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Could it be that maybe some players joined because Gerrard was such a big name?

Exactly. We should have learned our lessons by now. As much as I can't stand him, Alex Ferguson was a master of getting rid of players at just the right time. We could do with more of that harshness and less of the cloying sentiment.

There's a time to get rid, like we should have done with Alfie and Kent. Or do we just keep everyone, cos they used to have great numbers?. It's a balance, yes the dead wood also has to go, but it's selling them that's the difficult bit.

Congratulations to @der Berliner 👏👏👏 Many thanks to @Rousseau for the splendid organisation. 👍

I've never felt so pessimistic about the start to a season. And I'm normally a glass half-full type.

A shit finisher doesn't end up with 20 goals in a season. Alfie got as many chances and never scored 20 goals a season (same with Roofe and DeFoe). He had other attributes that were better than Dessers (strength, ability to play and thrive as a lone striker). If we can get £5M or more for Dessers then we should sell him. All our players have a pricetag and if an offer is received that matches that and the player wants to leave, then the deal will happen. If neither of these things happen, we either sell at a loss or the player stays. With Tav and Dessers, if they leave then no matter what we think of them, there will be a negative impact (goals and assists). Off course, their replacements may score and assist more, or they may not. If we are solely talking about selling players at the right time, then my argument is these 2 players aren't in that category. Tav should have been sold 2 or 3 years ago (but remember we sold Patterson for £16M, a fee we'd never have gotten for Tav), and Dessers has only been here 1 season and in that season, like it or not, he contributed. Put it this way, currently Tav & Dessers are the only 2 players in our squad who have the ability to score 20 goals a season. I don't like or dislike either of the players mentioned but as I said earlier, I would prefer if we moved Lammers on ahead of Dessers. As for posting previous stats, it's all we can do, can't post / predict the future.....

Spot on, Gonzo.

We can quote Tavs numbers all day long, and yes, they're great, he's been a fantastic buy for us. But his time has gone, he never really was a 'winner' tbh. Dessers just isn't good enough. As others have said I wouldn't really mind him being a squad player, an option, but the days of us having £5M squad players have gone.

This is why I hope the English teams lose not because of the players. ALL the MEDIA HYPE is the BIGGEST PROBLEM the English team has.

How long for? TBH you cant really miss what you have never had..

Its not the lack of transfer movement that's killing my vibe, its the constant injuries. I have no confidence that a hard pre season and a new physio / sports scientist will fix such a large problem. Hopefully I'm wrong.

Definitely a factor.

Probably agree with Kamara - but we still made a very good profit on him. We definitely dropped the ball with Kent and Alfie especially when it could be argued that both excelled in Europe rather than domestically. This should have seen them both sold at a decent profit or very healthy profit in Alfie's case.

I think we actually sold Kamara a season too late and we definitely dropped the ball on Kent and Alfie. Although I think the root cause of our issue is we have no faith in recruitment to replace good players when we do sell, and that goes back to the mindset Gerrard had. And I cant blame him our recruitment has been poor. Last 2 seasons especially. Recruitment under Gerrard was good in comparison.

Not often I agree with GB News and I have no idea what Flynn actually said but agree with Shilton and the host here. Some of the stuff especially the National front page was way beyond the pale.

Agree about Cucurella - thought he was fantastic in attack and defence. But Ruis had a much better tournament than Bellingham who was not as effective as he was for Real Madrid.

Still quoting his past stats then. Cool, let's keep him then. Yes, he's been our top scorer against them, but its not been good enough. Are you happy with what we've won in those past 2 seasons?. I'm not questioning his contribution, merely saying its time to move on. Dessers was the only one who got the game time to score 20, tell me someone else that did?. He's a shite finisher, if you like him then that's cool, I quite like him too, he keeps coming back and scoring the odd goal, but he's still a shite finisher, that doesn't change. This is pointless, I'm out.

Absolutely.

Sensible post.

Comparing apples with bananas. SAF was selling from a position of power, managing a very successful team who's players were all international, and some even world class. So they were highly sought after. We've had 1 (arguably 2) successful seasons in the last 2 decades. Easy to sit and say we should have sold "x" two years ago not knowing of there were any interest in the player, or if indeed the player wanting to leave. Thats not cloying sentiment, just cold hard facts. EDIT - I think we have shown that we do and can sell players at the right time - Bassey, Patterson, Kamara and Aribo - circa £50M for players we paid very little for

Off course there's a time to sell players, however the two you mention don't really fall into that category. Tav has 1 year left on his contract and signed for £200,000 pounds. Unless an offer is accepted from Saudi we ain't getting much for him. His positive contribution to the team still outweighs his "negative" contributions. Not lose much keeping him for this season (and phase him out). Dessers signed last season and scored 20 goals. If we can make a profit on him, we should definitely sell (same goes for any player). However, why should we sell at a loss when he's shown he can score goals? If he stays and scores 30 goals this season his value will rise. The issue we have is we paid over the odds for him. I don't think we are stable enough financially to sell assets at a loss and that goes against the player trading model we are trying to introduce.

I just don't see how selling / paying off players who contributed last season (and previous seasons in Tavs case) is going to suddenly improve us. Surely getting rid of the players who haven't/didn't contribute is the better strategy?

So with those dambing assessments of two of our more sellable assets, who's buying them and how are we replacing their numbers on a shoe-string budget?

If we sell Tav and Dessers and can't get Sima back (loan or permanent) then we've lost about 90% of last seasons goals and assists. Hard to replace. Danilo being fit will help, but didn't think he showed much to suggest he'd score more consistently than Dessers. The CL qualifiers and start to the league campaign are hurtling towards us and no sign that we've made necessary improvements to the starting 11 / squad. Hopefully see some outgoings / incoming over next week or so. Certainly need to move things along.

Lammers starts for the B-Team against Leeds today. The 18s lost 3-0 to Leeds earlier that's after an impressive 5-0 win over Arsenal at the weekend.

Coming to think of it, and still trying to be sort of objective, the Yahoos didn't exactly ran away with the title last season. Our squad was wrecked by injuries to new signings and important players throughout the season, plus some hilarious if not to say cynical refereeing and VARing. I doubt the latter will go away, but hope that it will not have the same impact this season. You would hope that we won't suffer the same injury hell, though ... much of it was due to bad tackles by opposition players rather than the much cited bad coaching - IMHO. Danilo and Cortes will be like two new signings. Our left side looks pretty good defensive-wise, Barron will add some steel to midfield, we'll have to wait and see what becomes of Igamane and whether that season in Holland will light up Lammers' career with us (if he stays). The right defensive side, assuming that Tavernier goes, would be the department of Sterling and Devine. My greater concern is that we will go on with the Plan A system in every game, no matter whether it is Dundee, Hearts, or some European opponent. Doing the same thing over and over again, hoping for a better result, is plain madness. It's not that we want to invent something new, we just need to apply existing and trusted things for the matter at hand.

Well, Hagi and Lammers haven't contributed anything recently, so those two don't need replaced. It's all about sensible squad management, although recent windows haven't exactly given us much cause for comfort.

I know what you are saying but we did get rid of about 8 players whose contracts or loans ended plus McCrorie so we must have reduced the wage bill a lot. With the expected departures of Lammers, Hagi, maybe Dessers that’s another chunk and if we can move on Goldson that’s the equivalent of another two.

I know we’ve started bringing in some new faces but picture the wage bill if we don’t offload any of the ones who are now surplus

Correct. The English players seem to be a decent bunch and I’ve no quarrel with any fan who goes to the match on a Saturday but tourism fans, many scribes and pundits (just like our own) are a waste of time. The centre forward lashes the ball first-time over the bar: “should have taken s touch and stroked it in” The centre forward tackled trying to control the ball: “should just have put his foot through it” That’s why I never listen to pre or post match discussion.

I don't think anyone is obsessed about it. A lot of us think changes need to be made, after years of failure and that certain players aren't what we need. Do you want Dessers and Tav to stay?

The obsession with moving Dessers on is becoming Tav-esque.

Apologies I should have been clearer. I was alluding to those support England first and foremost.

Lots of uncertainty around the status of the squad going into the next half of July and, although the manager was fairly positive in his assessment here, there's nothing for the supporters to get excited about ahead of the season starting. A big fortnight coming up...