Johan Lange - Sporting Director

metalgear said:

now that its almost over can we discuss why we overhauled the defence when the attack needed more attention and for a longer time too?

also, while midfield and attack are clearly stronger, is the defence better or worse? more attack minded defence for sure and maybe better overall including depth, but we have the oldest LB pairing in the world and only one proper RB.

don't get me wrong, we did a lot of work and i am very happy with what has happened so far. and i think the RB position is going to be fixed in the next window. but we are stuck at LB.

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We needed work everywhere. I suppose what you could say is we didn't manage to get our No1 striker target due to injury (Kroupi), but we did get our LWF. We also tried for a AM/WF hybrid in Ndiaye which failed at the last minute, so then got in Mudryrk.

So if you look at the window overall, we did actually try for the positions we thought we were most in need, just for unfortunate reasons we were unable to pull them off.

It's far from a perfect window, but then it never could be. I see it as a start or more realistically a continuation of the floor raising we've been doing in recent windows. Over the next year we probably address the forwards areas some more. Whether that's Mudyrk becoming permanent or more likely finding a better option next summer.

metalgear said:

now that its almost over can we discuss why we overhauled the defence when the attack needed more attention and for a longer time too?

also, while midfield and attack are clearly stronger, is the defence better or worse? more attack minded defence for sure and maybe better overall including depth, but we have the oldest LB pairing in the world and only one proper RB.

don't get me wrong, we did a lot of work and i am very happy with what has happened so far. and i think the RB position is going to be fixed in the next window. but we are stuck at LB.

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When you look at the finances then clearly you don't upgrade the midfield and attack unless you create money from selling defenders. Then you have the scenario where players wanted to leave. Without those 2 variables we could have been aiming for:

Porro, Spence, Romero, JPvH, VDV, Senesi, Vuskovic, Udogie, New LB - Net spend of £100-120m on defence. Massive competition for places.

That feels more like a back line that Pep would have managed in the City winning years.

We're just not ready to be that club yet unfortunately.

metalgear said:

now that its almost over can we discuss why we overhauled the defence when the attack needed more attention and for a longer time too?

also, while midfield and attack are clearly stronger, is the defence better or worse? more attack minded defence for sure and maybe better overall including depth, but we have the oldest LB pairing in the world and only one proper RB.

don't get me wrong, we did a lot of work and i am very happy with what has happened so far. and i think the RB position is going to be fixed in the next window. but we are stuck at LB.

Click to expand...

On paper the defence may look weaker, in real life I'm not yet convinced it is.
Romero and mvdv never looked like a good pairing to me. They were OK, but lesser than the sum of their parts.
If mvdv can forge a better partnership with jpvh the I think we could be stronger.

glasgowspur said:

On paper the defence may look weaker, in real life I'm not yet convinced it is.
Romero and mvdv never looked like a good pairing to me. They were OK, but lesser than the sum of their parts.
If mvdv can forge a better partnership with jpvh the I think we could be stronger.

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I think the 3 key variables are

1) no UEFA football
2) injuries
3) what happens ahead of the defence

If we get it down to 1 game a week, with the same GK, defence and centre mid then we have a fighting chance of these guys building their understandings and RDZ getting his philosophy across.

I worry about our defence if we see as many injuries as we've had for the last couple.

Muttley said:

I think the 3 key variables are

1) no UEFA football
2) injuries
3) what happens ahead of the defence

If we get it down to 1 game a week, with the same GK, defence and centre mid then we have a fighting chance of these guys building their understandings and RDZ getting his philosophy across.

I worry about our defence if we see as many injuries as we've had for the last couple.

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I'd worry about any defence if it had the injuries we've had over the last three seasons.
Agree on the shield in front of the defence, I don't think our defence has looked solid since we lost the spaghetti monster and we've never replaced him.