Summer Transfers 2025 Missed Opportunities and Regrets

[HCZ_Reborn]

It's a little extreme to ever say that it's "our" title, but it's certainly true that with the previous 2 seasons we were - or should have been - best placed to take advantage of City's drop off. The fact we didn't sign a striker last summer was awful mismanagement. I wouldn't go all "may God forgive you, I never shall" as that seems a little histrionic, but it was certainly massive incompetence which cost us the chance of a first title in a generation. How much of that incompetence was Arteta's I don't know - he expressed some frustration at our transfer dealings, I think that was in January, which implies he's not entirely culpable.


I'm not asking you to acknowledge them. I don't acknowledge them - I don't think it was a great side. It's the fact that they had no real competition and the standard of the PL generally was so poor which handed them the title. Us and City were poor by the standards we'd set. Utd and Spurs were hilariously inept. It was probably the worst bottom 3 in PL history.The title race, such as it was, was over by the end of February. Liverpool were the best of a bad bunch.


But at the time you said - this was before the Liverpool vs Spurs game, "if it's not today then it'll be after the next match.". So at the time you acknowledged they'd win it at some point.
I don't see any sense in micro-analysing each of their last 4 games. It's just a fact that once they won the title they switched off, as is very common for sides who clinch the title. NQ's the only one who used to pretend that winning sides don't do that. They very much do and always have. So it seems extremely implausible that the fact they'd wrapped up the title so early didn't affect any of their subsequent results.



Now this is a more plausible. You said above they'd have crumbled had they been put under pressure. It's another unprovable and unfalsifiable assertion, but it's certainly true that sides are more likely to wobble when teams are breathing down their neck. Unfortunately we were never close enough to do that so I guess we'll never know. But it's an argument I can get on board with.

You’re kind of running circles around yourself by rehashing an old argument, yes they did absolutely switch off after they won the title I’m not disputing that. That changes the games and can change the outcome but I’m saying if they needed to win those games they would have struggled (they didn’t struggle in those games, they didn’t really give a fuck)
Given the week after the Spurs game we lost to Bournemouth, I think it’s fair to say that was more in relation to how we’d drop points and give them the title win

You might think it extreme but for me it was our title, September 23rd 2024 when I learned that Rodri was going to be out for the season. Not only did I think we were title favourites, I considered the title to be ours and in my view it should have been. And nothing Liverpool subsequently did changed that, we should have beaten them at home and I think that would have seriously derailed them anyway (partly shit refereeing, partly over cautious Arteta)

We will never get an open goal invitation like that again I don’t think. City will resume their dominance meaning that we will have to hope we can do what a stronger Liverpool side couldn’t and that’s beat City at their relentless best. At the moment, to be perfectly honest I think top 4 looks like a struggle. We’ve spent most of our summer transfer money on water carriers again and we are seriously lacking goals, and for all the money we spend on defensive solidity we clearly lack it

[Letters]

At the moment, to be perfectly honest I think top 4 looks like a struggle

Nah. I don't see it that way. I know you're not convinced by Gyökeres but I think he's a proper goal scorer.
I'm actually quite upbeat about the coming season. We won't sweep all before us, but I think we'll be in the mix.
But I do agree that last season was an open goal which we fluffed and we won't get one of those again.

[HCZ_Reborn]

Nah. I don't see it that way. I know you're not convinced by Gyökeres but I think he's a proper goal scorer.
I'm actually quite upbeat about the coming season. We won't sweep all before us, but I think we'll be in the mix.
But I do agree that last season was an open goal which we fluffed and we won't get one of those again.

You’re right I’m not convinced by him, his stats show that his record against top teams is mixed, he has little experience against low blocks and apart from anything else even a top goalscorer needs consistent service.

Frankly if we don’t buy another midfielder I’d suggest playing both Havertz and Gyokeres up front and going 100% long ball

[Letters]

You’re right I’m not convinced by him, his stats show that his record against top teams is mixed, he has little experience against low blocks and apart from anything else even a top goalscorer needs consistent service.

Frankly if we don’t buy another midfielder I’d suggest playing both Havertz and Gyokeres up front and going 100% long ball

I've only looked at his goals/games ratio which is pretty impressive. I haven't looked in to the details.
I wouldn't actually object to a more direct game. Against PSG we were making mistakes at the back which could have led to conceeding.
The few times Raya did send it long we quite often won the ball. I'm not a fan of all this tippy tappy shit at the back.

[KSE Comedy Club]

I wouldn’t mind nothing I’m saying is controversial. It’s just one of football’s ironies. The team that we finished runners up with in 2023/2024 were arguably stronger than the team that won the title in 97/98, just like the Liverpool team that finished runners up in 2009 and 2012 was far superior to the one that finished champions in 2025.

It seems people are enraged because I won’t acknowledge how good this Liverpool team is, I don’t think it is that good. It did what it needed to do last season but I won’t have it demanded to me that it’s capable of so much more because I don’t believe it is, and people need to wind their fucking necks in a bit.

If we play to the level we are capable of, I think we finish above them. That’s something I can’t say about City, I think we could perform to our absolute best and still finish runners up behind them if Rodri is still the player he was before he was injured.

So don’t scream hypotheticals at me for expressing a view that really isn’t that hard to understand. If you don’t agree that this Liverpool side reached their ceiling at 84 points fine, I think it accurately reflects their capabilities and you only have hypotheticals of what you insist must be the case to refute that

I agree with you on this.
I would say Liverpool were the most consistent team last season, rather than the greatest. I don't think they were that amazing and all this talk now of 'if they sign Isak, they have already won the title' is ridiculous IMO.

Had we actually given them a fight last season instead of playing some dog shit football and you know, taken advantage of when they dropped points instead of dropping them ourselves at the same time - we might have actually overturned them and won the league instead.
When we played them in the first half of last season I was angry at how pathetic we were, as Liverpool looked bang average to me.
But we were in the early stages of Arteta's new 'defend at all costs' system that ultimately hampered everything we were doing on the pitch.

[Marc Overmars]

Seems like United have beaten Newcastle to the Sesko signing.

No one wants to sign for the Barcodes.

[HCZ_Reborn]

The main problem I can see over the past three seasons is at home, away from home even last season where we drew too many games we are doing ok. But not once over the past three seasons have we managed more than 15 wins from 19 and to guarantee you the title that’s not enough, we also lose too many games (six in three seasons, compared to City’s 4 and Liverpool’s 3).
The target as far as I can see is to get to 28 wins (16 at home, 12 away) and to turn some of the defeats into draws both at home and away from home to get over 90 points. I’d say therefore the minimum target is 90 points with 28 wins 6 draws and no more than 4 defeats (our total amount of defeats in the league last season).

To make this achievable we not only need Gyokeres to be far better than I expect him to be, we need Saka, Havertz, Martinelli, Madueke and frankly Odegaard chipping in with goals and we probably need one more goalscoring midfielder as well (whether that will be Nwaneri or someone we will purchase I don’t know). We need a lot of things going right for us, I think we also need to consider how much we play Lewis-Skelly as he’s defensively better than Calafiori but he’s not as effective going forward and he struggles in midfield.

My attitude is that Lewis Skelly and Timber should play against the big teams (Skelly will be protected by the fact that Zubimendi and Rice will be in midfield. And that Calafiori and White play against everyone else and that in those games we either play two attacking midfielders or we play both Gyokeres and Havertz up front

[HCZ_Reborn]

Seems like United have beaten Newcastle to the Sesko signing.

No one wants to sign for the Barcodes.

There’s surely got to come a point where United’s history is no longer a pull for them.

That said Sesko is a dangerous player to have to contend with on the opening game of the season and it was my hope that we’d have him for us rather than against us. I do think we will struggle to beat them on the opening game of the season, defensively they are hopeless but that won’t matter, if they get a lead like last season they will feel more confident of adding to it.

[Marc Overmars]

There’s surely got to come a point where United’s history is no longer a pull for them.

That said Sesko is a dangerous player to have to contend with on the opening game of the season and it was my hope that we’d have him for us rather than against us. I do think we will struggle to beat them on the opening game of the season, defensively they are hopeless but that won’t matter, if they get a lead like last season they will feel more confident of adding to it.

Guess it depends on who they’re competing with for players if their history is to carry any weight. All this shows is that Newcastle have no pull and are a long way from being considered a go-to club despite their improvement.

As for the season opener v United, I have a sinking feeling that we will lose 1-0.

[KSE Comedy Club]

There’s surely got to come a point where United’s history is no longer a pull for them.

That said Sesko is a dangerous player to have to contend with on the opening game of the season and it was my hope that we’d have him for us rather than against us. I do think we will struggle to beat them on the opening game of the season, defensively they are hopeless but that won’t matter, if they get a lead like last season they will feel more confident of adding to it.

I'm actually not worried about playing them tbh.

Yeh sure, they will put a shift in, but I think we do have more in our locker to beat them when it comes to the crunch.