Men's Soccer (Football) Thread [ARCHIVED] Soccer • Page 19

Yeah that's what I was thinking, but this is extraordinarily late. Even for them.

 

Burnley have announced the signing of Joe Hart on a 2 year deal.

 

I can't see Rafa sticking around sadly.

Also, I think Chelsea will end up losing Courtois and that will cause them to finish outside the CL places too.

 

Kovacic to Chelsea on loan apparently. Great business if true.

 

Bolasie to Middlesbrough for £18m. Stoked here.

Edit: Oh wait, Burnley are interested too. Bidding war!

 

lmao

 

This is getting ridiculous honestly. I'm sure Kovacic being loaned to Chelsea comes down to the player's preference, but it would be really disappointing if true. Spurs could have offered him Champions League football and a spot in the starting XI.

 

I mean, he'd start for Chelsea as well wouldn't he? With the starting midfield they'd have, I'd make Chelsea second favourites for the title tbh. Defence a bit iffy, but best midfield in the league (Jorginho, Kante, Kova), Hazard, Morata if he gets his arse in gear.

That's majority world class there.

 

I guess he would, but Chelsea also have Fabregas, Barkley, Loftus-Cheek, Drinkwater (who is possibly going, but the deal isn't done yet) Luiz who played as a midfielder for PSG for half of his time there, etc. How many midfielders do they need ?

I mean, I'm preaching for my team for sure, I'm not neutral, but Spurs definitely NEED a world-class central midfielder. Dembélé is injury prone, Winks has been out forever, Wanyama isn't the midfield leader they are looking for...

 

Kovacic is better than all of them. Loftus Cheek is also off back to Palace apparently.

 

I mean, I'm not arguing that Spurs also need a midfielder, probably more so than Chelsea depending on what system each team uses. I know this will go down badly in here (and I don't say it lightly cause I hate Chelsea) but as a player Chelsea are by far the more attractive destination at this point. Sure no champions league this season, but in terms of trajectory Chelsea have a higher likelihood to actually win things and are moving forwards. Spurs seem a team unable to get over the hill so to speak, and possibly even a team in reverse depending on how this window goes.

 

I don’t necessarily disagree with anything you said. But I’d argue if Kovacic chose Spurs over Chelsea then Spurs are the team with a higher trajectory. It’s just a matter of his preference I suppose.

 

Poch was using a 4-3-3 in preseason but it could’ve just been because of the players available to him.

Eriksen - Kovacic - Dele
Lucas - Kane - Son

That is pretty good imo but it looks as if Chelsea will win that battle.

Kovacic - Kante - Jorginho
Willian - Morata - Hazard

Also great.

Like I said, whichever team gets him will be greatly improved.

 

There's way more going down at Sheffield Wednesday than that transfer embargo. Read up on their fans forum, shit's crazy. Such a shame, too.

 

Yeah it's bad. There's a Wednesday fan here @StevenW92 , maybe they could shed more light.

 

Kepa is a good purchase for Chelsea. Not sure he's worth the €80m but he's a good keeper with a lot of potential. Think he'll struggle in the league at first though.

 

They’re paying 80 for him??

 

Nah, he's not worth that but I think Roman is sending a message of intent here.

And yes, it's €80m. It breaks the Allison record for a goalkeeper - another message of intent.

And while we're at it, the axis of Kante-Jorginho- Kovavic shits on the axis of Henderson-Keita-Fabinho from a pretty great height.

 

There is another example of why Spurs haven’t signed anyone haha I know we don’t need a keeper but just in general, Levy is too cheap to pay these outrageous prices. Kinda sucks.

 

Chelsea would clearly have the better midfield with Kovacic. But give me Liverpool’s attackers any day. Not sure who will end up having the better defense and keeper though.

 

Purely cause Henderson is in one...

 

...that goes without saying.

 

Our midfield was significantly less talented last season and still outplayed the best midfields they went up against pretty consistently.

 

Long post, in short we’re in serious trouble if we don’t win promotion this season. We won’t.

After years of mismanagement by local ‘businessmen’ then 5 years of steady, unspectacular playing squads and managers under Milan Mandaric we were bought by a Thai businessman Dejphon Chansiri. All we knew of Chansiri was he was from a family of billionaires but knew nothing of his individual career. He took over on the 30th January and delivered 5 signings on deadline day, but none of them were particularly successful.

After finishing a very comfortable 12th in the league under Stuart Gray with a very tight defence it was believed that we needed a new front two and a wide man to push us on to the play offs. Instead we sacked Gray and appointed Carvalhal. Carvalhal, assisted by a panel including Glen Roeder and agency Doyen Sports, made a dozen signings in his first summer. Chansiri admitted not knowing much about football, so surrounded himself with advisors. Ticket prices increased by around £8-10 a game across the board. Season ticket prices increased and merchandise prices went up too. Corporate boxes increased by 80% and have largely remained empty since. This was the first sign of discontent amongst fans who were saying they were being priced out the game. The maximum charged for a game that season was £49. After a slow start we signed Bannan and Forestieri, went on quite a storming run and made the play offs without ever threatening the automatics. We lost the play off finals. Roeder and co were sacked during the season, Doyen stayed as advisors.

It was understood that we a centre half, a winger and a striker off challenging for the automatics. Carlos failed to address any of these areas. This is when the wheels started to come off. We signed Steven Fletcher on a 4 year deal on wages of around £35,000 a week. Soon after through a combination of agents and press speculation, Forestieri refused to play our second game of the season. The club stood firm and insisted we wouldn’t be selling Forestieri, who backed down and made a grovelling apology. Before January, Forestieri signed a new deal which gave him a massive rise and a succession of other players also got a new improved contract. At this point Chansiri started speaking of ‘difficult decisions’ that would have to be made should we fail to secure promotion that season. With FFP already looking a problem, we had to get our January business right. We took advantage of local rivals Barnsley and signed Sam Winnall on the cheap. We had 6 top championship strikers at our disposal and needed to strengthen the defence and wide areas. On deadline day, we signed Jordan Rhodes for £8 million, which has turned out to be the worse signing in the clubs history. Easy to say with gift of hindsight but we had a chance at a top two finish and the divisions most prolific striker was available. We lost the play off semi final on penalties. Amongst other belters that season were signing Urby Emmanuelson, who claimed to be one of our highest earners, who only come on as a sub in our final fixture, a reserve game having already secured our play off spot. We signed Callum Mcmannaman on loan and never used him. Talks over a new deal stalled with George Hirst, our hottest youth prospect and son of club legend David Hirst, who it turned out was being represented by Doyen Sports.

Talk about FFP got a bit more serious at this point. After play off defeat fans started to call for Carvalhals head. It was our 150th anniversary and the club completely failed to celebrate. They put on a fireworks display and a ‘landmark’ friendly against Rangers, which we lost. The initial talk was Barcelona or Real Madrid, but we played Rangers. Carlos stayed on. The new kits were designed in house, but weren’t available to buy until October. The special 3rd kit for the anniversary wasn’t available until February. We bought in George Boyd and centre backs Van Aken and Venancio, the latter of who only played once under Carvalhal but was our best player following his sacking. Ticket prices stayed the same, but membership price, which gave fans a £5 discount on match day prices increased from £30 to £50. Another awful start, including being humiliated at home by our biggest rivals, followed by a horrendous injury crisis left us hovering around 17th. Following defeat to Middlesbrough on the 23rd December, Chansiri posted long rambling rant about the fans. He blamed fans for the signing of Jordan Rhodes and claimed they were trying to force Carlos out of the club. On the 24th, Carlos left by mutual consent, having already spoken to Swansea about their job. We appointed Jos Luhukay, who steadied the ship and secured safety by utilising young players and fringe players. Earlier this year we appointed Katriene Miere as chief executive despite her being widely hated by Charlton fans. At this point the club suffered another PR disaster when Chansiri said fans who weren’t happy should stay away. He offered a ‘conditional refund’ on season tickets, telling fans if they wanted some money back they’d be banned from purchasing another one for 10 years. The club released a fan survey asking fans to vote on whether they wanted reduced ticket prices and for our best players to be sold, or the same prices and continued investment. Fans took this as a threat and voted for continued investment. At the end of the season we lost George Hirst, who had been advised to leave by the people who were supposed to be advising Chansiri. Fellow youngster Sean Clare, another Doyen client, also left.

On to this summer, we signed nobody. We sold our best right back and let Jordan Rhodes out on loan. Shirt prices increased again, season ticket prices increased and a slight increase in match day prices. Membership prices increased from £50 to £90, meaning fans would have to attend 18 of 23 games to break even on one. We were the only club in the football league to not let local radio cover our games, instead asking fans to sign up to an online subscription service. The divide between fans and Chansiri was growing and certainly didn’t help with us losing our first game on Saturday. Last nights fan forum was a disaster. Chansiri again claimed the fans had signed Rhodes and bizarely claimed the fans were responsible for Hunt, our best right back leaving. He claimed we underperformed last season because they were scared of the negative atmosphere at Hilsborough. Refused to go back on to negotiations with the BBC over coverage and said he turned it down for the majority of the fans. He finally admitted we are under an embargo last night and stated that if we fail to go up this year, there is nothing he can do to avoid further punishment, likely resulting in a points deduction. We are million miles from going up. He seems to take very little responsibility for the situation we are in and blames everything on the fans, constantly looking to find new ways to make money from us. A lack of sensible transfer approach, as well Chansiri being too easily guided by Carvalhal have got us in this mess.

We desperately need to sell before the end of the transfer window, but Chansiri is still living in a deluded world where our players are good enough to get us up. He needs to offload a few to balance the books, then try and find a buyer for the club. The club is turning into an ego project for Chansiri. His name is written across the north stand, it’s on the advertising boards and sponsors both shirts. The only other sponsors and advertisers we have are fake companies set up by Chansiri. Local companies can no longer advertising with us. We have been severely mismanaged for the last three seasons and that continuing. He refuses to learn from his mistakes and that is costing the club money and alienating fans.