and Italy for now. We need to build a competitive, young team again with a great team spirit. We can do that if we think long term and spend money in the right way in the right areas. I'm not confident of that happening though with Jose and Levy as our two operators in the market.
 
I'd be quite happy if all of our next 6 signings were for £25 million or under. We need quite a large number of players so don't have the luxury of buying a ready made, finished article already proven in the PL. Therefore any signing we make is going to be something of a gamble. Let's get in a decent DoF and operate in the 18 to 23 age range and sign players from the lower leagues here along with Belgium, France, The Netherlands, Germany. Portugal, Turkey, Greece.... Ignore Spain and Italy for now. We need to build a competitive, young team again with a great team spirit. We can do that if we think long term and spend money in the right way in the right areas. I'm not confident of that happening though with Jose and Levy as our two operators in the market.
Germany
Germany
Germany
To me the success rate is better form a mentality perspective
Players seem to be well educated once they come through there
Holland of course but again you have to be picky
 
The way I see it is:

- We have a few players who would form the basis of a very good team - Lloris, Dier, GLC, Son, Kane, plus a couple others in Dele and Bergwijn who might be able to be added to that group depending on what formation / balance you look for

- We have a longer-list of players who are useful squad players for a team in say 3rd-6th in the league, but not good enough to be first choice regulars: Davies, Winks, Sanchez, Tanganga, Toby, Sissoko, Moura etc. These are all good enough to come into the starting 11 alongside genuinely first choice players, but you cant have a team rammed with these guys if you want to be 3rd-6th in the league. This is our problem at the moment - too many of these are in the team for us to be in the top 4, and struggling to make top 6

So the challenge is:
- adding another 4 players to that first group and creating a team out of them
- getting the right balance of options in that second group and keeping them fresh enough so that the squad doesnt go stale

The problem is that signing 4 first-teamers would usually cost £150m - £200m. Its therefore a multi-window process to fill in the gaps, however if we could add a CM and RB this summer, and potentially start to resolve some of teh squad issues (need a back-up CF, need to work out what to do with Ndombele, are Lamela/Moura now at the age to sell them before value declines?) then that would be decent progress and next season should be better than this year
A top right back was available for zero transfer fee (Meunier). Stories were that Mourinho wanted him but the club wouldn't pay. He went to Dortmund (who I don't think pay bigger wages than we do?)
There are at least two very good centre halves available for bargain fees due to contract situations (Sarr at Nice - on a freebie and RKoch at Freiburg who has only a year left on his contract).
There are a couple of very good right backs available for good fees this summer, again due to contract/financial situations.... Castagne at Atalanta (who have been a breath of fresh air in Italy) and Heinrichs at Monaco.
There is talk that Lille are now only looking for a min of £25 million (plus add-ons) for Soumare

The players are out there to be signed. We could make massive improvement to our first team and squad and sign 5 or 6 players for less than £100 million of gross spend if we play the contract market well. Sell some squad ballast and chuck in Ndombele and Moura (for example) and we could probably pretty much break even. Having no DoF probably doesn't help us here though.
 
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His methods were based on running players into the ground. Its possibly why, in my view, Dembele was crocked early, Kane is repeatedly getting injured, our dutch CBs look finished was before they should be, etc
I always find the notion that we were running players into the ground a bit strange. Our press wasn't particularly manic and other than Eriksen our players didn't team to cover more distance than those of other teams?
 
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I agree with your general point but feel the Ndombele signing was genuinely exciting, sadly not worked out.

Ndombele was a genuinely exciting signing and i think he's still not quite over the edge of saving just yet. But again, it seems Ndombele is the go-to answer of us signing a player, which says quite a lot about a team that made CL in what, 4 consecutive seasons?

As i keep mentioning to others, it's not a binary choice, a stadium or signings.

Shaqiri went to Liverpool for £13m. Wolves signed Jordao for £8m. Jordan Ayew cost Palace £2.5m and has 9 goals.

We have one striker in the first team squad. ONE. and as i keep asking others - find me another club in Europe with ONE striker. Laughable.
 
[
Our transfer record breakers iirc:
Arm(not)strong
Sir Les of being injured please
Rebrovvered
Sandra Bent
Paulineinho
Soldudo
Lame la
Sissokoko the clown
Sancheezus he's bad
Ndombelly
Some of those on the list were feeling left out and not having a name the befitted their service to the club.
 
His methods were based on running players into the ground. Its possibly why, in my view, Dembele was crocked early, Kane is repeatedly getting injured, our dutch CBs look finished was before they should be, etc

You mean Jan Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld of Belgium? ;)
 
As i said before, Arsenal managed to buy players over £10m each and every season before and after the rebuild.

You say we had austerity because of the stadium build yet managed to post an even bigger increase on profits year on year? Not revenue, actual profits. We don't invest in our squad appropriately by DESIGN. And this fancy stadium won't change that.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeoz...fit-due-to-champions-league-run/#1ea9f80441c1
There was clearly a pretty huge overspend on the stadium. If the project had been budgeted/managed well then all of the additional unbudgeted money that Poch secured through the consecutive CL qualifications and the hike in sponsorship revenue that came from that additional exposure for the club could've been spent on players. Instead all of that had to go on making up the shortfall once costs spiralled out of control.
 
Not £75m and worlds best good
The boy looked good I agree
I remember Kane running late him like he was air
Liverpool identified a player they really wanted and spent what it took to get him. £75m was overpriced but the manager knew he was two pieces short of having a proper winning team so they went out and spent huge money on their number 1 target at GK and CH. Surprise, surprise they then won the CL and then the PL. Seriously now could you ever imagine Levy doing that?
 
I think that's right. His approach must be mentally and physically very tiring and I think that too many of the players hit a wall. It did mean that we overachieved and were excellent for three seasons though.
Running players into the ground and needing to replace them every three years is not a sustainable model
 
Liverpool identified a player they really wanted and spent what it took to get him. £75m was overpriced but the manager knew he was two pieces short of having a proper winning team so they went out and spent huge money on their number 1 target at GK and CH. Surprise, surprise they then won the CL and then the PL. Seriously now could you ever imagine Levy doing that?
Well we identified LB, CM and no 10 as an area of weakness and we spent big for those positions. That’s exactly what we did but of course so far two of the 3 Hasn’t worked
It’s not unusual for players to struggle first season, even at pool that’s happened with Fabinho for example
 
As i said before, Arsenal managed to buy players over £10m each and every season before and after the rebuild.

You say we had austerity because of the stadium build yet managed to post an even bigger increase on profits year on year? Not revenue, actual profits. We don't invest in our squad appropriately by DESIGN. And this fancy stadium won't change that.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeoz...fit-due-to-champions-league-run/#1ea9f80441c1
That's conveniently overlooking the world-class players that left Arsenal over the same period.

The profits there are before player trading etc. It should be going up year on year.
 
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