Doucouré

[Undisputed_blue]

Does anyone know the spread of profile of his signings at PSV?

Just wondering as I think there’s a general conception that everyone in Holland is signing under the radar players.

Maybe some of the players he was signing were obvious in that environment?

Try this:

https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2018/12/25/do-xmas-marcel-brands-xi-the-everton-chiefs-best-signings-make-a/

[kramer0]

I mentioned this earlier, but how much longer do you think Moshiri will wait to get a return on his investment, and how many years of Carlo's contract do you think they want to waste trying to succeed with all under-25s?

It's irrelevant. He's never getting a return on his investment.

We won't catch the top sides by buying all of the "known” (I can't emphasize the quotes here enough because I think this idea is a load of crap) quantities they don't want (which usually means they’re older and/or not that good).

We won't make money to reinvest in the squad because we're signing players at the point of their declining usefulness.

As for Ancelotti... he's a great coach in a league with plenty of other great coaches. He's not the smartest guy in the room. Getting him the exact players he says he wants guarantees fuck all. Getting him quality players with room to grow should he enough. Clubs can build a winning culture with talented, ambitious players 25 and under.

[Undisputed_blue]

It’s irrelevant. He’s never getting a return on his investment.

We won’t catch the top sides by buying all of the “known” (I can’t emphasize the quotes here enough because I think this idea is a load of crap) players they don’t want.

We won’t make money to reinvest in the squad because we’re signing players at the point of their declining usefulness.

As for Ancelotti... he’s a great coach in a league with plenty of other great coaches. He’s not the smartest guy in the room. Getting him the exact players he says he wants guarantees fuck all. Getting him quality players with room to grow should he enough. Clubs can build a winning culture with talented, ambitious players 25 and under.

Definitely agree. The only problem is that we have some clueless fans who expect to see us spending millions as a sign of ambition without having no idea to achieve success.

[kramer0]

Does anyone know the spread of profile of his signings at PSV?

Just wondering as I think there's a general conception that everyone in Holland is signing under the radar players.

Maybe some of the players he was signing were obvious in that environment?

Obvious is alright.

I more have an issue with bringing them in at the tail end of their usefulness.

[brap2]

Obvious is alright.

I more have an issue with bringing them in at the tail end of their usefulness.

Yeah same really.

Known =/= Bad. It's the whole package that is looking a bit wobbly.

[ajax_andy]

It’s irrelevant. He’s never getting a return on his investment.

We won’t catch the top sides by buying all of the “known” (I can’t emphasize the quotes here enough because I think this idea is a load of crap) players they don’t want.

We won’t make money to reinvest in the squad because we’re signing players at the point of their declining usefulness.

As for Ancelotti... he’s a great coach in a league with plenty of other great coaches. He’s not the smartest guy in the room. Getting him the exact players he says he wants guarantees fuck all. Getting him quality players with room to grow should he enough. Clubs can build a winning culture with talented, ambitious players 25 and under.

The way I look at it is that we could buy some 22 year olds for £10m a pop who have come from an inferior league and won't improve us for maybe two years, in which time we stay mid table and hope that a further 3 years after that those players become top class (at which point we get maybe one season of usefulness before they depart for someone bigger). However there's no guarantee that'll even happen, they might just be another Besic and do nothing, at which point you're now heading down the league not up.

The club seem to be doing two things currently:

1) investing in 'dead certs' that will instantly improve us and under a world class manager hopefully help is challenge the top 6 using players he wants and knows will work in his desired tactics and way of playing.

2) Buying extremely promising non first team ready youth players for relatively low money in the hope they develop in to first team players, such as Branthwaite and the left back we bought, whilst also trying to improve existing young first team players like DCL and Holgate.

The only time we've really ventured down the high potential upside young player is Kean and by and large it's been a disaster (so far).  So going down that route is extremely risky, if you put your whole transfer strategy ethos on doing that and buy 4 Kean's you aren't challenging the top 4, you're being relegated.

I think we've really just got to trust our world class manager knows what we actually need more than a bunch of people on a footy forum tbh.

[Cereal Killer]

 

You can’t build anything around a team of under 23s with “potential” and hope we strike gold on all of them, more likely to be relegated with that approach, but hey, might make a bit of money in the process for the 1 or 2 players who are world class

[Thornton_19]

Im hoping him along with Allan allows us time to bring in the players full of potential.

I honestly think they probably HAD to do this transfer just to not have what happened last season to our midfield.

[YankeeBlue214]

The way I look at it is that we could buy some 22 year olds for £10m a pop who have come from an inferior league and won't improve us for maybe two years, in which time we stay mid table and hope that a further 3 years after that those players become top class (at which point we get maybe one season of usefulness before they depart for someone bigger). However there's no guarantee that'll even happen, they might just be another Besic and do nothing, at which point you're now heading down the league not up.

The club seem to be doing two things currently:

1) investing in 'dead certs' that will instantly improve us and under a world class manager hopefully help is challenge the top 6 using players he wants and knows will work in his desired tactics and way of playing.

2) Buying extremely promising non first team ready youth players for relatively low money in the hope they develop in to first team players, such as Branthwaite and the left back we bought, whilst also trying to improve existing young first team players like DCL and Holgate.

The only time we've really ventured down the high potential upside young player is Kean and by and large it's been a disaster (so far).  So going down that route is extremely risky, if you put your whole transfer strategy ethos on doing that and buy 4 Kean's you aren't challenging the top 4, you're being relegated.

I think we've really just got to trust our world class manager knows what we actually need more than a bunch of people on a footy forum tbh.

My over/under on how many games into the season Carlo starts to feel the weekly wrath has dropped considerably. It's pre-festive season now for sure.

[kramer0]

You can't build anything around a team of under 23s with "potential” and hope we strike gold on all of them, more likely to be relegated with that approach, but hey, might make a bit of money in the process for the 1 or 2 players who are world class

- Potential and being good enough to play first team football in the PL aren’t mutually exclusive. Richarlison was a good PL starter when we bought him and he’s gotten better. Every year, there’s a handful of players that move to the PL from leagues like Ligue 1 or the Championship, slide comfortably into starting roles, and go up a level with a year of regular PL games under their belt.

- Using the language “under 23s” is deliberately misrepresenting my point. There are plenty of available players 25 and under who have played enough first team football to demonstrate their quality. Some will be looking to make a set up (Richarlison), others will be looking for regular games after a failed big move (Digne, Mina). I’m not talking about only signing the most promising academy players, which is a daft strategy for a PL club (a handful of these is alright, e.g. DCL, Holgate).

- Every player in our squad worth a fuck was acquired at age 25 or earlier.

- We’ve tanked hundreds of millions on players with precious PL experience who can “do a job right away.” Some are gone but most are making a huge wage while contributing fuck all.

- As a bonus point... we even made money on some of the younger acquisitions that didn’t work out for us (Lookman, Vlasic).

[Bluedylan]

My over/under on how many games into the season Carlo starts to feel the weekly wrath has dropped considerably. It's pre-festive season now for sure.

So are you gonna always makes veiled digs about the fanbase every time there's reasonable questioning or debate about the direction the team is taking? Just wondering, so I can prepare for it.

[TheRam]

All valid concerns.

I don’t get why people have to misinterpret the point some posters are trying to make.

We just want the club to be smarter with how they recruit players and this signing signals a return to mistakes of the past.

Nobody is saying our recruitment needs to be solely based around signing under 23 players for buttons.

We were sold a vision by Brands of investing the majority of our money on players 25 so we can continue to reinvest the money we spend and build a team for years to come.

It’s a solid recruitment strategy that has worked across the continent and on these shores for decades. We seem to be going against that in this window for whatever reason and that’s bound to raise some concerns.

Maybe it’s the way we need to go for the next twelve months. Get a base level back to the squad, sign players we know can slot in straight away to get us to where we need to be.

We invested heavily in three under 25 players last summer in gbamin, iwobi and kean and for various reasons we’re still waiting for them to contribute something meaningful.

In the short term that window probably set us back so to counter that we’re goings back to players for the now.

These signings need to be few and far between though. Get your engine room for the next two years for £50m, sound, but we shouldn’t deviate from investing the majority of our budget on younger players as that will always work out for a club in the long term.

[indiantoffee1975]

I think we are going to have to be patient and build that midfield out. It may be for this season we just need to bring in established players with a view to just shoring up that midfield then next season we expand it out further through mixing it up with younger players brought in who will become more progressive.

The danger is we stop adding to that midfield and rely on Doucoure and Allan for the next three to four seasons as a midfield pairing. That'll get destroyed by opposition teams.

[Dr. Sponge]

As others have said, if we're going with powerful, ball winning midfielders, as we seem to be (which is fine, I guess), you'd hope that we had something more exciting in mind for the right wing, but then surely we don't have all that much money?

I think that, unfortunately, unless we can move on one of Iwobi, Sigurdsson, Bernard or Walcott we wont see a big money signing in that area.

[Toddacelli]

I'm hoping a midfield pair of Doucoure and Allan is to shore things up in order to allow us to take a punt on a younger creative type who can be subbed in or played at the right times.

If those two can shut up shop and we get a goal or two in front then let's see more of Kean and maybe another, young,  exciting player.