Pick your owners

[JockStrap]

Maybe if we'd spent the £60m on Nunez better? Money was available and was spent.

[Insidious]

we had to sign Kabak on loan....

Sort of made sense at the time, given our model.

Think it was a £1m loan fee with option of buying for £18m if he'd worked out, which was relatively low risk and non-commital if we decided not to buy him in the Summer and go for someone else.

A lot of fans were clamouring for a permanent January transfer (very understandable - "Guehi before Guehi" if you will...) but if we'd acquired one we probably never end up getting Konaté that Summer - so I tend to take a fairly relaxed (and admittedly probably unpopular) stance on that whole debacle.

[Kev0909]

Sort of made sense at the time, given our model.

Think it was a £1m loan fee with option of buying for £18m if he'd worked out, which was relatively low risk and non-commital if we decided not to buy him in the Summer and go for someone else.

A lot of fans were clamouring for a permanent January transfer (very understandable - "Guehi before Guehi" if you will...) but if we'd acquired one we probably never end up getting Konaté that Summer - so I tend to take a fairly relaxed (and admittedly probably unpopular) stance on that whole debacle.

Not to forget davies

What's our model? be that desperate? and not actually invest in areas we need and leave it for far too long?

It's obvious to everyone that has happened quite a few times with FSG surely? compare it other teams around us, that's just my point.

They're not bad but far from perfect, need to spend a bit of money on a consistent basis to compete with arsenal city and utd /chelsea that's just how it is, unless we find gems like Coutinho salah/mane again on a cheap- but that doesn't happen every week.

we could've done that with Rayan because I think he'll turn out to be a top player, but we didn't and I doubt he'll be at bournemouth for more than a few seasons, and then they'll make a tidy profit.

[JockStrap]

Here you are Steveo. This is the thread to post your alternatives to FSG.

You're all over the other threads yapping like a little chihuahua about FSG. Tell us which owners you would prefer.

[Insidious]

Not to forget davies

What's our model? be that desperate? and not actually invest in areas we need and leave it for far too long?

It's obvious to everyone that has happened quite a few times with FSG surely? compare it other teams around us, that's just my point.

Not to forget Davies - true.

But again, if we buy a centre-back that January, we probably don't get Konaté in the following Summer.

We end up entering the following Summer (when Konaté arrives, I might forget someone here) with the following lads -

Van Dijk
Konaté
Matip
Gomez
Phillips
Van den Berg
Williams
Davies
Koumetio
Quansah

We are careful at times not to block the paths of youngsters, as they're part of how we do our spending. We've seen considerable money come in from selling the likes of Quansah and Van den Berg (£60m for both I think) which is part of how we do things. I don't know if it would have made that much sense to have brought another lad in, in terms of blocking youth development or in terms of keeping our top options happy - unless we'd had a considerable bid for one of our injury-prone lads (Gomez, Matip) which we would never have accepted in January.

Identify market value, acquire players for under market value, sell at peak price if it suits us, use analytics over scouting "by eye" - do so by generating our own funds. It has largely worked for us.

I do agree that we have a tendency to start any given season "a player short" of where we'd want to be, but it's a fine balancing act. We do it better than most. As to spending how those around us do (Arsenal seemingly HAVE to as Arteta wouldn't get close without it, Mancs like drunken Sailors, Chelsea with rule-bending long contracts, Man City via breaking the rules) I can genuinely say I prefer our way of doing it - but I appreciate that's subjective.

[JockStrap]

Identify market value, acquire players for under market value, sell at peak price if it suits us, use analytics over scouting "by eye" - do so by generating our own funds. It has largely worked for us.

That's a good point and we don't just use analytics for players. Hughes said in the roundtable that he had a huge dossier on Slot before he even met him. We're clearly a club that do our work thoroughly before making a move. If we didn't go for Guehi or whoever there's generally a good reason for it. Of course we won't get every decision right. That's not possible. But I agree that overall we're a very well run club.

[JockStrap]

I reckon that settles it then. 75% prefer to stick with FSG.