Summer transfer joy and happiness

[I am invisible]

As much as we roll our eyes at the diabolical machine that is Man City.....someone the other day made a simple but good point on a radio station I was listening to. When they lose the ball, they give everything to win it back. There's no reason any other team can't do that. Of course you are more incentivised to do it if you have a genuine chance to win the league and your manager is Guardiola who would kick his Gran to the ground to win a game....but still. Money doesn't directly buy that kind of work ethic. ]

If we do nothing else to the team and defence other than to get them to run like maniacs when they've lost the ball....then Emery will improve us defensively.

The crazy thing is, if the whole team does it as a collective, then no single, individual player actually has to work that hard or run that far - each player only really has to cover something like their own 15sq yard of space before they’re moving into one of their team mate’s ‘zones’. Put them all together and you have a grid

It really is more about mindset and mental conditioning than anything that requires superhuman levels of fitness or defensive technique: stay alert, keep your eye on the game and be ready to get under someone’s feet if they move onto your patch...

[Bumble]

As much as we roll our eyes at the diabolical machine that is Man City.....someone the other day made a simple but good point on a radio station I was listening to. When they lose the ball, they give everything to win it back. There's no reason any other team can't do that. Of course you are more incentivised to do it if you have a genuine chance to win the league and your manager is Guardiola who would kick his Gran to the ground to win a game....but still. Money doesn't directly buy that kind of work ethic. ]

If we do nothing else to the team and defence other than to get them to run like maniacs when they've lost the ball....then Emery will improve us defensively.

Also the pressure is on the players as if you aren't going to put the effort in, City will find someone else who would. The fact Sane isn't a regular starter is ridiculous where he would be one of our best players.

it doesn't bother me what City have done, because they are so enjoyable to watch.

[Marc Overmars]

There are consequences at City for sure and everyone is held to account if standards are not met. That’s something I think we lost sight of as a club a long time ago, they are the building blocks of success as far as I’m concerned. If you don’t keep the bar high you’ll never go on to be successful.

However for City those consequences have only been so stern because they have the financial muscle to chop and change as they please, in a way we and most other clubs simply can’t.

[SMatthews]

When you’re paying big money for a player you aren’t just paying for talent. You’re paying for mentality.

You can’t build a team on a budget that can sustainably challenge for the PL anymore. Most players have the same level of talent at the top of the game, it’s the mentality that separates the best from the rest. That’s what allows the very best players to bring their A game each week.

We can improve without spending hundreds of millions but we won’t improve THAT much. The best we can achieve on a small budget is third - which was all of 2 points away at the end of last season.

[Bumble]

When you’re paying big money for a player you aren’t just paying for talent. You’re paying for mentality.

You can’t build a team on a budget that can sustainably challenge for the PL anymore. Most players have the same level of talent at the top of the game, it’s the mentality that separates the best from the rest. That’s what allows the very best players to bring their A game each week.

We can improve without spending hundreds of millions but we won’t improve THAT much. The best we can achieve on a small budget is third - which was all of 2 points away at the end of last season.

yeah city we cant compete with but we should be looking at the Liverpool model and following that.... IF the owners were interested. I know that took time to develop but buying and selling and coaching can help.

[SMatthews]

yeah city we cant compete with but we should be looking at the Liverpool model and following that.... IF the owners were interested. I know that took time to develop but buying and selling and coaching can help.

That would still mean operating above the level we currently seem to be set at. Granted, they did lay out £100m on two strikers and two crazy contracts, so we can do it. The money just has to be spent well. Which it hasn’t been for a while.

[Özim]

yeah city we cant compete with but we should be looking at the Liverpool model and following that.... IF the owners were interested. I know that took time to develop but buying and selling and coaching can help.

We should be way ahead of Liverpool, we had the stadium, the paltform to build from, then Wenger went on a one man crusade to save football by not spending and building a team of kids and the rest is history.

We messed up our chance, we were all set to compete with the big boys now we've missed our chance and have to settle for scraps and watch other teams who have planned far better do what we should have been doing.

[I am invisible]

I'm not saying we shouldn't identify the best we can get, clearly. I'm saying that finding us out own VDV is nigh on impossible....and even if we did we wouldn't pay the money for him anyway. But nevertheless we can improve in other ways. Plenty of examples of players not of VDV's standard who would improve us.

It’s possible - we’re just not going to be acquiring a finished product at the £75m end of the market (not until we’re back to being a consistent CL side again, anyway). For now, we need to be shooting for a Celtic-VVD, rather than a established-PL-VVD. Maybe even a pre-Celtic VVD? In all honesty, City and Liverpool are probably going to dominate this league for a couple of years yet, so I’m kind of ok with taking on a bit of a project with the right player.

As with everything with us right now, though, it all seems to hinge on how the club is being restructured. To pull something like that off we need to: hire a TD and head of recruitment who can spot the right players; improve the coaching and mentoring; and probably get the wage bill under control (so we can afford to ride out any non-CL years without needing to sell off half the squad before the job is done).

[Özim]

Trying to find a young up and coming CB would be our best best, someone who could potentially become top class, from the names we're being linked with so far it's been older players however which is a mistake IMO.

We don't seem to be able to get the balance right, when Wenger was about he signed all the young players he could but none had any experience or had shown any real talent at a decent level, now we seem to be after older players who will need replacing sooner rather than later (Sokratis is already 31 for example), we should be looking for young up and coming players or players around their mid 20s if we want to build a decent team.

[Mac76]

Trying to find a young up and coming CB would be our best best, someone who could potentially become top class, from the names we're being linked with so far it's been older players however which is a mistake IMO.

We don't seem to be able to get the balance right, when Wenger was about he signed all the young players he could but none had any experience or had shown any real talent at a decent level, now we seem to be after older players who will need replacing sooner rather than later (Sokratis is already 31 for example), we should be looking for young up and coming players or players around their mid 20s if we want to build a decent team.

i agree - i actually think we're only one good CB away from having a decent defence if we have Holding coming back and also if you assume Bielik might be good enough, which i've a suspicion he is

i keep saying it, but just as important is not ever giving Emery the option of playing Mustafi ever again - he is a fucking disaster area - beats me why the rest of the team haven't frozen him out by now - his fuckups against Palace alone cost us the top four then and there

he just HAS to go