Expensive Bench Warmers

[Guest Cujek]

12 hours ago, oedipa said:

It's frequently - and rightly - pointed out that we spunked £70m on three bench cushions by the name of Iheanacho, Musa (record signing) and Slimani (record signing). But it isn't the whole story, is it? Throw in Bartosz Kaputska (£7.5m), Andrej Kramaric (£9m - record signing) and Leonardo Ulloa (£8m - record signing), and the price is actually £94million worth of striker who, during their time at LCFC, spent more time on the bench than on the pitch. Can any other clubs match this?

 

This doesn't mean to say they're all bad players either. Slimani's goals got us through the Champions League group stages when teams were dropping deep in fear of Vardy. Putting the ball on his head often seemed like our only hope of scoring. I'd like to see us keep him as a target man, because everybody in Lisbon reckons he's the man when he gets it right.

 

Similarly I don't see what Andrej Kramaric did wrong. He's proven himself with 18 goals last season at Hoffenheim (although the lad takes the worst penalty I've ever seen - have a look at that shocker vs. Liverpool.)

 

Even Musa, I think, is unfairly maligned. He started the first game against Hull on the wing, and was dropped. His confidence is obviously shot to pieces. Why we bought another whippet when we already had Vardy, however, makes no sense to me.

 

Iheanacho is perhaps the biggest mystery. He came from a prestige club, but I'm sure I could score 12 tap-ins over two seasons for Man City.

 

Meanwhile, we were scrabbling around shitty French clubs trying to find a budget replacement for Kante, and having to play Fuchs at centre back.

 

It frustrates me to think what position we could be in if we'd spent the money and the one-off allure of Champions League football to buy players we actually needed, or made an effort to integrate those who we'd already paid for.

 

Anyone disagree?

Are you serious?

 

Plenty of clubs buy players that don't work out, ulloa is getting on now and is slower than time, but he has scored some crucial goals for us over the seasons he has been here.

 

Iheanacho is a young lad who clearly has a lot of talent, he will get a chance.

 

Kaptuska was always a risk but had he hit the ground running would have been a solid investment.

 

If the team was set up for Slimani then we would score more, I doubt he is happy here and that will also effect his performances and games time, 

 

I will give you Musa, not really sure what we bought him for.

 

The only one I'm genuinely upset about is Kramaric, I think if he was given more time he would have been a lethal weapon for us.

 

But any way it isn't you're or my money so why does anyone care? You win some you lose some that's football for ya.

[Collymore]

I wonder if this quirk we have is part reason to our success?

 

I heard Big Sam saying recently that he's going to sign an expensive striker who will end up costing his job or not. So many clubs invest heavily in players and then the manager is forced into playing them for fear of their job. We seem to have this mentality of "field the best 11 which play to our system and compliment each other the most" without pressure and questions from our wonderful owners. 

 

 

[WigstonWanderer]

The problem is that recruitment is not an exact science. All clubs make mistakes. Most here (myself included) were very happy at the prospect of Musa, Slimani and Ileanacho prior to their signings. Everything is always easy with hindsight.

[HighPeakFox]

10 minutes ago, WigstonWanderer said:

The problem is that recruitment is not an exact science. All clubs make mistakes. Most here (myself included) were very happy at the prospect of Musa, Slimani and Ileanacho prior to their signings. Everything is always easy with hindsight.

I'm not the first person to say this, but there's still plenty of time for Iheanacho to go very right for us too.

[WigstonWanderer]

4 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

I'm not the first person to say this, but there's still plenty of time for Iheanacho to go very right for us too.

Certainly hope so, still plenty of time for him to come good, but he's starting to take some stick here

[Mike Oxlong]

Conrad’s Calvin Kleins

[HighPeakFox]

2 minutes ago, WigstonWanderer said:

Certainly hope so, still plenty of time for him to come good, but he's starting to take some stick here

People are very quick to judge - one only has to remember some of the reactions to Puel BEFORE he'd done a damn thing to know that.

[WigstonWanderer]

Gotta say I thought this thread was going to be about Danny Drinkwater

 

[Foxes1]

With the Christmas period coming up we will need some of these expensive bench warmers as it's inevitable that the team is going to need some tweaks and some of them will need to prove to Puel they are worth a starting place. But time will tell.

[oedipa]

Imagine the player we could sign with the combined transfer fees of Iheanacho, Musa, Ulloa and Slimani. How much could we get for them now? 45m? 

 

I take the point about us neding more than three strikers in case of injury but remember Gray and Mahrez can play as a second striker. 

 

Our composure on the ball since Iborra came - compared with the other makeshift Kante replacements - shows why Ranieri and whoever else responsible for the 16/17 flop had to go: when we had the money and Champions League to attract proven players at that level (the captain of Seville, for example), they flunked it. 

 

 

 

 

 

[murphy]

I know you're talking about strikers but you can add £16m Mendy to that list.  £110m!  It's starting to look like a Children In Need totalizer.

 

I wouldn't write off Kelechi though, yet.

[The Year Of The Fox]

Ulloa did well yesterday when he came on.

 

As for him being at City still there’s a very good personal reason for that I believe, but it’s not one I’m happy to divulge as it’s not 100% fact

[Daggers]

On 09/12/2017 at 21:05, Dr The Singh said:

This is my dream....

Nonsense.

 

Your dreams involve Master Fox in a thong, a whip and half a pound of lard.