I feel like the biggest dynamic Rafa is struggling with is the fact that quite simply, we are nowhere near as big a club as he has managed in the past. The closest you could equate us to is Napoli, but even they are lightyears ahead of us (and funnily enough is arguably where he was poorest).

At a big club you can drop players you don't like, players you don't fancy or rate, and still have two or three excellent players to step in and fill the void. Or simply go out and buy better players. Here, you dip beneath those players and you have literally nothing. The footballers just aren't to the calibre he's used to working with, for me it's as simple as that.

He needs to find a way to use the players he's got. If he doesn't like Mitrovic, Mbemba and the like, fine. What he needs to stop doing is trying to force a lot of our players into a style they either clearly aren't comfortable with or make use of the players he doesn't like that might be able to offer more purely because they are more talented footballers.

At this stage, I think we just simply need the takeover to happen so he can buy the players to suit his vision. I think we'll be fine without it purely because there's worse teams than us in the league, but that's it. Everyone needs to be reading off the same page, and Rafa alienating a lot of our players will not be exactly doing wonders for dressing room morale either. He needs to either swallow his pride and give the likes of Mitrovic and Mbemba a chance or go back to basics and try to ensure we aren't pissing goals every week like we have been lately.

ALF wrote:

Colly wrote:I think the £10m thing is a bit of an odd hill to die on, I reckon had we been a Premier League side there's no way we'd have got Ritchie and Gayle for less than that, transfer fees aren't just related to the quality of a player. We leave a £15m striker on the bench every week and have only just started playing our £13m signing.

It's a circular argument by this stage, but my point is simply that there's balance to be drawn between "Rafa is faultless, f*** Ashley" and "Rafa is rubbish, sack him", and we're definitely somewhere on that range in between at the moment. He can't be immune from criticism and it would be wrong to make him so.

This. For weeks we had Mitro and Gayle on the bench. That's £25m right there. Throw in Murphy alongside them and we've got £38m sitting on the bench most of the season not getting a look in. You could add in Mbemba as well and we're up to £45m+ sitting there unused.

It's not like we've got a team full of bargain buys and then a bench full of untested academy kids. We could definitely have spent more last summer. It wouldn't guarantee success at all, especially with Rafas mixed record in the transfer market, but at the same time we've got senior players playing for and training with the Under 23's. If we signed more players we'd have been adding to an already overly full squad.

Agreed

Colly wrote:I think the £10m thing is a bit of an odd hill to die on, I reckon had we been a Premier League side there's no way we'd have got Ritchie and Gayle for less than that, transfer fees aren't just related to the quality of a player. We leave a £15m striker on the bench every week and have only just started playing our £13m signing.

It's a circular argument by this stage, but my point is simply that there's balance to be drawn between "Rafa is faultless, f*** Ashley" and "Rafa is rubbish, sack him", and we're definitely somewhere on that range in between at the moment. He can't be immune from criticism and it would be wrong to make him so.

This. For weeks we had Mitro and Gayle on the bench. That's £25m right there. Throw in Murphy alongside them and we've got £38m sitting on the bench most of the season not getting a look in. You could add in Mbemba as well and we're up to £45m+ sitting there unused.

It's not like we've got a team full of bargain buys and then a bench full of untested academy kids. We could definitely have spent more last summer. It wouldn't guarantee success at all, especially with Rafas mixed record in the transfer market, but at the same time we've got senior players playing for and training with the Under 23's. If we signed more players we'd have been adding to an already overly full squad.

I think the £10m thing is a bit of an odd hill to die on, I reckon had we been a Premier League side there's no way we'd have got Ritchie and Gayle for less than that, transfer fees aren't just related to the quality of a player. We leave a £15m striker on the bench every week and have only just started playing our £13m signing.

It's a circular argument by this stage, but my point is simply that there's balance to be drawn between "Rafa is faultless, f*** Ashley" and "Rafa is rubbish, sack him", and we're definitely somewhere on that range in between at the moment. He can't be immune from criticism and it would be wrong to make him so.

beardface wrote:Someone find that photo which shows every PL teams record purchase and when they were signed. Proof that under Ashley we aren’t competing with anyone else in the league.

According to Transfermarkt we have the 16th cheapest squad in the league. Not bad considering we're usually ranked as the 20th most valuable club in the world by Forbes!

Someone find that photo which shows every PL teams record purchase and when they were signed. Proof that under Ashley we aren’t competing with anyone else in the league.

I'm over Colo wrote:

R&B wrote: We was at Championship. Who do you expect to sign? Just PL players? Get real. We targeted a players who can help us one way or another on reasonable price. The only PL player we can manage to get was Ritchie.

I agree it wouldn't have been reasonable to sign only PL quality players for the championship, but it also probably was unreasonable for Rafa to expect to pay top dollar and long-term contracts for Championship players and expect to unload them after a single season. The problem this summer should have been foreseeable.

Rafa using his psychic powers

R&B wrote:

ALF wrote:We spent a fortune before the Championship season and there was no long term signings. That was poor management. Yes we sold to fund it but selling 2 players for £55m could sign 5 average PL players going by your logic Sir Bobby. Instead we bought about 15 players and most were short term.

We then struggled to offload a lot of s***(not all signed by Rafa in his defence) so of course we couldn't add too much to the squad. I don't understand why some people thought we could add to a 30 man squad.

We was at Championship. Who do you expect to sign? Just PL players? Get real. We targeted a players who can help us one way or another on reasonable price. The only PL player we can manage to get was Ritchie.

I agree it wouldn't have been reasonable to sign only PL quality players for the championship, but it also probably was unreasonable for Rafa to expect to pay top dollar and long-term contracts for Championship players and expect to unload them after a single season. The problem this summer should have been foreseeable.

Donkey Toon wrote:Brighton had a genuine championship squad and have added some quality to it, but on paper have far more of a "championship" squad than we do. And they are stronger than us.

I'm also at the end of this debate as I think we're in agree to disagree territory, but bookmark this that, so long as Rafa stays, we'll finish above Brighton.

ALF wrote:We spent a fortune before the Championship season and there was no long term signings. That was poor management. Yes we sold to fund it but selling 2 players for £55m could sign 5 average PL players going by your logic Sir Bobby. Instead we bought about 15 players and most were short term.

We then struggled to offload a lot of s***(not all signed by Rafa in his defence) so of course we couldn't add too much to the squad. I don't understand why some people thought we could add to a 30 man squad.

We was at Championship. Who do you expect to sign? Just PL players? Get real. We targeted a players who can help us one way or another on reasonable price. The only PL player we can manage to get was Ritchie.

We spent a fortune before the Championship season and there was no long term signings. That was poor management. Yes we sold to fund it but selling 2 players for £55m could sign 5 average PL players going by your logic Sir Bobby. Instead we bought about 15 players and most were short term.

We then struggled to offload a lot of s***(not all signed by Rafa in his defence) so of course we couldn't add too much to the squad. I don't understand why some people thought we could add to a 30 man squad.

Donkey Toon wrote:

Colly wrote:I want to see some confidence intervals from both of you.

Fat chance. This pointless discussion is becoming less worth the time with every post.

Would love to have seen the stick Pardew would have taken for spending the same money on the same s*** players. Benitez it would appear is Teflon coated to some of our fans.

None of our previous managers had the task of rebuilding a squad quite like Rafa has had. Not saying he’s blameless, I’m more frustrated by his refusal to drop certain players who continuously underperform than some signings not working out.

Bodacious Benny wrote:Rafa's transfer record has always been patchy. At Liverpool's he signed some complete donkeys. The difference is that Liverpool have the luxury of having a big enough budget whereby for ever donkey they signed there was usually a few decent players too. Whereas with us when we sign donkeys like Manquillo and Joselu they need to be used.

Still not sure why we signed Manquillo. He was clearly not PL standard. At LB we had Dummett and Mbemba who could do a job there so Manquillo wasn't really needed (unless signed as a backup RB, which he wasn't and in any case we could've kept Anita for that). The signing of Lazaar last season was equally baffling. Although Diame is s*** I can see why we signed him as he'd just played an important role in getting Hull to the PL.

Given the right players I've no doubt Rafa will do a top job but he's certainly signed some dross.

Yep. My brother is a Liverpool fan. When he first joined us he told me "Benitez goes in for bulk buying and half of his signings will be ****. And no matter how much money he is given he will always complain that he should have had more."

And he nigh on worshipped him for the success he bought to the dippers, but clearly saw that transfer activity had been his weakness at that club, just as I maintain it is with us.

But I can't be bothered to argue the toss anymore.

Rafa's transfer record has always been patchy. At Liverpool's he signed some complete donkeys. The difference is that Liverpool have the luxury of having a big enough budget whereby for ever donkey they signed there was usually a few decent players too. Whereas with us when we sign donkeys like Manquillo and Joselu they need to be used.

Still not sure why we signed Manquillo. He was clearly not PL standard. At LB we had Dummett and Mbemba who could do a job there so Manquillo wasn't really needed (unless signed as a backup RB, which he wasn't and in any case we could've kept Anita for that). The signing of Lazaar last season was equally baffling. Although Diame is s*** I can see why we signed him as he'd just played an important role in getting Hull to the PL.

Given the right players I've no doubt Rafa will do a top job but he's certainly signed some dross.

Donkey Toon wrote:

Colly wrote:I want to see some confidence intervals from both of you.

Fat chance. This pointless discussion is becoming less worth the time with every post.

Would love to have seen the stick Pardew would have taken for spending the same money on the same s*** players. Benitez it would appear is Teflon coated to some of our fans.

I'm not even defending Benitez... I said earlier in this thread that his line-ups and subs have been baffling, and he's not using the squad effectively. However we have one of the poorer squads in the Prem and that's not entirely his fault as you seem to be making out

Donkey Toon wrote:

Sir Bobby wrote:
Good way of negating the rest of my point

We're talking about more or less the cheapest teams in the Prem here. Not the average teams, nice try though!

Mean average is pointless in this instance. What Man City, Man Utd, Chelsea et al spend is not in anyway average. I made it quite clear that for most of the teams in the league, certainly the lower half, £10m is well above the average price for a player.

However, median or mode average are more relevant. Which is actually what you were suggesting because you were highlighting numbers of players signed for more than that figure and not the average of their prices.

Swansea signed 3 £10m+ players this year alone, West Ham spent £40m on 2 players to add to their 3 from last year, West Brom signed 2 this year to add to their 2, Watford signed 3 of roughly £10 to add to their 2, Stoke spent £20m on one player to add to their 2, Southampton spent £35m on 2 players to add to their 3, Leicester spent a f*** tonne, Huddersfield signed 3 in that region this summer, Everton 3 to add to their 5, Palace added a £25m player to add to their 5, Burnley signed 2 to add to their 3.

Most teams outside the top 6 have signed 4-6 £10-20m players in the last 18 months alone. Throw in maybe 2 from the years before that and you're looking at most teams having 7 or 8 £10m players in their 10 outfield players. I'm not saying you can't find players cheaper than £10m but on the average most starters are in that region.

Colly wrote:I want to see some confidence intervals from both of you.

Fat chance. This pointless discussion is becoming less worth the time with every post.

Would love to have seen the stick Pardew would have taken for spending the same money on the same s*** players. Benitez it would appear is Teflon coated to some of our fans.

I want to see some confidence intervals from both of you.

Sir Bobby wrote:

Donkey Toon wrote:
So you came up with 7 players out of 22 and still maintain that £10m is the average price. There really is no point debating with you.

Good way of negating the rest of my point

We're talking about more or less the cheapest teams in the Prem here. Not the average teams, nice try though!

Mean average is pointless in this instance. What Man City, Man Utd, Chelsea et al spend is not in anyway average. I made it quite clear that for most of the teams in the league, certainly the lower half, £10m is well above the average price for a player.

However, median or mode average are more relevant. Which is actually what you were suggesting because you were highlighting numbers of players signed for more than that figure and not the average of their prices.

Donkey Toon wrote:

Sir Bobby wrote:
Bournemouth have signed Ibe, Begovic and Ake for over £10 million in the last 18 months. Burnley have signed Cork, Wood, Hendrick, Brady. We've signed Murphy, Ritchie and Gayle. So since we were relegated from the Prem, Bournemouth and Burnley have signed as many £10m players as us, or more.

It's also quite clear he DIDNT think the budget was as tight as it was... I don't think it's any surprise Murphy was signed very early in the window when Benitez thought his assurances over the budget would be kept.

So you came up with 7 players out of 22 and still maintain that £10m is the average price. There really is no point debating with you.

Good way of negating the rest of my point

We're talking about more or less the cheapest teams in the Prem here. Not the average teams, nice try though!