Football: Squeaky Bum Time

[Daemon the Leaner]

Apparently Bouba Kamara, who is a great talent amongst French young midfielders, is signing to Aston Villa as a free agent. That's yet another potentially very good DM missed out by United, albeit Atletico pulled off because of doubts regarding Kamara's professionalism.

(it's been reported by Daniel Riolo that Kamara received the Atletico DoF wearing a short and being barefoot, thus the DoF left and said that this guy could never play for Atletico ) 

[Daemon the Leaner]

also what is that

 

[Consigliere]

3 minutes ago, Ser Glendon Fireball said:

also what is that

The truth.

 

6 minutes ago, Ser Glendon Fireball said:

Apparently Bouba Kamara, who is a great talent amongst French young midfielders, is signing to Aston Villa as a free agent. That's yet another potentially very good DM missed out by United, albeit Atletico pulled off because of doubts regarding Kamara's professionalism.

It's already done. Villa officially confirmed the signing yesterday.

Reports are that they are going to attempt to sign Bissouma as well.

[MercenaryChef]

klopp manager of the season? sure. what he did was impressive. but i think eddie howe was robbed. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Personally I think Potter deserves at least an honorable mention, if you don't want to give to one of the big two (Klopp and Pep).

[Heartofice]

Apparently Palace have the highest XG outside the top 4-5 teams in the prem.. so give it to Viera based on stats.

[Spockydog]

This makes me really happy.

 

[Consigliere]

Reports that Burnley are in talks with Vincent Kompany to take over as manager.

[Spockydog]

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

So any preferences for Feyenoord - Roma?

My natural impulse is: a sad or angry Mourinho is a good Mourinho.

Other than that, can't really give much of a toss.

[Consigliere]

I'd expect Roma to win. For all of Mourinho's faults, he knows how to win a final.

 

 

 

[Spockydog]

If true, that's good news for Arsenal. I think he proved his worth over the final stretch of the season, and it will hopefully strengthen the chances of Saka remaining with us. 

[Iskaral Pust]

That just makes Arsenal’s squad management look even worse.  Both Elneny and Nketiah are given new contracts after being ignored and omitted for months (or years), after they were included only when an injury crisis required it.  Why could Arsenal not evaluate those players during all their years at the club?  Why should a month or two suddenly change their long term suitability?  Didn’t Arsenal already have a recruitment plan for the squad this summer that they’ve developed for months? — why is that plan being changed at the last minute?  And what does it say that neither player had officially (foreign) or unofficially (domestic) lined up their next club yet as their contracts expired?

In its own way, this looks just as incompetent as United giving contract extensions to Jones, et al to “protect their value”.

I’m happy for the individual players and I hope they’ll have more opportunities now, but I think Arsenal look pretty incompetent here and, if it does turn out well, it will be blind luck rather than good management.

[Daemon the Leaner]

And Tchouaméni is apparently going to join either Real or PSG. I mean FFS. There's probably a curse going on that we cannot sign a talented DM. 

(in fact, I don't remember us doing that since... Carrick ?)

we'll probably end up throwing our money at someone like Brozovic 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

3 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

In its own way, this looks just as incompetent as United giving contract extensions to Jones, et al to “protect their value”.

 

Not necessarily. 

Henderson wasn't a great fit at Liverpool for years, he was still struggling for a while after Klopp arrived. Last three years or so he managed to turn things around - quite convincingly I might add. 

Chelsea had Jorginho and Rüdiger as players they like really wanted to offload anywhere before Tuchel arrived. Who more or less figured out, they are fine players.

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

2 minutes ago, Ser Glendon Fireball said:

And Tchouaméni is apparently going to join either Real or PSG. I mean FFS. There's probably a curse going on that we cannot sign a talented DM. 

(in fact, I don't remember us doing that since... Carrick ?)

we'll probably end up throwing our money at someone like Brozovic 

Real. At least they are the clear frontrunners afaik

[Iskaral Pust]

Just now, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Not necessarily. 

Henderson wasn't a great fit at Liverpool for years, he was still struggling for a while after Klopp arrived. Last three years or so he managed to turn things around - quite convincingly I might add. 

Chelsea had Jorginho and Rüdiger as players they like really wanted to offload anywhere before Tuchel arrived. Who more or less figured out, they are fine players.

 

That just means Liverpool and Chelsea had incompetent squad management at that time and we’re fortunate to end up with positive outcomes through random luck rather than good management.

Ignoring good players and letting their contracts expire is incompetent.  Giving bad players a multi-year contract extension based on a few games is incompetent.  Changing your long term plan based on a short period of observation, after having a very long period of direct observation already, is incompetent.  It seems like at least one of those things happened here, not least because either the first or second must be true.  Either Arsenal was right to let their contracts wind down and therefore wrong to renew them at the last minute based on a short observation, or vice versa.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

I don't think either of those players are just plain bad. 

They offer certain skill set, which was not what (the manager thought) their team needed or that were already covered. The players can show/develope some other qualities, or simply injuries/transfers offer a window of opportunity for them to show their worth, or manager/tactical changes provide opportunities again.

I mean, Schweinstiger was early on used in a more offensive role on the wings. For that role he has always simply lacked the pace to be good at that level. I think it was van Gaal who redeployed him as CM/CDM. In that role he was a much better fit (he still needed a more defensive minded partner next to him, as he was way too attack minded to provide cover for the defense)

[A Horse Named Stranger]

In other news.

Mane to make an announcement regarding his future after the CL final. And sounds like Milner is seriously considering retiring. Or at least, that's what it sounds like to me.

In unrelated news.c'mon Feyenoord, I want a Mourinho meltdown.

[Spockydog]

3 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

That just makes Arsenal’s squad management look even worse.  Both Elneny and Nketiah are given new contracts after being ignored and omitted for months (or years), after they were included only when an injury crisis required it.  Why could Arsenal not evaluate those players during all their years at the club?  Why should a month or two suddenly change their long term suitability?  Didn’t Arsenal already have a recruitment plan for the squad this summer that they’ve developed for months? — why is that plan being changed at the last minute?  And what does it say that neither player had officially (foreign) or unofficially (domestic) lined up their next club yet as their contracts expired?

In its own way, this looks just as incompetent as United giving contract extensions to Jones, et al to “protect their value”.

I’m happy for the individual players and I hope they’ll have more opportunities now, but I think Arsenal look pretty incompetent here and, if it does turn out well, it will be blind luck rather than good management.

Who says the plan has changed last minute? 

The club have always wanted Nketiah to stay. Arteta has always been clear on this. The contract on the table was in line with what he had shown on the pitch so far. And up until recently, that had been confined to some fairly basic performances in the Chupacabra Cup. In the PL, he really struggled. And that's not surprising, getting five minutes here, ten minutes there. When that changed, when he got a run of games, his performance levels lifted, as did his overall game, and we began to see in the PL what he'd been doing at a lower level for years.

As for Mo, he's a top professional, who has come in and done exactly whatever the manager told him to do. And he was only surplus until Arteta had a chance to get to know him from a manager's perspective. Since he came back from Besiktas, he has definitely become one of Arteta's guys, and has put in some outstanding performances this season, albeit in a limited role.

And if you think having a player like Mo in your squad, a player who knows his place in the pecking order, who can come in and do a job without kicking up shit (and not only that - he is by all accounts a hugely positive influence in the dressing room), if you think that's a player not worth having, then I don't know what to tell you.

I'd take Mo Elneny over any other fourth choice central midfielder in the Premier League.

Also, our PL squad has had just eighteen players since January. So we need bodies. Lots of them. And we still have our targets.