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Transfers January 2022 - Transfer Window

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SausageVince said:
The really crazy thing is: relatively, we have so much money that we don't even need to hunt around below the top half of the SPL for talent. If we want to sign a player from Rangers, Celtic, Aberdeen, Hearts, or Hibs then we can do it no problem. We can literally let those clubs sort the wheat from the chaff and swoop in. But we don't. Fuck knows why.
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Leon King at Rangers looks a class act, I heard a rumour from around the Rangers Academy that Spurs have been keeping tabs on him.
 
JDK said:
If the RWB talk is true and we agree we could use a little more creativity in the team, I think it's indicative of Conte's philosophy. His teams largely rely on creativity from the front players and the wingbacks. The midfielders often, not always depending on the personnel, provide stability, graft, and reliable ball progression.

Football has largely moved away from the sole creative #10 midfielder, it simply became too easy to mark them out of the game. You can see the progression in the decline and obsolescence of Eriksen and Ozil. No top team plays one anymore. If you're lucky, you have a KDB type who does it all. At Liverpool, TAA is for all intents and purposes their playmaker.

Whether Conte thinks our midfield has enough about it is a different question, but I don't think he'll look at the creativity problem (even though our xG is way up) and immediately think creative midfielder. RWB and front three player may be what he thinks is necessary.
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Whether he wants a creative 10 or not he has to see that every team that has success has the ability to move the ball through midfield and that is a massive problem with our team.

Liverpool as example doesn't have a "creative" player in midfield but everyone of their players is good with the ball at their feet, can progress the ball and doesn't limit them in how they can play.

To me that is the bigger issue in our midfield we have so many limited players in our midfield- Winks, Alli, PEH, Moura (if you consider him MFer) and to a lesser extent even Skipp. They can't handle pressure, can't beat opposition defenders with passes. It results in us having to recycle the ball back or wait for the defenders to get back and give us the space so we can move the ball.

I don't necessarily need us to get a bunch of #10's but we need to improve the ability of the MF to progress the ball and pass.
 
FightingIllini said:
Kante, Pogba, Barella and Brozovic are all, in different ways and with different complementary skills, brilliant creators and passers. Streets ahead of what we have in that regard.

Conte needs CM’s that can do both. Tough asset to find. Guys we’re linked with like Kessie and McKennie aren’t quite it.
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Barella is the most indicative player in the changes to the game under the modern tactical managers like Conte, Tuchel, Klopp, Pep, etc.

If you watch Barella for a 45 minutes, he doesn't really stand out for anything in particular. He's not a Pogba-level passer, not a goal scorer, not a dominant physical presence, dribbles the ball well but nothing amazing, mostly you'd only notice he runs his damn face off. But he does everything on the pitch at a 7.5/8 level. He can win you the ball up the pitch with his pressing, he's a good enough passer to get a number of assists, he's super tactically aware and can break up play, and he can break a press with his dribbling when he needs to. Skipp has a long way to go, but there are similarities.

Modern football places emphasis on the 8/10 do everything midfielder, rather than 10/10 passing midfielder like Eriksen or Ozil who are 5 or 6 out of ten at everything else. And like you said, find that Barella type is not particularly easy, I think Skipp does have some potential there and we'll see who else can fit in next to him eventually.
 
JDK said:
Why? If the rest of the parts fit, I don't see the problem. Liverpool, Chelsea, and City win with a #10 midfielder. Conte won Serie A numerous times without one.

No one would say Liverpool isn't creative and their main midfielders in the Klopp era have been Henderson, Wijnaldum, Fabinho, Keita, and Jones. Chelsea, including Conte's Chelsea rely on Kante, Matic, Jorginho, Kovacic. We're in a different era of football that necessitates a team tactical approach to creativity that includes pressing, designed attacking patterns, and pressbreaking. You don't just give the ball the Hoddle anymore and have him pick a pass.

The improvements under Conte as a more cohesive unit are easily compared to Mourinho, who essentially made Kane the main creative focal point and relied on individual creative brilliance because of his passing range. I don't think Conte views the game like thhat.

I'm not saying we don't need more creativity, I just wouldn't be surprised if Conte thought the biggest issue with our creativity is at wingback. Hakimi was the best playmaker in his title winning Inter side.
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Time will tell I guess
 
Igula said:
Whether he wants a creative 10 or not he has to see that every team that has success has the ability to move the ball through midfield and that is a massive problem with our team.

Liverpool as example doesn't have a "creative" player in midfield but everyone of their players is good with the ball at their feet, can progress the ball and doesn't limit them in how they can play.

To me that is the bigger issue in our midfield we have so many limited players in our midfield- Winks, Alli, PEH, Moura (if you consider him MFer) and to a lesser extent even Skipp. They can't handle pressure, can't beat opposition defenders with passes. It results in us having to recycle the ball back or wait for the defenders to get back and give us the space so we can move the ball.

I don't necessarily need us to get a bunch of #10's but we need to improve the ability of the MF to progress the ball and pass.
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I really don't want to get into a debate about what I'm going to say next, because I'm stating it as an observation rather than a value judgment.

I think the modern tactical giants of the sport like Pep, Conte, Tuchel, Klopp, Flick, Nagelsmann etc. would take someone like PEH or Skipp, who can follow tactical instructions and work hard for an entire game over someone like Ndombele who is much more talented, but has a tendency to freelance. Read anything about the modern managers and they are obsessive, detail-oriented, control freaks. They practice over and over again the exact ways they'd like to pass and progress the ball in training, they believe patterns of play should all be sketched out on the training pitch before it happens.

The days of Redknapp just rolling the ball out and telling the lads to run around a bit are basically over. On a personal level, I don't think that's necessarily good for the game. There's less individual brilliance allowed in the game, because at present it is much more risk adverse in both creative passing and allowing players to dribble at opponents and potentially turn the ball over.

However, you can't really quibble with the record of these control freak managers, they dominate the game tactically and our manager is one of them. We can yell at each other until we're blue in the face about PEH/Skipp vs. Ndombele but I think ultimately Conte and most of the other top managers believe far more in their system of play and prioritize tactical execution over any individual's footballing ability.

Do I believe that is good for the game overall? Not necessarily, but I also know that if you put the trophies that Pep, Klopp, Conte, and Tuchel have won in a normal sized room you'd have a hard time walking around.
 
JDK said:
I really don't want to get into a debate about what I'm going to say next, because I'm stating it as an observation rather than a value judgment.

I think the modern tactical giants of the sport like Pep, Conte, Tuchel, Klopp, Flick, Nagelsmann etc. would take someone like PEH or Skipp, who can follow tactical instructions and work hard for an entire game over someone like Ndombele who is much more talented, but has a tendency to freelance. Read anything about the modern managers and they are obsessive, detail-oriented, control freaks. They practice over and over again the exact ways they'd like to pass and progress the ball in training, they believe patterns of play should all be sketched out on the training pitch before it happens.

The days of Redknapp just rolling the ball out and telling the lads to run around a bit are basically over. On a personal level, I don't think that's necessarily good for the game. There's less individual brilliance allowed in the game, because at present it is much more risk adverse in both creative passing and allowing players to dribble at opponents and potentially turn the ball over.

However, you can't really quibble with the record of these control freak managers, they dominate the game tactically and our manager is one of them. We can yell at each other until we're blue in the face about PEH/Skipp vs. Ndombele but I think ultimately Conte and most of the other top managers believe far more in their system of play and prioritize tactical execution over any individual's footballing ability.

Do I believe that is good for the game overall? Not necessarily, but I also know that if you put the trophies that Pep, Klopp, Conte, and Tuchel have won in a normal sized room you'd have a hard time walking around.
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I agree with all this, and then the next step is that those managers seek and demand players who they trust to follow their instructions to the letter AND have that little bit of magic.
 
have we signed anyone yet? ITS BEEN FOUR DAYS CUNTS!

That's a quote :contepoint:
 
JDK said:
I really don't want to get into a debate about what I'm going to say next, because I'm stating it as an observation rather than a value judgment.

I think the modern tactical giants of the sport like Pep, Conte, Tuchel, Klopp, Flick, Nagelsmann etc. would take someone like PEH or Skipp, who can follow tactical instructions and work hard for an entire game over someone like Ndombele who is much more talented, but has a tendency to freelance. Read anything about the modern managers and they are obsessive, detail-oriented, control freaks. They practice over and over again the exact ways they'd like to pass and progress the ball in training, they believe patterns of play should all be sketched out on the training pitch before it happens.
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I think that most of them wouldn't take either PEH or Ndombele. There isn't a player for any of those guys as limited as PEH that they play with. And they don't suffer for players who aren't giving their all or fitting in their system like Ndombele. For me it isn't PEH or Ndombele I think we need better players than both.

I also don't think that Skipp and PEH are really comparable. Skipp already has better ball skills than he does with much more room to grow. Skipp doesn't limit us like PEH.


JDK said:
The days of Redknapp just rolling the ball out and telling the lads to run around a bit are basically over. On a personal level, I don't think that's necessarily good for the game. There's less individual brilliance allowed in the game, because at present it is much more risk adverse in both creative passing and allowing players to dribble at opponents and potentially turn the ball over.

However, you can't really quibble with the record of these control freak managers, they dominate the game tactically and our manager is one of them. We can yell at each other until we're blue in the face about PEH/Skipp vs. Ndombele but I think ultimately Conte and most of the other top managers believe far more in their system of play and prioritize tactical execution over any individual's footballing ability.
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Yes but again it isn't about PEH vs. Ndombele it is PEH/Ndombele versus the other players available that we can bring in.

I agree they believe in their system of play and those systems all rely on being able to move the ball.
 
JDK said:
Why? If the rest of the parts fit, I don't see the problem. Liverpool, Chelsea, and City win with a #10 midfielder. Conte won Serie A numerous times without one.

No one would say Liverpool isn't creative and their main midfielders in the Klopp era have been Henderson, Wijnaldum, Fabinho, Keita, and Jones. Chelsea, including Conte's Chelsea rely on Kante, Matic, Jorginho, Kovacic. We're in a different era of football that necessitates a team tactical approach to creativity that includes pressing, designed attacking patterns, and pressbreaking. You don't just give the ball the Hoddle anymore and have him pick a pass.

The improvements under Conte as a more cohesive unit are easily compared to Mourinho, who essentially made Kane the main creative focal point and relied on individual creative brilliance because of his passing range. I don't think Conte views the game like thhat.

I'm not saying we don't need more creativity, I just wouldn't be surprised if Conte thought the biggest issue with our creativity is at wingback. Hakimi was the best playmaker in his title winning Inter side.
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Almost every player you just listed there is technically superior to Hojbjerg and winks though, players like Kovacic, Wijnaldum, Fabinho , Jorginho by some distance too. it's not about wanting some light weight creative number 10, its that we need central midfielders who are much better on the ball than what we currently have.

I agree with Sammy it should be our number one priority, for example if we're looking at someone from Wolves I'm having Neves before i'm taking Adama.
 
ginola92 said:
Almost every player you just listed there is technically superior to Hojbjerg and winks though, players like Kovacic, Wijnaldum, Fabinho , Jorginho by some distance too. it's not about wanting some light weight creative number 10, its that we need central midfielders who are much better on the ball than what we currently have.

I agree with Sammy it should be our number one priority, for example if we're looking at someone from Wolves I'm having Neves before i'm taking Adama.
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Wait till Neto is fit.....he’s the best they’ve got
 
ginola92 said:
Almost every player you just listed there is technically superior to Hojbjerg and winks though, players like Kovacic, Wijnaldum, Fabinho , Jorginho by some distance too. it's not about wanting some light weight creative number 10, its that we need central midfielders who are much better on the ball than what we currently have.

I agree with Sammy it should be our number one priority, for example if we're looking at someone from Wolves I'm having Neves before i'm taking Adama.
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100% correct.
 
ginola92 said:
Almost every player you just listed there is technically superior to Hojbjerg and winks though, players like Kovacic, Wijnaldum, Fabinho , Jorginho by some distance too. it's not about wanting some light weight creative number 10, its that we need central midfielders who are much better on the ball than what we currently have.

I agree with Sammy it should be our number one priority, for example if we're looking at someone from Wolves I'm having Neves before i'm taking Adama.
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The biggest difference between us and the clubs we’re chasing is the overall squad level of passing and technical ability on the ball.

We’ve got finishers at their level and bar one or two true world class defenders basically don’t exist anymore so we’re not as far behind as it feels, but the top teams are brimming with players who ooze quality all over the pitch and we aren’t.
 
Would anyone take Aaron Ramsey? I've always thought he's a very good player. Probably somewhat under-rated. But haven't seen a lot of him in a Juventus shirt as I generally only watch Italian teams when they play an English side. Definitely past his best but could surely do a good job still.

Always thought he would excel under Klopp. He has the game for his style of football.
 
TylerB said:
Would anyone take Aaron Ramsey? I've always thought he's a very good player. Probably somewhat under-rated. But haven't seen a lot of him in a Juventus shirt as I generally only watch Italian teams when they play an English side. Definitely past his best but could surely do a good job still.

Always thought he would excel under Klopp. He has the game for his style of football.
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He's been super injured since he joined Juve. Didn't crack 1100 league minutes in his first two seasons and only 97 this season. Juve also is paying him like 400k/week since they signed him on a Bosman.
 
TylerB said:
Would anyone take Aaron Ramsey? I've always thought he's a very good player. Probably somewhat under-rated. But haven't seen a lot of him in a Juventus shirt as I generally only watch Italian teams when they play an English side. Definitely past his best but could surely do a good job still.

Always thought he would excel under Klopp. He has the game for his style of football.
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I wouldn't because i think we have had our fill of guys who have issues with being unavailable. If we were Liverpool who has quality options for when Ramsay was out maybe, but it seems like recipe to see more of Winks, PEH, Skipp MF's that have been not good enough all season.

Maybe if we brought in two other starters ahead of him I would do it but as a guy to be a starter, no thanks for me.
 
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