I personally like Joe Bennett a lot - he is great with the ball and has incredibly quick feet and skillz, as the kids probably say.
I'm not convinced that left-back position has been the chief cause of our shitness this season.
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So Stephen Ward was ours for the asking all summer...........
- Thread starter ofco8
- Start date
I personally like Joe Bennett a lot - he is great with the ball and has incredibly quick feet and skillz, as the kids probably say.
I'm not convinced that left-back position has been the chief cause of our shitness this season.
Thunder Bolt
Silly old bat
Has anyone ever heard of gazumping? It happens in football too, believe it or not.
Yes, I know my post is patronising and simplistic, but it happens.
Yes, I know my post is patronising and simplistic, but it happens.
aolstudios
Well-known member
Maybe at that point (earlier on) he was expecting to come to us but ended up easier to tempt because we procrastinated
Our financial style <===============================================================================================================================================================================================================================================> Pompey's back in the day.
I don't think we're QUITE near there, do you? There's a massive area inbetween. I'm hardly talking about doing a Forest or QPR.
Thunder Bolt
Silly old bat
He was driving to Brighton when he heard about the Burnley offer.
Maybe, probably, woulda, coulda, shoulda.
No one knows what would have happened if we'd reached agreement with Wolves earlier, but my belief is it would have laid down a marker for other clubs to beat, exactly as happened eventually. And if one of those clubs can offer Premier League riches and Match of the Day instead of the Football League Show, there tends to be an obvious outcome.
And, as above, is the left-back position really been that much of a contributory factor to our plight, particularly since Hyypia started to use defenders to defend?
Defensively he's not all that good. Tearing down the wing he looks decent but he's no-where near as defensively tight as Ward and tracking back he like the rest of the team sort of stroll back into position hoping and praying someone else will make that vital challenge.
Again, the point isn't the left back position, but how it is indicative of our hilariously inept transfer recruitment policy, which has left us with 20,000 4ft midfielders who all do roughly the same thing.
That "none of the 7 Burke signings played last Friday" is still a pretty strong suggestion to the outside that all is definitely not well.
aftershavedave
Well-known member
exactly this. to do it once over a relatively small amount of money is forgivable, to do it over and over, ultimately at great cost, is unforgivable.
grabban: could have been our player for £1m ish goes after for £3m
clayton: we've got him, we've lost him, he wants to come here, he's definitely ours, he's gone
ward: hardly gazumped were we, we dicked him around
the list goes on on on.
what a mess, and as said here, it was looking bad before we kicked off.
But you need to get your defence right first, which is why Poyet and Garcia is successful. Bennett does not defend well, constantly ball watches, costing goals. This is being magnified due to our appalling midfield.
If we played a more rigid 4-4-2 Bennett would be better deployed in midfield.
Even with the benefit of the hindsight we now have, I'm happy that the club pay players, and pay for players, what they believe is right for the club. If that means they sometimes miss out or sometimes overpay then so be it, but there has to be a process of attempting to determine value and worth, and acting within that.
And if it means we go down and have a half empty white elephant of a stadium in League One haemorrhaging money it won't matter because we'll have done things "the right way", right?
Principles are good, especially in football, a world with so few. They're not EVERYTHING though.
aolstudios
Well-known member
Do you believe this process is working? Even strictly financially? It seems distinctly like we regularly save a penny now to lose many pounds later
So true.
TWOCHOICEStom
Well-known member
I think the club underestimates how much quality is worth. I also think they don't truly understand what level of player is required to get promotion.
I think Gus understood both of those things. And the number of pound notes required was too high for TB's liking.
Disagree. I have been thinking how well Stephen Ward would fit in our current way of playing. A young Peter Ward might not though we could do with one.
I have not been impressed with either Joe Bennett or Adam Chicksen.
Tony Bloom has gone on record to say we have the highest playing wage bill we have ever had, which would suggest the club haven't been penny pinching in the recruitment of players.
Tony Bloom decided to not meet the initial demands of Wolves for Stephen Ward.
Tony Bloom has made a lot of right decisions for this club - he'll make wrong ones too, being human and that.
Quite. Perhaps Bloom was shocked by just what it takes to get us where he wants us to go. Maybe we have to accept that the Prem isn't going to happen, and we're just going to tread water and lose shitloads of money yo-yoing between the Champ and League 1? The ONLY way Bloom is going to see any sort of return is if we spend a few seasons in the Prem.
This discussion is plain WIERD. People piling into the club for 'failing to agree terms' with Ward, or missing out due to 'not being prepared to pay what he wanted', when the club DID reach an agreement, that the player was happy to sign, and was ON HIS WAY to do so, when he got a call to say that he could double his money in the Prem.
What were the club supposed to have done when he had AGREED to accept what they had offered? Offer more, in case another offer came in before he got down the M6?
The reason, as [MENTION=6886]Bozza[/MENTION] has alluded to, that Burnley came in late, is that the agent will have waited until the negotiations with us were complete, before making one final round of speculative calls, one of which hit the jackpot.
If we'd reached that agreement with Ward three weeks sooner, he still would have made those other calls.
What were the club supposed to have done when he had AGREED to accept what they had offered? Offer more, in case another offer came in before he got down the M6?
The reason, as [MENTION=6886]Bozza[/MENTION] has alluded to, that Burnley came in late, is that the agent will have waited until the negotiations with us were complete, before making one final round of speculative calls, one of which hit the jackpot.
If we'd reached that agreement with Ward three weeks sooner, he still would have made those other calls.
brightonrock
Dodgy Hamstrings
- Jan 1, 2008
- 2,482
Which, tbf, we offered, he accepted terms, then he did a 180° turn on his way down for a medical when he got the call from Burnley at the last minute. There's a lot wrong behind the scenes, granted - but there's no telling whether the same would've happened whether we went for him on the first day he was out of contract or the last day before the window closed. I'd shine more of a light on the signings we have made rather than those we've missed - championship clubs will always be gazumped by premier league clubs. As Gus used to say, eez foohball.