Sold short again

Danny McGrain has been working closely with Balde on his passing and other tecnhiques. It's clear when watching him he still looks like a baby giraffe, but he has some qualities there.

Clearly we have a lack of regular goals coming from the strikeforce, so it's a good decision to bring in someone with Griffiths' strike rate to alleviate some of the pressure from Stokes, Pukki and Balde, and gives Balde another 6 month to work on his game (will be better in the long run for Balde).

Win/Win situation for me.

 

This summer as well? I dunno, rightly or wrongly that's the opinion i hold, i've been really unhappy a good few times in recent years and this year has just seen the club i love turn in to something i don't particularly like and this might just be the final nail in the coffin for me.

 

I don't agree. The only thing he's alleviating is playing time. Now when Pukki gets 10 minutes every other week the pressure will be crushing.

As an aside, Watt just scored again. He's got a great strike rate in Belgium this year after some early troubles. So we might as well get rid of Pukki, Balde, or Fridj now.

 

I tend to think that the best way for Amido to learn and develop his game is to be playing in the first team. There's a lot you can do on the training field but there's no substitute for playing in real matches.

I can see that his passing and technique aren't his strongest points but the guy was playing every week in the Portuguese league last season, he can't be THAT bad, surely?

 

Would you consider wanyama to be one?

 

This summer? Not a chance! Was gutted to see Hooper and Wanyama go, but very happy to see Boeriggter, Pukki and especially van Dijk recruited.

Don't forget about Steven Mouyokolo.

 

You can't substitute the experience of playing a match. It's no surprise that the Spanish develop their players so well when you consider that they bring them up young and, if they can't get time with the first team, they play with the B team in the 2nd/3rd/4th divisions. We and English clubs develop players with kid gloves, never let them play, and then wonder why they never turn out.

 

Hmmmmmmm.................thinking about it, probably not. Wanyama was a regular in the first team from pretty early on so I just look at him as a straight signing. Some people would maybe view Wanyama as a project I suppose.

Project players for me would be the likes of Misun, Rogic, Fridjonsson etc. Young guys that come here with no real hope of being in the first team when they first arrive.

 

How much did he develop here though? I thought he actually regressed a bit his last six months or so. That was a case of getting away with robbery for that fee we paid. It was clear pretty early how good he was.

 

Fair enough.

The same player selection difficulty would have arisen had we signed for example a £6m Finboggason etc.

The Fridj? I'm more inclined to think that he was bought as a replacement for Samaras.

Talking about Watt, I genuinely would love nothing more than for him to come back as a more complete player/person and take over no.1 mantle as our main striker......nothing more!

I personally don't think there's any mad rush for Balde to be playing week in/week out. Next season will be a different story and you'll probably likely see Stokes maybe moved on possibly.

 

Really? Van Dijk has proved to be great signing and i was pleased with Boerrigter but the board should have had replacements for Wanyama and Hooper lined up and sorted before they left which they didn't. I think everybody knew Pukki was not an out and out goalscorer and no replacement for Hooper and Wanyama was never replaced. This proved to be true in the CL when we were made to look like school boys.

 

I agree 100% with Marky. I think the board sees signing Griffiths as enough to appease fans to the end of season. Then we will get the exact same nonsense in time for season book renewal time. Only I sense this time round the board are going to get a real shock when it comes to season renewals. Too many reasons not to buy into the club at the moment and considering the signing of a league 1 striker is the height of the clubs ambition, that is not going to get anyone onside.

I really believe we are seeing a real decline in front of our eyes but the league is so poor it seems to go unnoticed. I expected no different to what we got today but it is still frustrating all the same

 

I don't get the 'we've got the Summer Window' ...We don't. As I posted earlier the CL Qualifiers start 2 weeks after the World Cup Final and 2 weeks after the Window opens. We'll have Fraser, Efe, Izzy, maybe Virgil at the World Cup who'll come back knackered. So how are we going to get them and more importantly new players in/fit/ready for the qualifiers in 2 Weeks? No chance, which is why Lennon said this window was important..... but hey don't worry we have a goalscoring forward to add to the already substantial goal tally we already have. Genius!

 

Isn't your whole argument about splashing 5/6 mil on a European class striker to replace the goals that Hooper scored for us not a bit ironic considering Hooper cost about 2mil and came from Scunthorpe??

 

We played Milan off the park in our first game - best away CL performance I've seen from Celtic. Ajax at home was a cracking game by us as well in an extremely difficult group for any team. We were made to look like schoolboys v Juventus with Wanyama and Hooper in the team.

I don't think anyone knew a helluva lot about Pukki to be honest - I like him as a player, see the qualities he is bringing to the team. Aye, I was happy with that trio being brought to the club

Still am.

 

I remember when we were linked with wanyama,I along with most off us thought why spend 900k on a 19year old midfielder when we had 4 first team proven players. I considered him at the time as a project player.

According to Lenny fridjonsson is signed to be considered for first team straight away.

I'm the same as you mate. I'm disappointed. Lenny in my opinion was putting pressure on the board by upping the ante by claiming we could spend 6m on a single player to prepare us better for the early champions. Lenny also stated last year griffiths wouldn't make the celtic team.

Is it possible Lenny is the most annoyed out off everyone?

 

Yet he was sold for £5m...............

 

Totally agree with this

 

Milan away was good but we were playing a club in turmoil and couldn't hit a barn door, its ok playing well but at that level you need somebody to take the chances. Ajax was good but nothing special, what followed was * hideous.

Juventus was a disaster from Lennon choosing to play Efe, that was a decision making error that cost that game not a distinct lack of quality.

I think from Pukki's goal scoring record and play for his national team you could tell he wasn't gonna be a Hooper esque goal scoring striker. That what we lost and what we needed to replace. Anyway, i'm not happy :smiley-laughing002:

 

My original point still stands. We could end up selling one of our current crop for £10m or £1m until then......Hooper cost £2m and had never kicked a ball in Europe until we signed him.