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Match Other Match Fred 25/26

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We do recruit badly but it's related to the spending, can't you see? You are falling down that trap of thinking it's just about the fees, it's also the salaries that we never paid under Levy and the agent fees. It's also to do with the quality.

When you are continually forced into signing players the other top clubs choose not to prioritise, there is generally a reason for that. Kudus, talented but flawed, you can see why he wasn't a top target for the top clubs and we had a free run. Chelsea were rumoured but clearly didn't prioritise him.

It's hardly a secret that for decades we have failed to compete with the other big clubs for the better players, so we are continually shopping on the next ladder or two down.

Look at Chelsea with Caicedo and Hernandez, both £100+ million players. We have Bentancur, a Juventus cast off for 20 million and a fucking loan reject from Bayern in CM. Liverpool wanted Caicedo and City wanted Hernandez, but Chelsea won the race. Same with Neto who walks into our team. We ended up signing Odobert.

It's about ambition. Woolwich with Rice, beat City to him.

I mean genuinely which players have we got in our squad where we beat other big clubs to? I mean ready made players, not kids like Bergval where Barca wanted him for their academy.

Yes, clubs can get it wrong with big signings but the reality is we just are never at the table.

We signed Simons but he was only ever far down the list of priorities for Chelsea, they focused their funds on other players, which is why Chelsea and Simons dragged it out until the last possible moment in the window until he finally gave us a yes. Judging by Simons so far, Chelsea looked like they were correct in not prioritising him. Remember we wanted Eze over Simons. We lost out on Eze. Eze has been the better signing, we lose out on the better player.

Solanke, Odobert, Richarlison, Johnson, none of them were wanted by the top clubs.

So we are buying inferior quality with the money we spend. And we don't spend the salaries to attract the proper top talent.

We sometimes get it right like with VDV, but you can't build a squad to compete by continously signing players that the tpp clubs aren't in for. You need to be at the top table fighting and winning the race for the Semenyos, Caicedo's, Rice's, and that is where our strategy is a con.

We recruit badly because we are taking bigger gambles on signings, the ones that the bigger clubs deem too risky or not good enough.

I don't agree.

Trossard, Timber, Saliba and Gabriel. Reya.

None were huge money or more than we have spent on 4 or 5 players.
 
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2nd beating 14th

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It's not just this though, we don't have a coaching plan or give a coaching platform to our players.

Brighton, Brentford, Palace all recruit better than us, you wouldn't say that they pay more than us because they don't...they do all genuinely do have club stability and promote coaches to improve their players.

I guarantee you that a had lot of our players signed for these teams we'd be pining for them to come to our club.


Yep because instead we choose to give off this appearance of being a big ambitious club, but doing neither well. So we get caught in the middle. Spending big money on players the top clubs don't want, because they aren't good enough, and we get lumbered with them. You can't adopt a Brighton model of recruitment whilst charging the highest ticket prices in Europe.

We are a terribly run club on the pitch.
 
It's not just this though, we don't have a coaching plan or give a coaching platform to our players.

Brighton, Brentford, Palace all recruit better than us, you wouldn't say that they pay more than us because they don't...they do all genuinely do have club stability and promote coaches to improve their players.

You had me until this:

I guarantee you that a had lot of our players signed for these teams we'd be pining for them to come to our club.

Those clubs are way to smart to pay the stupid money we’ve played for our donkeys.
 
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Their "kids" of Chelski are on a different level than those at Spurs from the beginning. Besides, in Chelski's team vs Barca there is only 1 "kid" who's playing and that Estevao who was seen as a top talent before he joined them (played 62 games for Palmeiras and made his debut for Brazil already).
Not much different to Archie Gray. Played a lot of games for Leeds. Cost nearly double what Estevao did. Had meaningful minutes out of position last season and thought he wss one of the few who could hold his head high. This season, completely dropped.
 
Admittedly Estavao looks brilliant but again, he did not cost multi millions.

Our recruitment is poor, nuch more than what we spend on players.

It's multifaceted.

It's not just about money, it is about scouting too. At least we agree we are a terribly run club on the pitch.

it's woeful.

Look at how many signings we could have brought into the club that other clubs have made. Woltemade. Tonali. Bruno. Gordon, all walk into our team at the moment. But they genuinely have some proper top talent in the first four players I mentioned.

Who was the last proper top player we brought in? VDV? Before that Romero (who is overrated for me) and Son?

Three players in over a decade.
 
Guarantee there were bigger agent fees and more competition, we don’t get in to those kind of juicy deals.

We go for low hanging fruit. Nobody wants Odobert.

Exactly. Estevao was never on the table for us, I am sure we knew he was a wonderkid, but we can't do those deals.

So we sign Odobert instead. It's bullshit.
 
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Estêvão Willian cost €34m, plus €23m in adds-on (which is more than £40m). But, so far, Estêvão has proven much more value than Gray, of course.
If all the add ons are achieved which they rarely are because it means Chelsea have to win PLs and CLs the it will come in at £50m max. More likely going to be around £40m maybe £45 so not too dissimilar to what we paid for Gray. My point is that Gray should be getting more minutes over the useless pair of Bentancur and Palhinha.
 
Not much different to Archie Gray. Played a lot of games for Leeds. Cost nearly double what Estevao did. Had meaningful minutes out of position last season and thought he wss one of the few who could hold his head high. This season, completely dropped.
The difference is that Estêvão was considered a world class talent already before joining Chelski, and had played for Brazil A.
And, as I stated before, he cost €34 million, plus €23 million in adds-on, so he'll cost more than Gray. But, sure, at £40m one would expect much more from Gray.
In comparison, Wharton cost £18m (rising to £22m)
 
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