Red Focus » Sun Oct 26, 2014 5:25 am wrote:Octsky » Sun Oct 26, 2014 5:24 am wrote:Stu the Red » Sat Oct 25, 2014 9:49 pm wrote:Just a thought… why on earth didn't we go for Alex Song? He would have improved the midfield and he wouldn't have cost much due to it being a loan, bet we could have got him for about fifteen mil
same reason why we signed diouf instead of anelka.
s.h.1.t happens.
i thou we played well vs hull, the def is good even simon managed to pull up some great saves.
but vs lower oppositions at home, we got to play 2 fwds like as lambs came in yst and we had more attacking intent.
Not only Song but Diame, he was a constant threat to us the whole game and also when he played against us for West Ham last season. I was so relieved when he was taken off. He was available in the summer and hinted Liverpool to get him but Brendan was never interested.
I don't think we should solely put the blame on Brendan for his summer mediocre signings. Apparently he did enquire about Falcao, Cavanni and definitely Higuan but those guys told us to p#ss off because we're not big enough a club for them. Yes, we're in the CL but a 3rd tier CL side plus unlike Arsenal we haven't shown to the world that we can consistently qualify for the CL. So Brendan had no choice but to sign as usual youngsters with potential. He is also not the sort of manager who will spend 70M on a marquee signing even if the guy wanted to join us.
I don't think it's a question of us not being big enough, we are a huge club with a worldwide following most clubs could only dream about, imo it's more a question of us not being consistent or stable enough.
Over the last 5 or so years we've been all over the shop, we've nearly went under, we've had 2 sets of owners and 4 different managers, we appointed one DoF and sacked him within a year then appointed another (Pep Segura) and then told him we didn't want one, we've seen public slanging matches between managers, owners and executives, we've had the indignity of the banks appointing our chairman, a court case to see who friggin' owns the club and lots and lots of other crisises of varying degrees.
On the pitch it has been just as erratic, we've qualified for the CL just once and domestically it's been a similar roller coaster ride with us going from mid table obscurity to just missing out on the title and now back again.
You mention Arsenal, they haven't won an awful lot in recent times but at least when someone signs for them they generally know what they are going to get, they know who the manager will be and as Arsenal have qualified for the CL for the last 17 years on the bounce they know there's a good chance they'll be playing in the CL as well.
We need to get our house in order on and off the field to attract the biggest names IMO.