We've got Mosquera.Originally Posted by dostoy
From his few cameos he looks a vast improvement and able to slot in comfortably across the back 4 and maybe even more.
An AWesque like signing....after wasting a billon quid and six years, he got one eventually.
Letters, this is all nonsense - you are going through some mental gymnastics and what if scenarios to try and make your point.What I am saying is net spend is more relevant in terms of how much improvement we should expect to see in the squad.
I don't think your kitchen analogy really works but OK, let's go with that. Three scenarios:
- You buy a new kitchen for £30k, but your old one was worth £60k - in that situation you spent £30k but your kitchen is probably actually worse than before. I guess the football equivalent of that would be a club in financial trouble who has to downgrade the squad to keep their heads above water financially or comply with the financial regulations.
- You buy a new kitchen for £30k, but your old one was only worth £15k. In that case I'd now expect you to have a better kitchen or, in football terms, a better player. That should improve the squad.
- You buy a new kitchen for £30k, your old one was only worth £15k and you keep it. Now you have two kitchens. If something in one breaks - I guess that would be analogous to an injury - then you have another one you can use. Maybe not as good as the new one but good enough, better than having to use a camping stove.
In all 3 scenarios you have spent £30k - by your metric those 3 scenarios are equivalent. But the net spend is different in all 3 scenarios and the result is very different. The first one is a downgrade in quality, the second is an upgrade. The 3rd is too and you're adding squad depth. That's why net spend is the more important metric.
And one relevant thing is were you the best restaurant in town before the work on the kitchen? If you were then in the first scenario you might not be any more. In the second you should be even better and in the third you would too and you've mitigated against having to give a reduced service if something in the kitchen breaks.
I brought up the kitchen analogy & the car one - so I apologise for going down that road but it was to try and keep it simple.
Fact: Arteta has spent close to £1bn assembling this squad (any attempts to refute this are futile as it is documented fact)
That means we should now have talent worth £1bn. (in fact transfermarket puts our current squad value at £1.32bn)
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/arse...lyse/verein/11
What we make back in player sales is irrelevant to the value of what we have bought in terms of their talent.
It makes them cheaper on paper and balances the books but it doesn't make them any less talented or reduces their value.
The idea of spending money is to strengthen and improve the squad to make it better with better players (you know this, I'm not trying to teach you to suck eggs).
No team wants to spend loads of money buying shit players that are worse than what they already have.
Despite all of this, the point I'm making still stands: we have spent a hell of a lot of money to rebuild a team that is capable of challenging - but are also still 1-2 players short of a team that can win.
Last edited by KSE Comedy Club; 19-08-2025 at 02:28 PM.
Not sure I agree, I think the squad we have can win either the league or the European cup as it is.
There’s definitely areas to strengthen but I don’t buy into the idea that there’s no way we can win anything big without it
Squad strengthening is a task that you never really finish.
What I mean by that is the title won’t be decided by whether or not we signed Eze or a similar level player
But our inability to win the title and pretty much every other trophy last season was largely due to the fact that we didn't have a striker....or at least that's the opinion most people share.
While I do agree that the squad is above average and able to win trophies ( if we had a manager that had honed his craft properly), I do believe KSE is spot on assuming THIS MANAGER will not be able to win the league if he doesn't sort out the left wing and what's going on in the middle with Odegaard.
Why? Well because he did the exact same thing last year....and the year before.....he clearly needs everything to go his way before he is able to triumph.
The ultimate point is after spending 6 years and over £1 billion quid, there is no reason why this manager should be short of any player in any position this early on in the league when we have no new longterm injuries.
There is also little reason why other teams should be looking better oiled than us when their managers have had shorter time and spent less money than us to build there "imperfect" squads that actually win things.
I'm not saying there is no way we can win anything, we can always hope results & situations go our way and the squad is very decent as it is.
But we need to address the LW position as there is hug problem there currently with Martinelli & Trossard (neither of them are good enough it would seem)
and I also now agree with you that what is glaringly obvious, is a lack of a proper creative midfielder.
Odegaard is good on his day, but those days are becoming increasingly scattered and inconsistent.
He needs competition to raise his level.
That alone means we will struggle to win without a player with a different approach
Apart from City I don’t agree that other squads do look better
Injuries aside the same squad that got 89 points in 23/24 wasn’t any stronger than in 24/25. The problem as I see it before we got injuries was tactical. I keep talking heresy that the problem was playing Rice at no 8 against mid table teams as if it was me being obsessively critical of Rice rather than simply pointing out that he’s not a creative midfielder. We had the option to play Odegaard as a double pivot with Nwaneri but never even attempted it and as poor as Odegaard was, the fact that the responsibility is put on him to be the singular creative source in midfield doesn’t help.
The PSG tie the main issue was the lack of a striker to put away chances but it wasn’t the only issue, you look at how many midfielders ever took up position in the opposition penalty area.
And the main issue with mid table teams is playing two holding/defensive players that we don’t need especially when we have inverted full backs that move into midfield. I think we could have won the league with the squad we had last season (with City out of the running) the problem is we are well set up to neutralise the threat of big sides, but we aren’t set up to get the wins against mid table teams. The issue wasn’t creating lots of chances and having no one to finish them in those games it was creating a lot of half chances many of which were blocked.
This is not me saying we didn’t need a striker, it’s saying that a striker needs consistent and viable chances to profit from.
I would change things up in the attack for Leeds
Drop Rice to 6, and play two attacking midfielders in front of him
Nwaneri and Odegaard, Saka and Odegaard, Saka and Nwaneri it doesn’t matter
Stick Madueke on the right, stick one of Martinelli or Trossard on the left (or hell even Gyokeres with Havertz up front)
The problem for me is less the players we have available (ideally we’d have more width but we can experiment) more the need to control games. The irony is that if we play a more attacking line up, we won’t need to push our back four and defensive midfielder up so high.
Sigh. If it's nonsense then it should be simple to refute. You haven't engaged with what I'm saying.
How hard is this to understand? I have clearly outlined 3 scenarios which can be mapped on to football squads where one can spend the same amount and end up with a weaker team, a stronger team or a stronger team and a stronger squad. Your claim is that those 3 things are equivalent. They just aren't. Which is why net spend is a better metric of what a club has done.
Well OK. And the valuation of a squad is another useful metric. No argument there. That's actually probably an even better metric than net spend.That means we should now have talent worth £1bn. (in fact transfermarket puts our current squad value at £1.32bn)
As is wage bill.
That is your claim, but it remains to be seen. We're 1 game in.Despite all of this, the point I'm making still stands: we have spent a hell of a lot of money to rebuild a team that is capable of challenging - but are also still 1-2 players short of a team that can win.
We've challenged 2 out of the last 3 years. Last season was the outlier. Injuries were a factor, I'm certain we'd have been closer had we had fewer players out. But we also didn't do the right things in the transfer window last summer. I think we've done better this year, but other clubs have bought well too so I guess we'll see. We aren't going to sweep all before us but I reckon we'll be in the mix somewhere.
Apparently Trossard has signed a contract extension
New deal for Trossard which I presume ends the search for another attacker this summer.
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