Chelsea would not be interested in 2021 Kane especially the version that refuses to stay in the box. Son is the most likely to be picked by Chelsea if they had a choice. Kane's stock has fallen.An interesting way to assess individual players' ability is, for each of them, to go down the league table and work out where they'd be happily welcomed to become a part of their 1st XI. Totally subjective and I'm ignoring whether the other club would actually need them (which makes this something of a pointless exercise)
Hugo - West Ham
Doherty - Burnley
Reguilon - Woolwich
Romero - West Ham
Hojbjerg - Brighton
Sanchez - Everton
Son - Emirates Marketing Project
Winks - Southampton
Kane - Chelsea
Gil - Southampton
Royale - Woolwich
Rodon - Aston Villa
Dier - Crystal Palace
Lo Celso - Brighton
Sessegnon - Everton
Dele - Aston Villa
Gollini - Norwich
Bergwijn - Southampton
Tanganga - Southampton
Lucas Moura - Wolves
Ndombele - Brighton
Skipp - West Ham
Davies - Everton
Essentially what I'm saying is that only Kane and Son (both mostly judged historically) would get into a top 3 team and only a couple are good enough for a team in and around the 4th place race.
Some of these are temporary and several still have the jury out.
The disappointing thing for me is that we’ve actually spent a fair old wedge in the last 7/8 seasons. Despite this, there’s a fairly strong case for writing half the squad off as deadwood.
I won’t do the full list as it’ll be very similar to others on here, it’s just mad how much money (not to mention time!!!) we put in to N’Dombele and GLC. Neither seem to be able to knit the play together as you’d hope a playmaker could, as well as neither being a safe bet for the 2 CM spots in the 3-4-3 with wide forwards...Anyone who would’ve predicted how poorly both big money signings have gone so far probably would’ve come across as glass well and truly empty.
We’ll never get answers but different departments of the club must have come together to make the decision, I don’t want to lay blame at all but I would like to understand Poch’s teams thinking, of how they were going to get those two players in the first XI, especially as Dele could play football back then..
Chelsea would not be interested in 2021 Kane especially the version that refuses to stay in the box. Son is the most likely to be picked by Chelsea if they had a choice. Kane's stock has fallen.
We’ve essentially got the opposite of that imo. A bunch of individuals who have very good skill sets but ultimately it seems we cannot develop a system that gets the best out of them. When we did eventually up the tempo against Leeds last week it still wasn’t pretty but we did get the job done, whereas Brighton couldn’t against the same opposition.
Correct. See my post above re: Kane dropping deep. I don’t even think any of those 3 knit play together that well. Need a proper connector that can score also.Setting aside the general low level of quality (beyond the first 11 in particular) I think our main problem is simply that we lack creativity i.e. the connection between defensive (and defensive players) and the attackers. The main three players who should provide this are Ndombele, GLC and Dele...all not performing for different reasons, but its concentrated in the same area of the pitch.
We have other problems obviously, but I feel that is our main one
Also Lo Celso and Ndombele were bought for a particular style of possession football. 3 months later we sacked that manager and bought in an anti-football long ball merchant.
It's was a sliding doors moment, but I think both would have had very different careers with us if we'd kept Poch, or brought in a continuity progressive coach like Naglesman or Ten Hag in 2019, like we should have done
Lo Celso and Ndombele are on their third manager since Poch (not counting Mason).
2.5 seasons later its getting to the stage where maybe we need to stop imagining what they might have looked like under Poch and instead take the evidence at face value. They’re not good enough.
They are doing well in the league and in CL, why would he come here.
a few of them have regressed considerably since even last season.
What have we actually done to enhance the squad since he left? Romero is definitely an upgrade but currently injured and so suspect we wont see best of him until next season. Gil is a long-term project but looks nowhere near 1st team. Royale is a modest upgrade. Gollini is worse than Hart.
Bale and Vinicius were limited but the 20 odd-goals they contributed haven't even been replaced.
Mourinho contributed to some of that was undoubtedly a negative impact on the club - that said he was not 100% of the problem but equally was very evidently 0% of the solution.
Meanwhile Woolwich and West Ham have improved and Wolves, Brighton and Palace look to have a more balanced (if not talented) squad than us. I know I'm very glass half empty this week!
Should've kept him, even for £30m.Hopefully we can at least snap up another competent CF so Kane isn’t run into the ground.
Should've kept him, even for £30m.
NahShould've kept him, even for £30m.
To get rid of Lamela, Bale and Vinicius in one window and add no attacking players is one of the biggest pieces of squad negligence I’ve seen in a long long time.