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Moussa Sissoko

BrainOfLevy said:
People against Moussa, think about how Poch plays, think about what he's said he needs, and then think about how many quality players out there there are that can do it...press hard and play with pace and dribble. It's a rare skill set. We got someone that he wanted. How he played for Saudi Sportswashing Machine in a different system under inferior managers is irrelevant.
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Who's that chap Hull have just signed, why didn't we sign him...
 
Glenda's Legs said:
Let's not forget in both the above cases the wage demands were outside of our pay structure. Even if Levy was willing to pay record transfer fees, breaking our wage structure for one new player would have much wider knock-on effects on the rest of the squad. I am assuming Sissoko is more reasonable in his wage demands.

Levy came under much criticism last year for not going the extra mile and meeting WBA's asking price for the manager's choice of Berahino. Now he has gone the extra mile for (presumably) the manager's choice of Sissoko, he has to be given some credit shirley?.
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Hmmm.. some fair points i guess
 
Huddy said:
Isco didn't want to leave Madrid.
Meyer didn't want to leave Schalke
Coric is young and inexperienced not exactly a statement signing.
Mane good player but he can be inconsistent.

Like you I'd of loved a big signing, but perhaps the opportunity just wasn't there. Sissoko offers us something I think the side needs and makes the whole team a stronger unit.
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Absolutely all those things are strong possibilities but I think that certainly if we had gone after the first two players with vigour then we could well have been in with a chance. I don't think we can know whether either of those players really didn't want to leave Spain/Germany and its impossible to know if we really actually showed any interest in either but I suspect that had the opportunity been really pursued then certainly in Meyer's case, he would have been likely to have been quite interested and I suspect in Isco's case too.

I'm with you though that the signing even though over inflated in price, has given us an extra body in the squad that is of certain better quality than most of what has left which has to be a positive.
 
I think we had to do this. CL. Sold Bentaleb, Mason we would have been castigated for not investing if we'd come up short. He's not the player I'd have chosen, but on the last day of the window, he's a promising player who at the Euros looked like Bale. Maybe he turned a corner :rolleyes: and will recreate that form.
 
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braineclipse said:
Batshuayi is a striker and we went for Janssen instead?

Perhaps we chose Sissoko over Wijnaldum. But there's always also the wage issue to concern, I haven't seen anything on that.

Haha... Yeah, you're right. You're always fair and balanced when it comes to Levy, my bad ;) Being serious this would for me be Levy backing his manager again. Just like he's done many times before. Whereas you seemingly see this as the exception.
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We had 30m to spend, and we didn't go for two players who cost about that much. We did go for Sissoko. I trust Poch knows what he wants, and this is it. So I swallow my distaste for the idea, and I trust Poch can make it work - equally, I applaud Levy for backing his man with a player who seems very atypical.

I simply see that as a far less common scenario than the alternative. There's a difference between that position and saying it *never* happens, which is what the people I argue with tend to accuse me of saying. Things like this tip the scale back towards 'Levy backs his managers' - tip it far enough, and I'll start defending him in this instances more than being suspicious of him from the middle of May until the end of August.

That's about as fair and balanced as I can be with regard to Levy. You were around when I was actively raging about him at this point a couple of seasons ago - we had far more furious arguments then, I can assure you. :)
 
So, our overall window looks like:

Bentaleb replaced with Wanyama
Mason replaced with Sissoko
Jannsen signed to cover Kane
Chadli replaced with N'Koudou (prob spelt his name wrong)

Forgetting the fee paid for Sissoko, we have done pretty well really. I think the squad is now much stronger than last season.
 
Perhaps El Poco is thinking that at Wembley in the Champions League we will desperately need runners that can sprint all the way up and down and up again.

Sit back against the classy CL opposition, and expect Sissoko to leg it after the pass and try to bundle it through towards goal? All feels a bit Zokora/Townsend. But it is a big pitch against decent oppo.
 
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