Now there has been some speculation that we have as much as £100m available to spend over the next couple of windows. A quick read of the quote from our manager that prompted this speculation clearly shows that there is no such commitment. Our MD has said that the club will continue to invest, but that’s not exactly the same promise. So why even bother with this article? Good Question and one that I will therefore totally ignore. That being the standard response on this blog.
So to the point. At last. If we did have a £100m, which we don’t, and we were going to spend it, which we aren’t. Then when and where should we spend it? Let’s start with the when. I don’t think we plan to spend any money in January. If we look at last season at the end of December we had 26 points from 19 matches and sat 10th. If that is true this season then there is no need to spend. Mid table here we come. However, with say under 20pts we may need to strengthen as we did a couple of seasons ago. If say we had over 30pts, yes fantasy, then we may want to strengthen for a push to Europe.
So a quick look at where we are losing players due to contracts expiring. And Obviously Cisse & Taylor will be gone sooner or later. I’m assuming Tiote & Sissoko are off as well. Oh and I’m expecting 4-2-3-1.
Wanting 2 good players in each position Lets go through our potential squad.
GK Krul & Darlow. OK. RB Janmaat & ?? Well Sam Byram 21 currently at Leeds Utd and in the last year of his contract has been linked with us before. At LB We have Haidara and have been linked with Jetro Williams 21 at Rotterdam. CB we have Mbemba,Colo, Lescalles & Dummett and have been linked with Joel Matip 24 currently in the last year of his contract at Shalke.
Defensive mids we have Gini. Anita & Colback. Apparently we have been linked with Ganit Xhaka 22 who started for Switzerland last night. But he is on a long term contract with Borussia Monchengladbach and valued at around £15m so I might presume that his club collegue Havard Nordtveit 25 who is in the last year of his contract may be considered instead. Wide players we have Thauvin & Aarons. Two more needed. Andre Carrillo 24 Peruvian international in the last year of his contract at Sporting Lisbon, and of course my favorite Dominic Berardi 21 who although has just signed for Sassuolo having spent last year on loan there from Juventus I think still has the potential to play in the EPL.
In the second striker attacking midfield playmaker position we have SDJ & Perez so that’s OK. Up front we have Mitrovich. I’ve suggested Robert Beric 24 currently at St Etienne having moved there for just under £4m this summer from Rapid Vienna. Lets see how he gets on.
So whilst I don’t necessarily see the need for any business happening in January there are several players there whose contracts are coming up next summer that may either come in January or sign pre-contract agreements. Sam Byram, Joel Matip, Havard Nordtveit, Andre Carrillo. The others, Jetro Williams, Dominic Berardi & Robert Beric will wait. And that lot would cost a lot less than £100m. Of course there are many other players out there, and I’m sure you all have your preferences.
Who would you spend the clubs money on?
Will real quality join us…?
Gashley(Quote)
Gashley
We are talking NUFC.
We have a squad that needs bolstering in almost every position if we want to be in the top 7.
If we have a kitty/war chest, I want it spent.
To find better quality players, in our price range,than what we currently have, should not be difficult
If the 5 players we bought cost £25m instead of £50m, I would want the remainder of the kitty spent on one or more players.
Aussie struggles with that concept and complains, saying it doesn’t matter how much we spend as long as the players are good.
I suggest it does matter how much we spend. The more the better. As long as they are on good players.
However, I’ve never known a club be 100% successful in the transfer market. That’s the risk.
It’s as if Aussie doesn’t think we consider that spending money doesn’t automatically mean success.
I’m waiting for his response.
Troy Stavers(Quote)
Gashley
I’ve replied to your IF scenario. What is the point of referring to IF?
IF we had bought all the players we needed then why spend the extra £25m?
I repeat, when will we ever realistically have all the players we need?
Why even ask that question? What’s the point?
Troy Stavers(Quote)
Well I think it was difficult to find quality we needed. We were nearly relegated.
Pick a team to replace the ones you think could be replaced and we’ll see how easy it is. We’ll end up with shawcrofts etc.
Gashley(Quote)
Gashley
Wow. 😯 You really believe it’s difficult to improve our squad? YCMIU 🙄
Troy Stavers(Quote)
Of course it isn’t hard, but to find the right quality for where we are, is. We aren’t a great proposition. If we improve in the league, better players will eventually join. It’s gonna be a slow build..
Gashley(Quote)
Have you replaced any players yet? Waiting for names.. 😛
Gashley(Quote)
Gashley
Why do you think Aussie would ask the question, IF we had all the players we needed why spend extra cash on more players.?
What is the point in that question? You’ve tried to assist him but it still doesn’t make sense. What have you asked it for?
Troy Stavers(Quote)
Supposing we had £25m more to spend. Do you believe we could have got a better player within that price bracket to play up front, as we are struggling for goals.
Troy Stavers(Quote)
Troy, we are in the same boat as palace, villa etc. Do you thing real quality will join the likes of us? 😯
Gashley(Quote)
If we had £25m to spend? Yes.
Troy Stavers(Quote)
Do you not?
Troy Stavers(Quote)
Yes, we could if got a better, experienced striker. But SM likes 1 up front and has opted for MA’s blueprint of an up and coming, potential.. We have to support that.
How many players can we buy up front if we only play 1 striker?
Gashley(Quote)
Gashley
I’m not expecting real quality to join us but we can get better than what we’ve got.
We have pretty standard premiership players because on average we spend less than £10m on a player.
My point to Aussie is, war chests and how much we spend are vitally important.
Troy Stavers(Quote)
Do you not believe it matters how much we spend?
Do you not believe the more you spend on a player the more chance of him being a success. ?
So McClaren only plays one up front so we don’t invest in another top striker even if we had a pot of £25m?
What about rotation and Co petition for places.
Troy Stavers(Quote)
Like who? Benteke? Remy would of cost 10.. Does the price really matter.. Would any of the two mentioned join us??
Gashley(Quote)
Are you being serious that if we had £25m to spend on a striker, we couldn’t attract anyone who would improve our our squad. ?
Troy Stavers(Quote)
Troy. Squad rotation? We have Cisse, Perez, Rivi.. Yes not the best I agree but trying selling a nearly relegated club to mitovic and benteke but only one will be played…
Gashley(Quote)
Give me names we realistically could have signed????
No European footy, 1 up front..
WHO??
Gashley(Quote)
Still waiting 😛
Tick tock…
Gashley(Quote)
These so called rag reporters really annoy me,JM is having a rough time of it at the moment (his first bad spell) now he cannot do the job he could get the sack or leave,what a pack of dicks they are,anything to sell papers
icedog(Quote)
@ice. Bunch of wankers, esp the Redtop’s. Always have been
Gashley(Quote)
Troy – the trouble is you could offer £50m, if the player doesn’t want to come to NUFC it’s irrelevant. £25m players want Champions League football or at least the chance to compete with a team push for a top 4 spot. We aren’t anywhere near that yet, so need to recruit the players to get us to that point first. No other club in the same position as us are recruiting £25m players (Lukaku being the only exception I can think of).
This notion that spending big improves things – Liverpool & Spurs haven’t improved at all, and have arguably went backwards. Man Utd have through £250m at the squad under LVG but I don’t see great improvement.
Whereas you could look at someone like Saints, who have spent less on players than their profit of selling players – and arguably they are no worse off, maybe improved.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Ice – let them crack on mate!!, anything that keeps us out of their firing line for a weekend is fine by me 😆
Sharpy17(Quote)
I hate to say this but I feel scum will win today Spurs are not quite right at the moment which makes us needing a good result on Monday or the table is going to look real bad for us
SHARPY@ 99 I agree mate
icedog(Quote)
Troy – I’m not saying that Saints are getting it right & spending money is wrong. What I mean is there is no obvious answer to it, but it’s more than a case of just paying top dollar.
I think the scouting set up has to be right. You need a board ready to back that scouting system and not look for the cheaper alternative as we seem to have done previously. I think perhaps most importantly though, the recruits have to be the best footballing option – not the best financial option. To use Gomis & Riviere as an example. I reckon that Gomis was dismissed coz he was 28/29 and would have cost around £7m. Riviere on the other hand was 24 and around £5m. Gomis would have been the better footballing recruit, but they probably saw more potential of doubling their money on Riviere if he had a good season.
It’s a mentality born from wanting to be a self sufficient club, and while that is the case, there will always be a restriction on lay out to maximise the profit margin – that is the bit that has to change for me. We loose out on players that could improve our squad because they won’t double in monetary value.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Thank you sharpy. Hopefully Troy’s see’s our point
Troy, for the last 3 seasons you have been asking us to name realistic managers under MAs blueprint. 4 games in and you want champion league footballers under the same blueprint 😆
YCMIU 😯
Still waiting for names…..
Gashley(Quote)
Anyway Troy. You could get gomis 6 mil or Falcao for 40. They’ll both score goals. It’s the supply that we need to address, as well as the strikers 😆
Gashley(Quote)
I don’t see how people don’t get how Ashley is still operating the same model. If you think back to 8 years ago, the TV money has increased massively. This has allowed us to pay much higher wages and generate huge profits. With that money banked and another huge profit set for this year we were able to spend big and be able to afford an increase in wages. This is the first tranche of the spending. The next will be when the new TV deal is near or upon us. That is the second tranche of Ashley’s spending. It is still the self-sustainable model with a bit of desperation to stay in the PL thrown in. This will not happen in January unless we are bottom 3.
Now we have a lot of players whose contracts expire in the next 2 years we can pick and choose who we keep and who we let go. This, along with the extra TV money should theoretically allow us to buy and pay better players.
I don’t think it is about “warchests” it is about accounting, knowing the extra money coming in and balancing the books. Ashley hasn’t changed, the money has changed. He got a bit of a scare and may have bought ahead of schedule a bit but we have bought youth with sell on value again.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
I like the players we bought but they are a bit of a risk because of their youth and the fact they did not come from any of the really competitive leagues – PL, Germany, Spain and Italy. To that extent we are still shopping in the bargain basket which is totally in keeping with Ashley’s former (and current) strategy.
We will probably be bottom 3 for the next couple of months at least. I wonder if fans and management will hold their nerve?
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Sharpy17@98
Spurs are hopeless today, I would say they’ve definitively gone backwards for where they were a few years ago with Bale and co. If they didn’t have Kane they would probably be fighting relegation. 😕
DJG(Quote)
I can’t see them beating the mackems today. 👿
DJG(Quote)
Gashley – I’m not looking to point score or gang up against Troy. His point is correct as well – law of averages would suggest that the more you spend on a player, the great the chance you are buying quality. £12.5m for Bony over £5m for Riviere for example.
Our mentality seems to have changed a bit this summer, but that needs to be maintained, and improved further IMO.
I have no problem identifying the player they want and waiting to get him – Thauvin for example. Because that is showing faith in your scouting system. But if that delay is to try and get him cheaper next summer – well that is a risky business and you run the risk of loosing the player your footballing men want, for players the finance men value.
Sharpy17(Quote)
DJG – I think Spurs would be my prime example mate. To see the Everton fans protesting yesterday baffled me – if it were the Spurs fans against Levy I could totally get it. Even the business of letting the ‘fringe’ players go to bring in very expensive flops.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Look at who we have bought. 2 x 20 year olds, a 22 year old, a 24 year old and Toney (19). That is a bit hit and hope. Hope they have the maturity and hope they settle quickly. It is quite a gamble really given our recent dalliance with relegation, and totally consistent with Ashley’s former methods. We really could have done with a couple of low risk buys who would help immediately and that could easily happen in january out of desperation. The more things change at NUFC, the more they stay the same.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
As I understanding there is little correlation between the value of the squad and results. There is however a strong correlation between the squad wages and results.
Put simply a squad ful of 50m players does not guarantee results, but a squad that has a wage bill of 200m pa is more likely to be successful than one with a wage bill of 100m.
Yes I know that more expensive players generally command more wages. But that is not the point.
premandup(Quote)
@sharpy
He is right, but he needs to be realistic. Champions league footballers don’t want to be rotated v Shef wed 😆
His expectations are too high, too soon..
Gashley(Quote)
Where have Spuds got that South Korean bloke from, the hyundai factory? 😆 They were fighting for champs league a couple of year ago. 😯 Back to mid-table where they usually are… 😉
DJG(Quote)
At least the 4-5 players we’ve brought in ARE quality. In my opinion. Mbemba looks an improvement, Wijnaldum, Thauvin have pedigree. Mitro is highly rated but perhaps a rough diamond. Who have Spurs brought in? To use Liverpool as an example, I like their defence, they spend BIG money though so you expect quality for that price. It still doesn’t buy a top four place!
DJG(Quote)
DJG: I think we have PROBABLY bought quality but they are young and from second tier leagues so they are still a gamble. The thing I notice with Spurs and Liverpool is that they are constantly chopping and changing their team and seem to be paying for it at the moment. Once the players settle, this might change.
We are sort of in the same boat except we desperately needed an improvement in quality and squad depth. It will probably take a while for our lot to settle as well.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Liverpool and Spurs have went backwards because they both sold their best players. You can’t replace them by buying 6/7 £10m players.
Stuart79(Quote)
I think Cabaye was Pardew’s ‘big player’. Once Ashley sold him it set us back 2-3 years in my opinion. Now we need to find a new identity and rebuild. Same for Liverpool and Spurs. Although I think Bale and Suarez were exceptional players, (unique) in that Suarez could carry Liverpool on his back at times (I would say he was more than just their best player). Don’t forget these special players inspire confidence in the squad players and lift the whole place including the fans. Can Wijnaldum do that for us? Big ask.
DJG(Quote)
The faded seats at the SOL remind me why you should never buy a red car. 😮
DJG(Quote)
Get in Spurs 😆
icedog(Quote)
Do the Mackems have delusions of grandeur? They call their sty The Stadium of Light and play Prokofiev as their entrance music. I have heard that playing classical music to infants raises their IQ but I doubt if that will work with the unwashed.
That was an awful game that looked destined to be nil nil.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
I have seen about 4 challenges that were as bad as Mirovic’s this weekend and the players stayed on – Toure, Dann, Mason etc. Also, I have seen a few drag backs without a yellow. Is there any fkin consistency in refereeing?
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Eric@121, No.
By the way, you are spot on @104 and 105 imo.
kimtoon(Quote)
Nice to see the Scum in their rightful place.
kimtoon(Quote)
Villa game is good
kimtoon(Quote)
Goal Decision system 1 – Human error/Mike Dean 0
DJG(Quote)
Micah Richards has been fantastic today. Amazing some didn’t think he was good enough for us.
Stuart79(Quote)
Oh dear Villa throw away a 2.0 lead 😳
kimtoon(Quote)
and Villa losing now, defence all over the shot
kimtoon(Quote)
Leicester are a pretty good team. Another team that strengthened very well this summer. Not sure Villa have spent the Benteke money wisely though…
Stuart79(Quote)
———————–Krul————————
—Janmaat–Mbemba—Colo–Haidara——-
———–Wijnaldum—Colback————-
–Sissoko———De Jong—–Thauvin—
———————–Cisse———————-
Subs: Darlow, Taylor, Anita, Tiote, Aarons, Obertan, Perez
^^^ That’s how I’d go; Would rather not have Obertan on the bench but without Marveux/Mitrovic there aren’t many options
CC(Quote)
STUART79
I remember people slagging off Leicester for sacking Pearson and then amazement at them getting Ranieri. Well they are 2nd after 6 games so fair play if it works… Good choice. 😯
DJG(Quote)
Yep, all hail the tinkerman.
kimtoon(Quote)
I seem to remember Lineker wasn’t too impressed by him coming in as coach to.
kimtoon(Quote)
too
kimtoon(Quote)
Gashley & others
Just been out all day.
Thi point I’ve been making has moved away from the original point. Aussie was complaint about bloggers who were interested in how much money the club spent instead of how good the players were.
I pointed out that the war chest and money spent is just as important as usually, the more money you spend the more chance of success.
You may say Liverpool and spurs have spent fortunes and gone backwards, but they are always in the top 7.
The art is spending as much as you can afford on the best players. That’s why the best managers and scouts get the best jobs.
Gashley,, if we have £25m in the kitty and we want to improve on our strike force, then Riviere would not be hard to replace. You don’t have to spend all the £25m but like Mitrovic, we can attract better standard of striker. (Mind that’s providing Mitrovic lives up to his reputation)
Troy Stavers(Quote)
Still no examples then 🙄
Of course it’s easy to replace Rivi. We could of replaced him with André Ayew.. A free transfer 😛
We play 1 up front, we don’t play in Europe, we were nearly relegated…
So which two players to rotate would you blow all your money on & they would realistically come here???
Stop dodging..and answer
Gashley(Quote)
Graziano Pellè only cost 6 mill I think. Perhaps we would spend if they would be happy signing for us?
Mitovic at 15mil was a risk but will end up showing his worth imo
Gashley(Quote)
Gashley
I’m not a scout but I do know we were in for Austin. He is a realistic replacement.
It’s a long season where injuries, suspensions, cup games and competition of places allow players their chance to show they are good enough to play regularly.
Troy Stavers(Quote)
Lukaku, 28mil 12 goals / 40 Apps..not great
Demba Ba 29/54 Apps
Cisse 11 in 22….
Remy etc
Players realistically we could have that don’t cost loads
Gashley(Quote)
Austin 😆 like he’ll make us a force. 😆
And he would definitely join us to be rotated?
I thought he supposedly knocked us back
1 example 😳
Gashley(Quote)
Gashley
As far as I’m aware, according to my trusted source, he’s desperate to come but Charnley buckled over the £15m transfer.
I’ve never once said we would be a force by buying him.
My point is, if there is a kitty then I want to see it spent. Aussie asked why I was bothered if there was a kitty or not.
Austin would certainly be an improvement on Riviere and providing he got the wages he wanted then like most players, they will take the money.
Troy Stavers(Quote)
Gashley
Why did you ask that pointless question earlier. ?
You asked, IF we had all the players we needed, it would be a waste to spend more money. 😆
Troy Stavers(Quote)
I didn’t, it was Aussie 😳
All clubs baulked at 15mil. Wonder why? I said we’d wait until Jan 😉 I don’t need a source 😀
Gashley(Quote)
Anyway, your source. That fat taxi driver that watches footy games where your son plays, he apparently knows Lee Clark’s neighbour 😛
Gashley(Quote)
Gashley
You’re soooo jealous of my sources. 😉
Troy Stavers(Quote)
😛 at least the taxi driver knows more than your old source, Geordie dancer 😆 or there was Bernie Slaves security guard at the metro centre book signing 😛
Gashley(Quote)
Gashley
You forgot about my old source from the 1980s. He used to sell the hotdogs outside the Gallowgate in his white coat. He used to give me extra onions with a transfer tip off.
I remember I was the first to know Billy Whitehurst was going to sign!
Great sauce! Great days! 😆
Troy Stavers(Quote)
That’s the only 1 you got right then. Oh, And we wouldn’t get better than Pards 😯
Gashley(Quote)
I heard the reason nobody took Austin was down to insurance and not his fee. Seemingly because of his injuries and really gammy knees (as made public by WHU), insurance companies won’t cover him.
Sharpy17(Quote)
So there goes your number 1 choice Troy 😆 who’s next on your list??
I thought it was hard getting names out of your Bro 😛
Gashley(Quote)