Recruitment under Puel

[BenTheFox]

Diabete - Cheap buy from the French second division. Showed early signs of promise but not impressive since then. Still plenty of time for him and could do with a loan. He was worth a punt. 

Ricardo - Quality signing. Looking the complete modern fullback at the minute. 

James Maddison - Again, quality signing and picked up for good value in the current market. 

Danny Ward - Finally, a quality backup keeper!
Johnny Evans - Experienced defender available for £3 million. Absolute no brainer. Started off shakey but has looked solid since. 

Soyuncu - Came with a growing reputation. Jury's still out as we've probably not seen enough of him to really comment. 

Benkovic - Doing very well out on loan at Celtic. 

Rachid Ghezzal - The odd moment, but generally poor. 

 

I believe that we could do with a couple of attacking players but I do believe that the recruitment under Puel has overall been very respectable. Thoughts? 

[foxile5]

Ghezzal is the only one of his signings I would put in the 'crap' camp, but I'm willing to give him a bit more time for him to come good. 

[Gerard]

1 minute ago, foxile5 said:

Ghezzal is the only one of his signings I would put in the 'crap' camp, but I'm willing to give him a bit more time for him to come good. 

 

Ghezzal has lived up to expectations. 

 

He's 26 and had one stand out season and hasn't done nothing since. He's not a terrible player but was an awful purchase. £12m on a player who will here until he is 30 and was never good enough to be anything but a squad player here.  It's not his fault he just isn't that good. 

[Dan LCFC]

Got to be fair here, it has improved in this past year under him. Still don't think we've seen the best from most of them yet but there's more logic in most of these signings than we've seen the last couple of summers.

 

The catch under Puel really isn't so much what we have signed, it's what we haven't.

[Koke]

The Puel era will be judged more fairly when he leaves.  

[foxinsox]

13 minutes ago, foxile5 said:

Ghezzal is the only one of his signings I would put in the 'crap' camp, but I'm willing to give him a bit more time for him to come good. 

He has some moments, I think better as back up in the JM spot than on the wing though. Not great, but not our worst signing either. 

[49er]

26 minutes ago, BenTheFox said:

Diabete - Cheap buy from the French second division. Showed early signs of promise but not impressive since then. Still plenty of time for him and could do with a loan. He was worth a punt. 

Ricardo - Quality signing. Looking the complete modern fullback at the minute. 

James Maddison - Again, quality signing and picked up for good value in the current market. 

Danny Ward - Finally, a quality backup keeper!
Johnny Evans - Experienced defender available for £3 million. Absolute no brainer. Started off shakey but has looked solid since. 

Soyuncu - Came with a growing reputation. Jury's still out as we've probably not seen enough of him to really comment. 

Benkovic - Doing very well out on loan at Celtic. 

Rachid Ghezzal - The odd moment, but generally poor. 

 

I believe that we could do with a couple of attacking players but I do believe that the recruitment under Puel has overall been very respectable. Thoughts? 

Main failing has been to dispense with Ulloa, Slimani and Musa without bringing in a suitable replacement to play alongside Vardy. Think we need a big striker who can get on to the end of the crosses supplied by Albrighton, Ricardo and Chilwell. Could Slimani be the answer? Heading is his strong point. If not, we need someone in January - Mitrovic?

[Sol thewall Bamba]

9 minutes ago, Koke said:

The Puel era will be judged more fairly when he leaves.  

Got a while to wait then.

[ThaiFox]

Recruitment is just one part of the job.

 

I can't think of one manager who has got every signing spot on. Usually it's a 50/50 gamble and Puel is currently bettering that. Sir Alex made many terrible signings.

 

Players are human (sometimes!) and they come into a new club full of egos and favourites. If they don't establish themselves quickly, most fans pull them to shreds and I'm sure other players mock or bully them too, maybe because they fear for their place in the team. No manager can account for how the established players react, or how new players fit in and settle.

 

But let's not forget the huge improvements in many of our younger players like Chilwell, Gray, Choudhury. They are almost like new signings.

 

 

 

 

[coolhandfox]

I'm a firm believer that one of his objective when give the job was to reshape the squad and reduce the wage bill, whether it down to him or others in the club, our signing just make more sense. We seem to be targeting the right positions not just for the present but also for the future, for example at CB we brought Evans for there now and Benkovic and Soyuncu for the future.

 

We seem to be building on youth, which is very sensible, when accessing our situation and form, people  general forget the age of the first team on average is pretty low. Also the willness to ship out the deadwood has impress me, firm squad favourite have been deemed as surplus in King, Simpson others haven't been offered new contracts Fuch, Morgan or Okazaki. 

 

We have also given our most young valuable players contracts tying them down Ndidi, Barnes, Hamza, Chilwell.

 

To me all seem like good purchase, to one question mark is Ghezzel, who I believe is a cheap squad filler, but I'm not willing to write him off after less than 500 minutes of PL.

 

Edited 23 December 2018 by coolhandfox
Typo's

[coolhandfox]

7 minutes ago, 49er said:

Main failing has been to dispense with Ulloa, Slimani and Musa without bringing in a suitable replacement to play alongside Vardy. Think we need a big striker who can get on to the end of the crosses supplied by Albrighton, Ricardo and Chilwell. Could Slimani be the answer? Heading is his strong point. If not, we need someone in January - Mitrovic?

He was't playing them, so why not off load when we had the chance, we are like Spurs, if Harry Kane is fit he plays, same with Vardy, if he's fit he plays.

 

I assume he was happy with Nacho for the time being, I would be surprise if we don't bring in a couple of attacking players in the summer.

[yks]

INB4 the same people bashing him for having spent money on substitutes GK, CB and RW bash him to not have spent more money on a Striker susbstitue when we already have Iheanacho (and Okazaki or Gray) who could play there.

[49er]

3 minutes ago, yks said:

INB4 the same people bashing him for having spent money on substitutes GK, CB and RW bash him to not have spent more money on a Striker susbstitue when we already have Iheanacho (and Okazaki or Gray) who could play there.

What threat do these pose in the penalty box when a cross comes in?

[StriderHiryu]

We have a whole recruitment team so it’s important to acknowledge all of them and not just the manager. 

 

We have had a decent 12 months with only a like for like Mahrez replacement letting us down IMO. I don’t think we’ve signed any truly terrible players. 

 

Nacho gets slated and the fans want to see another striker come in but it’s not like Vardy or Nacho are missing tons of chances per match like say Moratta for Chelsea. We aren’t a very creative team so even if we had a Lewandowski up front I’m not sure we’d score that many more goals though obviously if Bayern are selling then I’m up for buying!

 

Creativity is what we could do with. Either forwards in the Mahrez / Sane / Sterling mould or creative mids in the David Silva / KDB mould. Obviously both are very difficult positions to fill. 

 

Maybe one regret is not picking up David Brooks who Bournemouth signed. That’s the sort of player we could really do with but perhaps Barnes will be that player next season. 

[Koke]

Just now, 49er said:

What threat do these pose in the penalty box when a cross comes in?

 

Slimani and Musa were inept and both on stupid wages, so they had to be shipped out. Ulloa was way past it. 

 

There's a bit revisionism going on with those players. 

[Cincinnati Fox]

44 minutes ago, foxile5 said:

Ghezzal is the only one of his signings I would put in the 'crap' camp, but I'm willing to give him a bit more time for him to come good. 

He will never come good. Too slow and too weak

[cityfanlee23]

Can we relax on the Ghezzal bashing after only 500 odd minutes played in mostly sub appearances where the game is either over or being chased? 

[The Horse's Mouth]

Ghezzal is garbage but aye it's been some good ins, nice to see recruitment has finally picked up after two pretty awful season of it 

[davieG]

I think as time goes on the intention is to play more ball through the middle and on the deck ala ManC and Liverpool with 3 ball playing strikers upfront. I just don’t see us buying a big striker anytime soon.

 

Probably why we’ve seen him try to phase Albrighton out.

[Jacnah]

36 minutes ago, Koke said:

The Puel era will be judged more fairly when he leaves.  

Very Zen! Also probably quite correct (imho)

[weller54]

2 minutes ago, cityfanlee23 said:

Can we relax on the Ghezzal bashing after only 500 odd minutes played in mostly sub appearances where the game is either over or being chased? 

I think in those 500 mins you can get an idea of his abilities and 'talent '...apart from the goal against Fleetwood he's shown nothing to suggest he's going to be good enough? 

[Jimmy]

why do people keep wanting someone to play alongside Vardy, it doesn't work, Vardy always plays on his own with someone deeper, when ever we tried a 2 it's failed miserably

[Grebfromgrebland]

Remember all these good signings have nothing to do with Puel. 

 

Diabate isn't doing too well. That's a Puel signing. 

 

Madison who came because of Puel has done quite well, he doesn't listen to Puel.

 

Ricardo has been a revelation; nothing to do with Puel he trains himself and does his own tactics.

 

Soyunchu looked a bit shaky, bin.

 

Benkovich doing really well but it's only Scotland. He might as well be dead.

 

Ward, 12M for a back up keeper? FML!

 

Ghezzal this guy was discarded by the fans before he played a game. Good, he's not Mahrez and for that reason he's shit.

 

[David Hankey]

Most of the signings under Puel's reign have been good apart from Ghezzal but just how much influence have over an individual signing. I understand he may say he wants cover for a particulat position but long gone are the days where the manager actually does the groundwork. Conversely just look at some of the signings made over recent years, some have been dreadful bordering on the insane but hindsight is a wonderful thing as we all know.

[siraaj_lcfc]

For Fuchs Sake, Leave Gazelle alone, he's hardly had any game time and has been a bright spark in some games.