Vestergaard

[iancognito]

On 04/04/2025 at 21:31, Sol thewall Bamba said:

 

That would have been SEVEN years ago, MARK HUGHES turning his nose up at him.

 

We offer him a new deal in 2024.

 

I'm still not sure even on here the level of incompetence is really recognised.

Get Mark Hughes in the summer. Might have a chance of getting rid of the useless lump.

[inckley fox]

3 hours ago, jv1 said:

Shoot me down if you wish however

 

He was decent in the championship he isn’t going anywhere 

 

same goes for mavididi and winks 

 

not good enough for prem but plenty good enough for the championship 

You're right, more or less. I thought Winks was targeted by sides in the FLC post-Xmas and struggled with the attention. Mavididi did well, but we saw enough in the way of limitations, and dips in form, to be wary about his prospects at a higher level.

 

Ultimately, it depends whether you want success in the second tier built around a large number of players that you know to be too poor to make the step up. The Enzo project capitalised on the strengths of players like Faes and Vestergard, that we already knew to be unfit for top tier football but suspected were, in the right system, a class above the second tier. And we were right in that assumption.

 

But without ample funds to rebuild the squad upon promotion - and with the dressing room largely unwilling to compromise on Enzo's footballing ideals - we were doomed before kicking a ball. If, from here on in, we predominantly build around those two and Winks / Coady / Justin / Kristiansen / Mavididi / Ayew / Reid / Daka or even Vardy / Ndidi, then promotion would most likely be pointless to everyone outside the accounts department. We'd be giving ourselves too much to do thereafter.

 

It'd be nice to see us show some desire to be a top flight club again. That means as a general rule looking for people who haven't been tested (at least not thoroughly) at the top, but you believe to be capable of stepping up, rather than exploiting the strengths of those who nobody else wanted at the highest level because they're either no longer good enough or never were. Naturally, that can't be uniform. You're bound to need a few short-term fixes (as we did in 2015 with GTF, Philips etc.), but if the backbone of your team needs dismantling it's never going to be easy.

 

Sadly, I think we'd be seeing major changes in the recruitment department now, with an eye on a different approach for the forthcoming summer, if we'd woken up to this.

[jv1]

1 hour ago, inckley fox said:

You're right, more or less. I thought Winks was targeted by sides in the FLC post-Xmas and struggled with the attention. Mavididi did well, but we saw enough in the way of limitations, and dips in form, to be wary about his prospects at a higher level.

 

Ultimately, it depends whether you want success in the second tier built around a large number of players that you know to be too poor to make the step up. The Enzo project capitalised on the strengths of players like Faes and Vestergard, that we already knew to be unfit for top tier football but suspected were, in the right system, a class above the second tier. And we were right in that assumption.

 

But without ample funds to rebuild the squad upon promotion - and with the dressing room largely unwilling to compromise on Enzo's footballing ideals - we were doomed before kicking a ball. If, from here on in, we predominantly build around those two and Winks / Coady / Justin / Kristiansen / Mavididi / Ayew / Reid / Daka or even Vardy / Ndidi, then promotion would most likely be pointless to everyone outside the accounts department. We'd be giving ourselves too much to do thereafter.

 

It'd be nice to see us show some desire to be a top flight club again. That means as a general rule looking for people who haven't been tested (at least not thoroughly) at the top, but you believe to be capable of stepping up, rather than exploiting the strengths of those who nobody else wanted at the highest level because they're either no longer good enough or never were. Naturally, that can't be uniform. You're bound to need a few short-term fixes (as we did in 2015 with GTF, Philips etc.), but if the backbone of your team needs dismantling it's never going to be easy.

 

Sadly, I think we'd be seeing major changes in the recruitment department now, with an eye on a different approach for the forthcoming summer, if we'd woken up to this.

Yep agree with that - biggest concern has to be getting some of the ones you want to move on actually out of the club - contracts and stupid money means it will be hard to move a good few on