Deadline Day Disapointment (again)

How can you say that ? If we never got into the CL Pukki and Biton might not have signed. The deals weren't done at that point. You are skewing what actually happened to back up your argument that we should have brought more players in. It is a safe bet that it was our qualification for the CL that pushed the Pukki and Biton deals over the line.

 

it has been a good summer.people need to stop complaining neil lennon has been backed.

 

Biton was at the game, the deal was done. We had been putting bids in for Pukki left right and centre so qualification couldn't have been what pushed them through. I can't debate any more nonesense with folk like yourself on here. The fact is the manager felt we needed more players and we didn't get them.

I'm excited about all the new signings. There may be some shrewd deals in there but the manager was definitely let down.

 

You must be one of those pigeons then. As no one can debate with you either

 

2.To be honest that's what I took from his comments.


I think this window is a strange one, we all feel the side is weaker, but the players we have brought in are of a higher pedigree than the ones we sold (at the time we signed them). The truth is none of us know how good the new faces will be, but I think where I feel a little let down is in squad depth.

We have a lack of options up front:

Stokes, I like him, but to me he's a good SPL player and not good enough for the top level

Balde, unproven but doesn't look like he's going to be a 20 goal a season striker, or anywhere near it so far. Lennon himself said he was one for the future

Pukki, as is often the case (Bangura rather than Diawarra for example) it seems we've signed someone who wasn't the managers first choice, and who for all some people on here want to argue the case - has not scored a lot of goals anywhere he's been - so again it's hard to suggest he will turn into a prolific goalscrorer this year.

That's all we've got up front, 3 strikers, none of whom I'm convinced will score goals in the Champions League. We've lost Miku, Lassad, Watt and obviously Hooper. If one of those three gets a bad injury we're down to two before we start needing to rely on youths and playing Samaras out of position.

We have no cover or competition for Commons:

We appear to be setting up with a 4-2-3-1 formation this year, particularly in Europe, and as such Commons is going to be our most influential player, we have no one to play in that position other than him, or midfield is basically all defensive type players, who lack creativity which will cause us problems should we be without Kris for any length of time.

I don't think anyone is expecting to sign players at the same price we're selling them at, but for me anyway, the feeling is we are keen to buy low sell high, but not prepared to make any sort of investment in moving forward as a team after that. Signing guys at £900k and selling them for £12M is brilliant but is not going to happen consistently, sometimes it is going to have to be a player of £5M that we manage to turn into one worth £10M, but as long as we continue to sell at a profit that shouldn't be a problem. We seem to be, as a club, obsessed with this 'debt free' tag as some sort of trophy, possibly because of what happened with Rangers, but at the end of the day sometimes you need to speculate to accumulate, particularly in the Champions League.

The problem we've had with spending big in the past is we haven't been prepared to sell. We signed the likes of Sutton, Hartson and Lennon himself for big money and kept them for the remainder of their careers (more or less) rather than selling them on for a profit. With our current signing policy this wouldn't happen, players we can profit on should be, and are, sold.

I hope the guys we've brought in turn into great players, but selling for a profit is only one half of the equation, if we are not progressing as a team and getting steadily better as we bring in more and more money then what's the point?

 

What's your * problem?

You follow me around this forum like a * puppy.

Sorry evilbunny, but I don't dig you that way.

 

No... he did not!

 

We can't know anything until we've seen these players play.

I think a lot of the angst has come from losing practically the whole spine of our team, ideally we would only be losing one of our top players in any given season, if any. However sometimes you can't legislate for players wanting away for either personal or professional reasons, as was the case with Hooper, Wanyama and Wilson.

Like I said earlier, 3 years ago we were signing players from Nottingham Forrest and Scunthorpe, now we are signing players from Ajax and Schalke.

That's got to be a step in the right direction, time will tell.

 

I have better things to do than follow you around, it's just anytime someone disagrees with you you throw the prams oot the bag.

 

And you pop up to point out the error of my ways, funny that.

Why don't you try talking about Celtic instead of being TC superman.

 

The OP clearly wants a 'glamour' buy. The type of player that Tony Mowbray was accustomed to. Utilizing our scouts under Lennon has been a far more effective policy.

I bet you'd have preferred Hernan Crespo over Pukki so you could get the name on the back?

 

Hard to disagree with any of that, my feelings still are that we aren't prepared to spend money. £10M is not a lot considering what we made in the champions league last season and with those sales. We had a chance to really push on this summer and I think we shat it.

I think Lawwell is scared of spending money on someone who isn't a success, like Fortuné, but that's just something that is going to happen every so often.

Going into the Shakhter game without a striker was a massive gamble, one we were lucky to get away with.

I just don't like Peter Lawwell in any capacity to be honest, I dont trust a word that comes out of his mouth, and I felt Lennon's interview after the Shakhter game was very telling - he clearly felt let down, again.

 

Have you seen the recent thread about our 'debts'? Makes for interesting reading and goes a long way to explaining why we aren't throwing money at playing staff. We still have serious financial commitments to attend to over-and-above our £30-odd-million a season running costs.

Our accounts are available for all to see... there are no 'missing millions' or examples of money being squirreled away for no apparent reason. IMO, we are being run very professionally, I'd happily take another couple of years worth of similar business dealings if it means we will be truly 'debt free' in a few seasons.

 

We got a quality striker. That was the only thing you could deem 'imperative'. I'm content with the board's performance.

 

I think there needs to be some calm here debate is good but jesus chill out guys. We had bids rejected all the way through the window and last day as they tried to get deals done BUT we did get a few players in and its now a matter of letting them settle in and look forward to the season then we can look back and judge how we all feel it has gone. We are into the group stages again and its looking good for the season again so why all the negativity?? We will never know if any single player we tried for would have made any difference to how the season will go but we have what we have so whats say we try looking forward now and positively

 

Let's be honest, the majority of people are only as * off as they are because we didn't spend £6m on Finnbogason.

We did spend £5m on two strikers, £3m on a centre back and £3m on a winger though.

 

... and let's be even more honest - the vast majority of us knew (and continue to know) the square route of *-all about Finnbogason!

 

There is still the possibility a freebie might come in next week. Might be tempting to take a complete punt on someone like

Ciprian Marica or Jay Simpson. The out of contract market this late is pish, but maybe this is the best of what's left. Reckon we could be doing with a back-up striker since Watt went out on loan.

 

Read this today as well that we haven't ruled out bringing in a couple of free agents. Would take Mladen Petric in a heartbeat.

 

I have to admit, I hadn't read that thread, but now have, and to be honest none of what's in there concerns me in the slightest. We are paying back a loan at £1.5M a season, fine. We have an overdraft which we use (average balance of just under £2M), fine. I'm not saying there are missing millions, I am saying if we want to continue to be in the champions league latter stages then we need a team capable of getting there. The number one aim should be long term success and improvement on the pitch, which should result in us spending more money on better players, and of course selling these better players for more money. T me it is not unrealistic for us to be thinking in a few years about signing players at £8M and selling at £20M, but we need the exposure of the Champions
League and if we continue to gamble then some years we will come unstuck.

I think our main aim at the minute is profit, not on field success. I think Peter Lawwell defines himself by our bank balance, rather than the quality of our team, which I think is wrong.

Agree, but the principle is that he was a player Lennon appeared to want, who cost a bit more than Lawwell was prepared to spend, so we didn't get. I seem to remember a couple of years ago Lennon wanting Baba Diawarra and getting Bangura instead, and we all know how that turned out. We have been linked with some top players over the past few years, but we never seem to get any of them. Maybe too many people were hailing Finnbogason as the second coming considering probably none of them had seen him play but all we all want is for the team to do well. We've lost our top scorer and haven't replaced him with someone who has scored goals at anything like the same rate, I don't really blame people for being a bit nervy.