Are any of those ready to play 30-40 games in central midfield this season and be central to our manager's game plan?
Yes...he has worked and done it with far worse players.
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Are any of those ready to play 30-40 games in central midfield this season and be central to our manager's game plan?
Him being mediocre is just your opinion. Most Southampton fans, many Spurs fans, plenty of people in the game, loads of journos and most importantly, our manager, disagree with you.You don't solve a problem of mediocre CM players by adding another.
Southampton were 8th last season and we beat them home and away. Let's not get carried away with this guy. Last summer 17m got us a Brazilian Central midfielder.
We need more quality or value for money than this guy.
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You don't solve a problem of mediocre CM players by adding another.
Southampton were 8th last season and we beat them home and away. Let's not get carried away with this guy. Last summer 17m got us a Brazilian Central midfielder.
We need more quality or value for money than this guy.
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Him being mediocre is just your opinion. Most Southampton fans, many Spurs fans, plenty of people in the game, loads of journos and most importantly, our manager, disagree with you.
Us beating Saints has no bearing on whether or not an individual player from them is good enough for us. Or have united made a mistake signing shaw? After all he must be poor, he played in a saints team who finished eighth.
I am, I think that we've had a problem getting the ball forward quickly for a couple of seasons and this has made us a lot more predictable and easy to play against. MS combines being defensively aware with being good on the ball and with an eye for a pass. This is something that none of our current players have with the possible exception of Bentaleb but I think that it is a little early in his career to have to rely on him.Who cares what other people think, doesn't mean that they are right. Make your own decisions.
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You don't solve a problem of mediocre CM players by adding another.
Southampton were 8th last season and we beat them home and away. Let's not get carried away with this guy. Last summer 17m got us a Brazilian Central midfielder.
We need more quality or value for money than this guy.
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I am, I think that we've had a problem getting the ball forward quickly for a couple of seasons and this has made us a lot more predictable and easy to play against. MS combines being defensively aware with being good on the ball and with an eye for a pass. This is something that none of our current players have with the possible exception of Bentaleb but I think that it is a little early in his career to have to rely on him.
Fair point, your solution is to do both. The question is how big is the budget spent on transfers vs. the academy budget. Our academy...like any other could be scaled up! The £17-20m for for this guy would enable this.
It now costs the order of £20m for a first team signing like Schneiderlin....it used to cost £2m for Gazza (who at the time was the hottest properly in English football and he signed for Tottenham!). It's expensive and we cannot compete whenever there is a bidding war.
At some point a scaled-up youth system will make economic sense rather than a token effort. Is it time that we re-assess our budget?
When we signed Gazza a pint cost 75p.
But by that argument you could say that Wolves beat us twice in 09/10 so players like Bale and Modric must be a bit mediocre. You cannot judge a player by the rest of the team.
Stop! Hammer time and mine is that Schneiderlin is a very very good player. I've watched quite a few Saints matches over the years and he has always stood out for me. While people were raving about lallana, shaw, Lovren etc, I really wanted us to go for Schneiderlin.
It now costs the order of £20m for a first team signing like Schneiderlin....it used to cost £2m for Gazza
When we signed Gazza a pint cost 75p. Not quite the same inflation, but not a million miles away either. You recommending we all stop drinking beer? Don't see that being a popular position ;-)
The notion that "we can't compete" in the transfer market and should therefore drop out of it completely (or almost completely) and focus instead on youth is bizarre. It doesn't make any sense (on a number of levels). Firstly it assumes that scouting systems are perfect. It assumes that the number of top quality players is roughly equal to the number of players owned by the clubs richer than us. And it assumes that just because we can't complete with Emirates Marketing Project in the transfer market that we should stop trying to compete with Everton, Aston Villa or Saudi Sportswashing Machine. Our club's transfer policy is designed at least as much to keep us ahead of the teams behind us as it is catching the ones ahead.
Also, exactly how much money do you think we'll have to invest in the academy once our sponsors realise we're abandoning the pursuit of high-profile players altogether and hoping our academy starts producing enough first-teamers to challenge for the title in half a decade (a statistical unlikelihood and pretty much a declaration of commercial suicide).
As a thought experiment - divert transfer funds to the youth system - it's an interesting idea. But it would be a disaster in reality (all in my opinion obviously)
In fact my Gazza at 2m compared to 20m for 1st team player comparison is not quite a fair comparison. Gazza was a promising talent and would be worth 75m in the current market. The rate of inflation certainly isn't that high. Investing in youth is more cost effective than ever.
I am not saying we drop out of the transfer market but in the light of ever more elevated transfer fees that we rethink the balance between buying in talent and training youth players.
Finally and most importantly, if we want to win the league, win the champions league etc. if they answer isn't youth, it has to be to spend. We can not outspend at least 5 teams in the PL - so how do we do it? We must do something else.
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Who cares what other people think, doesn't mean that they are right. Make your own decisions.
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Not much point in a message board if we're not going to care what other people think.
Trying to understand why others think what they think and disagree can be very useful imo. So far all you've offered as reasoning is that Southampton finished 8th last season and that we beat them twice. Not particularly convincing.
That comment was aimed at somebody who had decided that we should sign Schneiderlin because some pundits/fans said he was good, rather than offering their own reasons.
Reasons not to sign Schneiderlin are as follows:
As an individual
1. Price: He costs £17m plus i.e. he is overpriced in the current market. £10m at best.
2. Honours: He has never won anything as a senior player. The best thing on his CV is 8th place.
3. 2nd rate club: He has never played at a top club nor has he had any success at such a club.
4. 2nd rate club: We don't know how he will respond to the pressure of competition for his position or in squad rotation.
5. Settling in: The Southampton team has grown around him as he has aged, he has never signed for a big club, won his place and improved.
6. Quality: Would he be a first team player at our rivals? Nope.
7. Quality: Was he the only player in last seasons Southampton team? No he was one of three or four who stood out. A team who came 8th - not really that good, in fact over 12 points behind us, so bad that we beat them twice shortly after heavy defeats. Furthermore they had a "great" season and ours was considered "awful" and well below par, we have a significantly superior squad. The perception on here is that Southampton had 3-4 world class players last season one being Schneiderlin, that might be true, they might individually be good enough for a starting place in a champions league team - but collectively they weren't. That is unless the rest of the team were so awful that they held them back.
For us as a club
1. Squad balance: We have many many midfielders who underperformed last season.
2. Talisman: Is is a Keane/ Parker/ Terry type who can boss the team and organise? I don't think so. This is what we need and are missing.
3. Is he a step up (not a marginal step up or less) on what we have? No.
Individually these statements may not be enough to say no but collectively they mean that its a no from me.
I would rather keep the money and put it toward a proper inspirational signing, a top quality first team player with a track record of winning and qualifying for the champions league.
The issue for me is one of balance. You are right to say that we have a lot of midfielders and I am sure that a couple will move on before the end of the month. Unfortunately, the midfielder that we have are not very well balanced or suited to the preferred playing style of our manager. We have only one central midfielder who has shown that they are comfortable receiving the ball and looking for an early attacking pass, he is 19 and has half a season under his belt. This is one of the strengths of Schneiderlin's game and our manager has first hand experience of working with him and knows what he will bring.Everybody has a right to an opinion (including managers) but it's a guess - the only way to "know" is to sign them. Hence you must look at the balance of risk. The list I give above is not exhaustive but it contains some of the elements that you have to consider, if he ticked more of those boxes the risk would have been lower. On the other hand, his price would have correspondingly been higher and he might have more clubs after him.
I have seen him 20+ times and for the first 10-15 didn't even notice him above any of the other better Southampton players. BTW that isn't good!
My personal opinion is that we should stop signing players who would not make the our or the starting 11 of the top 4 clubs now or within 3 seasons. Last season we saw four youth team players establish themselves in the first team, displacing all our multi-million major summer signings! This is something which Sherwood correctly pointed out to the world but 12 months later we as fans are in panic mode again. Of course we should still sign players from outside the club but we should only get quality and the right players.
Who should we get at the moment? Nobody, there is no outstanding candidate - they have already moved or are unwilling to sign for a fickle club with a bloated squad. We don't have to spend the money. Lets wait for the right player and spend more if we need to. In the mean time, lets work on improving the players we have.
Everybody has a right to an opinion (including managers) but it's a guess - the only way to "know" is to sign them. Hence you must look at the balance of risk. The list I give above is not exhaustive but it contains some of the elements that you have to consider, if he ticked more of those boxes the risk would have been lower. On the other hand, his price would have correspondingly been higher and he might have more clubs after him.
I have seen him 20+ times and for the first 10-15 didn't even notice him above any of the other better Southampton players. BTW that isn't good!
My personal opinion is that we should stop signing players who would not make the our or the starting 11 of the top 4 clubs now or within 3 seasons. Last season we saw four youth team players establish themselves in the first team, displacing all our multi-million major summer signings! This is something which Sherwood correctly pointed out to the world but 12 months later we as fans are in panic mode again. Of course we should still sign players from outside the club but we should only get quality and the right players.
Who should we get at the moment? Nobody, there is no outstanding candidate - they have already moved or are unwilling to sign for a fickle club with a bloated squad. We don't have to spend the money. Lets wait for the right player and spend more if we need to. In the mean time, lets work on improving the players we have.