Summer transfer joy and happiness

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Originally Posted by selassie

Wenger damaged our rep mate. We got away with it initially as we always finished top 4 but the minute we dropped out of top 4 that was it, curtains!

We should never have been in this position, if Wenger would have done his job properly he would have left us with a competitive squad to work with. As it happens, he's left us with a mess of a squad and an owner that won't release proper funds because Wenger has blown it on duds.

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Stop being knee jerk :lol:

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Originally Posted by Cripps

Stop being knee jerk :lol:

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:lol:

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Originally Posted by Power n Glory

We're in a mess but for me, it would be an even bigger mistake to trust Emery with everything in the bank straight away. Let's see what he can do and how far he can get with little before we give him everything we have. If he were to spend a shit load and turn out to be flop, we'd be in an even worse position.

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Aye, I see your point PnG and I’m fully behind Emery. I’m excited for this upcoming season for the simple fact that I have no idea what we are going to achieve with Emery in charge of this squad of players.

I personally can’t see him doing any worse than last season and genuinely expect a fair bit of improvement, enough for us to be in the mix for top 4 or dare I say some sort of title challenge? Not sure....

I’ll say one thing though, 3 seasons out of CL and we’ll have to have a serious summer next year putting together a competitive squad.

It took Liverpool years to recover after they fell out of the top 4. Look up their signings from when Benitez left, apart from Suarez it reads like a who's who of shite. I'm genuinely worried we could be in the wilderness for at least another year or 2 and that's being compounded by the type of player we've been linked with this summer so far.

I'm just praying that Emery is the real deal.

Supposedly, we've opened talks with Sampdoria about Torreira - some say we're still negotiating, others say the clubs have reached an agreement but high agent fees are causing problems?

It'll take some time to get back into the top 4 but as Arseblog said, I'd rather go for experienced players that can hit the ground running and know how to get a job done rather than young & potential where the risk is bigger.

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Originally Posted by selassie

Aye, I see your point PnG and I’m fully behind Emery. I’m excited for this upcoming season for the simple fact that I have no idea what we are going to achieve with Emery in charge of this squad of players.

I personally can’t see him doing any worse than last season and genuinely expect a fair bit of improvement, enough for us to be in the mix for top 4 or dare I say some sort of title challenge? Not sure....

I’ll say one thing though, 3 seasons out of CL and we’ll have to have a serious summer next year putting together a competitive squad.

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I'm already ruling out a title challenge. It's rare for a new manager to win it in their first season so I'm not expecting it. I just want to see what ideas he has and what he can pull from the current squad.

The competition is tough. The teams above us have top players, top managers and we will find it hard to get back into the Top 4. We'll need a couple of teams to go through their own internal turmoil and disruption to get back to the top. I'm banking on Man Utd and Chelsea stutter next year. Maybe Spurs if Pott gets dragged into departure rumours.

We've got a lot of work to do but it also depends on our rivals being stable or making the right choices if key people leave. We'll have to capitalise off those moments. I think people now see the massive opportunities we blew when Fergie left and the season Leicester won.

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Originally Posted by Marc Overmars

It took Liverpool years to recover after they fell out of the top 4. Look up their signings from when Benitez left, apart from Suarez it reads like a who's who of shite. I'm genuinely worried we could be in the wilderness for at least another year or 2 and that's being compounded by the type of player we've been linked with this summer so far.

I'm just praying that Emery is the real deal.

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I'm not sure what you mean "after they fell out of the top 4"?
Since they won the title they have been bobbed around all over the place, never lower than 8th but never consistently inside or outside the top 4.
They have never had more than 4 seasons in a row either inside or outside the top 4.

https://image.ibb.co/jdJW8T/Liverpool.jpg

The problem with being top 4 now and challenging is simply there are more clubs capable of doing so. It's a myth that we "dropped out of the top 2" after the glory years, there simply wasn't a "top 2" any more. Chelsea and City bought their way in, now Spurs and Liverpool have sorted themselves out (although historically Liverpool have never done so consistently, neither have Spurs so it remains to be seen whether they are in it for the long haul). It is more of a top 6 these days and while we finished rock bottom of it last year I don't think it would take that much to do better. A better away record last year (and I honestly can't remember the last time it was that bad) and we'd have been challenging last season.

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Originally Posted by Letters

I'm not sure what you mean "after they fell out of the top 4"?
Since they won the title they have been bobbed around all over the place, never lower than 8th but never consistently inside or outside the top 4.
They have never had more than 4 seasons in a row either inside or outside the top 4.

https://image.ibb.co/jdJW8T/Liverpool.jpg

The problem with being top 4 now and challenging is simply there are more clubs capable of doing so. It's a myth that we "dropped out of the top 2" after the glory years, there simply wasn't a "top 2" any more. Chelsea and City bought their way in, now Spurs and Liverpool have sorted themselves out (although historically Liverpool have never done so consistently, neither have Spurs so it remains to be seen whether they are in it for the long haul). It is more of a top 6 these days and while we finished rock bottom of it last year I don't think it would take that much to do better. A better away record last year (and I honestly can't remember the last time it was that bad) and we'd have been challenging last season.

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Which is why I've never given Wenger much credit for keeping us in the top 4. There weren't enough good teams around to truly challenge us. That has now all changed.

That's a bit of a weird argument. Chelsea and City have usurped us by spending a shit ton of money, so have Liverpool actually.
Only Spurs have sorted themselves out with good management.
All the other teams were trying to get into the top 4, none of them consistently succeeded till the money men came along.
Wenger was far too proud of just keeping our top 4 status, but the fact no other teams managed it shows it wasn't an easy task to be that consistent for that long, we weren't spending big in the transfer market to do it.