Summer transfers

[miller0863]

Old Dutch lad with a dodgy injury record

Yeah great

[justme]

Oh hes got injury issues as well??

Bit like Isak with his constant groin strains. It seems to be an injury that will always plague him. It didn't take a brain box to realize he has these issues..
Our recruitment is poor, How can the likes of Brentford find stars like Thiago and we never seem to be able find rough diamonds like that?.. I could be wrong. But Roberson was the last one..maybe others but can't think of them now

[teesred]

Liverpool are plotting a move to sign 30-year-old Inter Milan and Netherlands defender Denzel Dumfries to bolster their options at right-back. (Football Insider)

Another Dutch import what could possibly go wrong??
With a name like Dumfries. he should go play in Scotland.

He'd be an upgrade on Frimpong. I'd settle for that at the moment. Always been impressed when I've seen him, admittedly not a great deal though.
Frimpong to me just looks way to soft for this league. Might prove me wrong but that's just how I see it, doesn't fancy a battle in any game and is neither here nor there in terms of defence and attack. Also injured far too often.

[Steveo]

Recruitment is always good when you have one of the best managers in history - strangely it goes to shit when they aren’t around anymore.

The delusion was those naive enough to believe it was being driven by the running of the club. That always made me chuckle

[justme]

He'd be an upgrade on Frimpong. I'd settle for that at the moment. Always been impressed when I've seen him, admittedly not a great deal though.
Frimpong to me just looks way to soft for this league. Might prove me wrong but that's just how I see it, doesn't fancy a battle in any game and is neither here nor there in terms of defence and attack. Also injured far too often.

I have issues with players that think more about their appearance than their output. Frimpong should get rid of that stupid headband and geta nice hair cut and comeback focused next season and be up for it. Same with that idiot Wirzt when the weather gets about 7c out comes the gloves.
Just fucking get stuck in and achieve something more.. And that Gakpo chickens out of almost every challenge. another one who got a huge wage increase and downed tools.

[miller0863]

I doubt Gakpo survives more than a season under another manager

[Insidious]

Our recruitment is poor, How can the likes of Brentford find stars like Thiago and we never seem to be able find rough diamonds like that?

Brentford are absolutely obsessed with data analytics and have a hybrid system of intensive scouting and mathematical models.

They're arguably the most "Moneyball" side in the League. They target undervalued players below a certain age having scouted them and run them through the models, scouts and analysts have a discussion, then they make moves.

Sell for the right price, re-invest.

Interestingly when they targeted Mbuemo when he was 19 or so, the mathematic models didn't paint him in the most flattering light, but multiple scouts scored him so positively that they took the punt.

They seem to have gotten the balance right better than almost anyone. The next step for them will be the final push for Champion's League football to increase their income. If they get that and continue to operate as they do, they'll remain in the Premier League for a long, long time.

Everyone uses data these days of course, but the 4 clubs in the League that are probably most oriented around it would be ourselves, Brentford, Brighton and Bournemouth - and overall I think those clubs are doing pretty well as a collective over the last decade or so, even if Liverpool have been in a malaise for about 18 months. Not to mention we had Jürgen, which gave us a Hell of an edge - just as the clubs above have had good managers as well. It will never be "just" the Data, though when used well it's ridiculously helpful.

Hopefully we will return to the strategy we had before we pretended we were Real Madrid for a Summer.

I was overall happy with the quality of each individual player at the time, but the blend, given what we had on the books, was bizarre. Two main concerns were the amount of players in the squad who all thrived in the left half-space which I thought would impact a number of on-pitch relationships (hasn't looked right 37 games on!) coupled with the reduction of the press in the team, which stems from loss of natural busy-bees (Diaz, Darwin) a change in conditioning (for the worse) and tactical choice from the manager.

I firmly believe we can go back to a model more similar to what brought Firmino, Mane, Salah etc in, though it won't happen overnight and fans may struggle with a transition period to enable it. On paper we should be strong enough to be able to go through a transition (without Slot and Hughes please) whilst still remaining in the Champion's League spots - but not easy.

[jozza800]

Recruitment is always good when you have one of the best managers in history - strangely it goes to shit when they aren’t around anymore.

The delusion was those naive enough to believe it was being driven by the running of the club. That always made me chuckle

You need both.

No good having the ingredients for a great recipe but having a poor chef. A great chef isn't getting Michelin Star cooking with rotten vegetables and dogshit.

[Steveo]

So we bought rotten “vegetables and dogshit” this summer?

First I have heard of it,

[jozza800]

The difference for the Brentfords, Brightons and Bournemouths is they don't have the pressure of competing at the top of the game, so have time to develop their players and can afford to bin them off if they don't work out.

Was reading a post on Reddit on the West Ham sub and one of their fans was complaing about them, calling them Maths Experiment clubs. I immediately thought, well if your own club was ran half as well as theirs you wouldn't be gettning relegated!