The General Football Thread

It absolutely could have been us. I'm still going to forever wonder whether we could have made CL in 2015-16 with an extra player to two.

 

Leicester will have the same problem we did and have done when they sold Kante and Mahrez - the big clubs will cherry pick their players. Fofana will play for a bigger club at some point for example. Maddison will want regular CL football. Tielemans and Ndidi will attract interest as well. As we've found out, it gets to a stage where you can't just replace these quality players and still be at the standard you were before. Eventually it will catch up with you. It helps that Leicester have good owners who invest in the team but that doesn't guarantee success on the field.

 

But it generally does guarantee success on the field. There is a huge correlation between money spent and league position.

I agree that they may run out of luck/options with recruitment like we did. What they have going for them that we didn’t is that they are happy to spend big fees on players (Fofana was 40m wasn’t he? For an 18 year old) where as we were looking at around the 15-20m mark. It means they have many more options than us when recruiting.

The whole premise of buying these players is that the big teams generally won’t risk spending a decent amount on an unproven player, knowing they can just buy them a couple of seasons later for a big fee, but crucially once they have proven they can play PL football at a high level

 

Don't start me off on Tielemans! (Bet they buy Patson Daka as well, just to annoy certain others on this board).

 

Sure, other players will depart. But if you're an ambitious, extremely well-regarded young player who wants to go to a team that is already good and where you'll get minutes, you're packing your bags the second Leicester's rumoured to be interest in you. There isn't a better place to make the step up at the moment.

 

He’s another example. The chances of everyone in world football knowing who Tielemans was was probably 99.9%. Leicester paid 32m for him, which while high, is nothing like what they could get for him now and they are also reaping the benefits of having him in the team.

When we were good at recruitment we wouldn’t have paid that sort of fee for a player so Leicester are better than us in that respect

 

[QUOTE="Saintmagic, post: 14864846, member: 1008084"]But it generally does guarantee success on the field. There is a huge correlation between money spent and league position.

The whole premise of buying these players is that the big teams generally won’t risk spending a decent amount on an unproven player, knowing they can just buy them a couple of seasons later for a big fee, but crucially once they have proven they can play PL football at a high level[/QUOTE]

Absolutely. I know it’s not quite the same but few years back they posted a league table of £ worth - it was virtually an exact replica of the final league placing.

 

Yep agreed. Their recruitment & sales have been phenomenal. Outs; Kante, Drinkwater, Mahrez, Maguire, Chilwell @ roughly £250M but they’ve continued to recruit more & very saleable class players. Said before on here, if only!

 

So it's squeaky bum time for Pompey on Sunday. If they fail to win at home to Accrington and either Oxford or Charlton do win then it's another season in the 3rd tier

 

Let's hope that they go all #skatesy and Our Nige can slip past them at the final hurdle.

 

I can’t see Pompey winning the playoffs anyway, but realistically, unless the Hull and Burton players are already on the beach it’s a tough ask for Charlton and Oxford.

 

Chelsea players treating Werner like the kid at school you don’t want to pass the ball to, understandable

 

Chelsea 1 up ......HT.

 

Wow Chelsea are spurning so many golden chances.

 

It's an all English final.

 

Chelsea have dominated this. Their squad finally getting played to its full potential it seems

 

Nice goal by skate boy.

 

Zidane probably needs to win La Liga to save his job now.

 

Not my favourite team, but well done Chelsea. A victory cemented by a born and bred "Skate". Tuchel is proving to be a canny coach!!! They now have a dress rehearsal at the weekend for the Istanbul final.

 

So city v Chelsea final it is then.