How would you improve the team in January?

[MPH]

On 17/12/2019 at 03:46, Chrysalis said:

We would never get Zaha unless the offer was out of this world, and we would never make an out of this world offer.

 

We werent even prepared to bid the market value for Ake.

 

offer Gray and 40m. 

[Miquel The Work Geordie]

14 hours ago, Bearman said:

Pony? Eh, read this...

First player ever to reach 14 European goals pre-Christmas

https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/news/newsid=2637098.html

 

Yeah, pony. He's rubbish.

[Pliskin]

A wide attacking player is an absolute must, it is time to spend a bit of money, and bolster the ranks for the final push for Europe, if we want it, we cant just sit and watch other sides strengthen. 

[sdb]

Zaha...£70 mill+, inconsistent, already in his prime, no resale value, crazy wage demands. We can and should do so much better with any money we have.

[Gerard]

3 hours ago, sdb said:

Zaha...£70 mill+, inconsistent, already in his prime, no resale value, crazy wage demands. We can and should do so much better with any money we have.

 

Reminds me of when people were clamoring for Sigurdsson at £45m when he was 28 with a similar profile. 

[RoyFox]

Leon Bailey £40-£45m, he’s got everything you need; finishing (recent brace vs Bayern Munich will testify that below), creativity and pace. Forget Zaha.
Mates with Ndidi, shame we didn’t pick him up from Genk at the same time.

 

 

https://www.bundesliga.com/en/bundesliga/news/leon-bailey-roars-again-in-bayer-leverkusen-win-over-bayern-munich-8438

Edited 19 December 2019 by RoyFox

[SecretPro]

I got Bailey for £40m on Fifa 20. Massive upgrade on our others wingers

[Ric Flair]

58 minutes ago, RoyFox said:

Leon Bailey £40-£45m, he’s got everything you need; finishing (recent brace vs Bayern Munich will testify that below), creativity and pace. Forget Zaha.
Mates with Ndidi, shame we didn’t pick him up from Genk at the same time.

 

 

https://www.bundesliga.com/en/bundesliga/news/leon-bailey-roars-again-in-bayer-leverkusen-win-over-bayern-munich-8438

Out of interest Roy, if you could have Bailey or Lemar who would you go for? I reckon both would be available for the same price, maybe Lemar even less given he's flopped massively in Madrid.

[RoyFox]

31 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

Out of interest Roy, if you could have Bailey or Lemar who would you go for? I reckon both would be available for the same price, maybe Lemar even less given he's flopped massively in Madrid.

worried about Lemar’s attitude, has sulked big time by all accounts. 
Bailey is an upbeat guy and would get on well with the squad. 

Edited 19 December 2019 by RoyFox

[AKCJ]

Bailey would surely cost more than that.

[Ric Flair]

3 hours ago, AKCJ said:

Bailey would surely cost more than that.

Had a very mediocre year last year and so far this season has failed to hit the heights of his first full season at Leverkusen. They haven't made it out the group stages and £40-45m is very good money in Germany.

[urban.spaceman]

From Tanner's latest article in The Athletic:

 

The emphasis in January’s transfer window will be to strengthen further in attack and central defence. Targets will have been identified and the process started a long time ago, using a blueprint put in place 10 years previously. After all, if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.

 

 

[Nick]

5 hours ago, urban.spaceman said:

From Tanner's latest article in The Athletic:

 

The emphasis in January’s transfer window will be to strengthen further in attack and central defence. Targets will have been identified and the process started a long time ago, using a blueprint put in place 10 years previously. After all, if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.

 

 

Hmm not really dynamic, I’d say we perhaps now need a better quality of player sooner than the original blueprint was prepared for.

[rachhere]

11 minutes ago, Swan Lesta said:

Hmm not really dynamic, I’d say we perhaps now need a better quality of player sooner than the original blueprint was prepared for.

Doesn’t our blueprint more refer to how we identify if a player will fit into our team, rather than identifying a particular level of quality. If this blueprint identified Ricardo and Cags, then I am all for it!

[Nick]

18 minutes ago, rachhere said:

Doesn’t our blueprint more refer to how we identify if a player will fit into our team, rather than identifying a particular level of quality. If this blueprint identified Ricardo and Cags, then I am all for it!

And if it identified Musa slightly less for it?

[Finnegan]

20 hours ago, Ric Flair said:

Out of interest Roy, if you could have Bailey or Lemar who would you go for? I reckon both would be available for the same price, maybe Lemar even less given he's flopped massively in Madrid.

 

Lemar for me. 

 

Better all round footballer, think he fits really well with Rodgers vision of the game. He can drop short and link up with the CM and FB the way Perez does and is instrumental in our wide play as such. 

 

He's versatile too, I've seen him play almost like a Praet style role for Monaco just quickly receiving and distributing the ball in midfield to speed up play. Was a big fan as part of that Monaco team who didn't play wildly different to us now. 

 

He also has the pace to stay wider and beat a man. Bailey obviously does too but Bailey strikes me as a bit more of a generic pace merchant, like a higher quality Demarai Gray. His lack of any consistent finishing / end product through his career is a concern for a guy that would cost what he would. 

 

Edit: they're both ridiculously good footballers and I'd love to have either here btw. We'd be in dreamland. 

Edited 20 December 2019 by Finnegan

[Gerard]

53 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

Lemar for me. 

 

Better all round footballer, think he fits really well with Rodgers vision of the game. He can drop short and link up with the CM and FB the way Perez does and is instrumental in our wide play as such. 

 

He's versatile too, I've seen him play almost like a Praet style role for Monaco just quickly receiving and distributing the ball in midfield to speed up play. Was a big fan as part of that Monaco team who didn't play wildly different to us now. 

 

He also has the pace to stay wider and beat a man. Bailey obviously does too but Bailey strikes me as a bit more of a generic pace merchant, like a higher quality Demarai Gray. His lack of any consistent finishing / end product through his career is a concern for a guy that would cost what he would. 

 

Edit: they're both ridiculously good footballers and I'd love to have either here btw. We'd be in dreamland. 

 

And the key thing about Lemar is he's available and probably obtainable. 

 

Reading between the lines Atletico want rid whatever so it's a buyers market as far as Lemar is concerned it's just a question of what level of clubs want him. Lyon is the only solid link so far so it means we're a player if we choose to be. 

[Bossman Blessed It]

4 hours ago, Swan Lesta said:

And if it identified Musa slightly less for it?

 

I think the batch of players we got at that time; Musa, Slimani and Mendy to be more precise, demonstrated one of the few times that we looked away from our blueprint due to a level of success that wasn't actually planned for. Slimani and Musa were scoring goals in the Champions League which was probably the key concern for our board. I would certainly argue that aside from that season, in recent years, our approach to the transfer market has been one of the most dynamic and profitable of any Premier League club. 

[North Leeds Fox]

10 minutes ago, Gerard said:

 

And the key thing about Lemar is he's available and probably obtainable. 

 

Reading between the lines Atletico want rid whatever so it's a buyers market as far as Lemar is concerned it's just a question of what level of clubs want him. Lyon is the only solid link so far so it means we're a player if we choose to be. 

Atletico need to get his wages off their books if they want to bring anyone in, which would definitely work in our favour.

 

Just depends if we can afford his 100k wages as other proposed targets like osihmen etc would be on a lot less. Atletico would also want a huge fee to cover their losses which would smash our transfer record, again not sure the club would do that. Would love to be proved wrong though. 

[StriderHiryu]

10 hours ago, urban.spaceman said:

From Tanner's latest article in The Athletic:

 

The emphasis in January’s transfer window will be to strengthen further in attack and central defence. Targets will have been identified and the process started a long time ago, using a blueprint put in place 10 years previously. After all, if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.

 

 

And that's the way it should be done. Congerton has a past reputation for buying bad signings, whereas our process has cranked out more "hits" than probably any other club bar maybe Liverpool in the country. Stick to the process and use Congerton to recommend players that can go into the analysis team for review. To be fair he supposedly recommended James Justin who looks like a good prospect.

 

It also doesn't rule out a big money or exotic signing. This time last year, most people (myself included) were laughing off the Tielemans interest, and yet 12 months later he's still here! And we are in a much stronger position to sign players now than arguably any other time in our history due to the way we play and new training ground.

[Gerard]

8 minutes ago, North Leeds Fox said:

Atletico need to get his wages off their books if they want to bring anyone in, which would definitely work in our favour.

 

Just depends if we can afford his 100k wages as other proposed targets like osihmen etc would be on a lot less. Atletico would also want a huge fee to cover their losses which would smash our transfer record, again not sure the club would do that. Would love to be proved wrong though. 

 

According to this article Atletico want their money back. Good luck with that for a player they're actively seeking to offload and who has been a failure since arriving. I'm sure we'd love to get our money back on Slimani but prices are driven by demand. 

 

Lyon are the only club with a link as far as we know and if that's the level of club interested then they'll have to lower their price or keep him. 

 

https://www.getfootballnewsfrance.com/2019/lyon-determined-to-get-straight-answer-from-thomas-lemar-president-aulas-downplays-it-all/

[RoyFox]

2 hours ago, Finnegan said:

 

Lemar for me. 

 

Better all round footballer, think he fits really well with Rodgers vision of the game. He can drop short and link up with the CM and FB the way Perez does and is instrumental in our wide play as such. 

 

He's versatile too, I've seen him play almost like a Praet style role for Monaco just quickly receiving and distributing the ball in midfield to speed up play. Was a big fan as part of that Monaco team who didn't play wildly different to us now. 

 

He also has the pace to stay wider and beat a man. Bailey obviously does too but Bailey strikes me as a bit more of a generic pace merchant, like a higher quality Demarai Gray. His lack of any consistent finishing / end product through his career is a concern for a guy that would cost what he would. 

 

Edit: they're both ridiculously good footballers and I'd love to have either here btw. We'd be in dreamland. 

Hopefully can get the old Lemar back, the contrast between his two good seasons at Monaco in terms of goals, is light and day

 

League

Monaco 2015 - 2017             - 14 goals over 4415 minutes = 1 goal every 3.5 games

Monaco 2018 - AM 19/20      - 4 goals over 4913 minutes   = 1 goal every 13.5 games 

 

That's a serious fall from grace, not sure paying sky high wages is worth the risk?

 

Bailey last 3 seasons (league) -  17 goals over 4589 mins for Bayer, 1 goal every 3 games.

Edited 20 December 2019 by RoyFox

[MPH]

5 hours ago, Swan Lesta said:

And if it identified Musa slightly less for it?

 

 

 

it’s a blueprint that has got us to second in the league.

Edited 20 December 2019 by MPH

[Nick]

1 hour ago, MPH said:

 

 

 

it’s a blueprint that has got us to second in the league.

Undeniably true - just posing the question that to stay up there we may need to spend differently to previous approaches.

[Meat and 2 veg]

How much do you reckon we will spend in the summer? if we get champions league and if we don’t? 

Edited 20 December 2019 by Meat and 2 veg