Regardless The literal definition of young is totally subjective regardless so we'll be here all day arguing about it so it's a bit pointless going back and forth, my point is though that we aren't flooding the squad exclusively with teens which would be the easy thing to do if your the board who are just looking purely for value and a sure fire way to throw a manager under the bus, as far as I'm concerned that isn't happening, let's be fair in our judgements.
Well I'm glad you decided to cease strawmanning my overall point by not obsessing over the number 18 anymore. Why do you assume that I exclusively meant teens in the first place? So do you assume that I believe a 20 year old is a senior player? Have you ever heard of an age range ? This transfer window has seen an inordinate number of 18 year olds join, I mention this as part of our youth strategy, not the whole picture, and you assume that I think we won't sign anyone who's above drinking age. Such a weird assumption.
To be clear, we do have a strategy of youth and the combined ages of both windows you mention are 100% consistent with that (exceptions and all). This strategy has been explicitly stated by our chairman. His words, not mine. That's an objective fact, not an opinion.
Maddison being a 'complete no brainer' due to him being a playmaker of his age is a load of nonsense and you know it, the bottom line is you can protest and give me all these desperate excuses all you want at the end of the day we signed a player in his prime, if not coming into his prime at 26 years of age - we also made him our 2nd highest paid player and out vice captain...so much for project 'yout dem' hey...
So you find an exception to the strategy and you think that invalidates the entire thing? Are you a child? Call it mental gymnastics, I don't care, there are obvious positions where you still need experience (and a 26 year old is far from a grandad footballer). That does not mean an overall strategy doesn't exist. It's like arguing there is no such thing as two genders because intersex exists.. it's juvenile reasoning.
You: Ange didn't have an opportunity to genuinely play youth last season
Me: Cites Phillips vs Royal
You: *proceeds to talk about fish*
And not even the likes of Klopp or Arteta had that sort of autonomy on players until they could be trusted, they only really got to start picking their own players when they were in after a certain amount of time anyway,
Arteta? Haha The guy literally missed out on his first choice targets in Caicedo, Mudryk, Zubimendi, Buendia and Mason Mount - what are you talking about?And like I said before comparing us to Arse and Arteta to Ange is such a massive false equivalence anyway:
Before the Rice transfer Arteta had to prove to his club that he could firstly improve his players which he did therefore he has bought value directly back into the club...like for example if Arse were to sell Saka, Saliba and Martinelli they could legit ask for over £200m.
Missing out on your first choices doesn't invalidate that they were indeed your choices. You say I'm making a false equivalence but did you choose to ignore this or did you miss it:
"If you think Levy is capable of backing any human-being besides himself then you're barking up the wrong tree. Never has, never will"
The whole point of my post was that I don't believe Levy ever backs his managers, ever. So anyones suggestion that he is currently doing so or ever has is incorrect in my opinion. I actually agree with you on the point about earning trust which emphasises the fact that Ange has simply been given the final say and not the right to curate the shortlist along side his DOF (no shit about this being the modern hierarchical structure). This is not backing for me, sorry I just don't subscribe to the illusion of choice.
You make my point for me by mentioning Klopp and Arteta. Once they earnt their stripes they got exactly what they desired. Karius botched the champions league final, Liverpool narrowly miss out on the league - get rid of that guy and go get me the best keeper and defender that money can buy. Arteta gets 8th 8th 5th and 2nd twice in a row and they push the boat out for him to finally get over the hump. Poch gets 5th, 3rd, 2nd, 4th, a champions league final, publicly states the new stadium needs "new furniture" and what does he get? First, a job title change then the sack.
