Football: Final thread of the season. Start delayed.

[Raja]

Gotta pray Darwin is terrible

[A Horse Named Stranger]

26 minutes ago, Raja said:

Gotta pray Darwin is terrible

You don't believe he will evolve under Klopp?

[Iskaral Pust]

I’ve always had it in mind that the success rate for big transfers is much more fraught than you would hope after paying huge sums, but this ESPN article does a decent job of assembling some data to test that.  Admittedly there is a large recency bias because they have not inflation-adjusted the numbers.  But their subjective ratings seem pretty fair.  Just imagine how the list would look if Lukaku and Grealish were included too (this list requires a minimum of two seasons to evaluate after the big transfer)

ESPN

Edited June 12, 2022 by Iskaral Pust

[Spockydog]

Grealish hasn't been a success?

 

[Iskaral Pust]

44 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Grealish hasn't been a success?

 

Better than Lukaku for sure, but IMO didn’t add anywhere close to 100m of value.  He didn’t make much impact — neither adapted really well to the system nor added some radical extra dimension — and the usual faces led the way to the title.

That’s not necessarily the player’s fault.  City are a system team even more than Liverpool.  Is Grealish expected to slot into the system?  That will probably take more time considering his past style.  Or is he meant to be the mercurial maverick who offers something outside the system?  Well City don’t leave much room for that.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

I think Graelish has done okay. The two season requirement is probably a fair point, to give a player a year to adjust before calling him a succes or failure. Unless Lukaku can turn things around big time, he won't be a succes story, no matter how you spin it. If Chelsea offload him back to Italy on loan, that won't make his signing any better.

Graelish has had solid first season at City to build on. If he does that, it will be a good transfer (altho overpriced transfer). If he performs like last season, then it's fair to say, that he didn't live up to the price tag.

 

As for the ESPN list.

9. Rodri, 23
Atletico Madrid to Manchester City, €62.7m, 2019
Grade: 3/5

 

That's way too harsh.

Rodri is easily 4/5.

He is one of the best number 6s in the game right now. To claim otherwise is nonsense.

Edited June 12, 2022 by A Horse Named Stranger

[Spockydog]

1 hour ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Better than Lukaku for sure, but IMO didn’t add anywhere close to 100m of value.  He didn’t make much impact — neither adapted really well to the system nor added some radical extra dimension — and the usual faces led the way to the title.

I dunno. There are some pretty spectacular failures on that list, and I think you've done Grealish dirty by including him in the conversation.

Grealish did about as much as anyone expected him to in his first season at City. He certainly did better than Mahrez in that respect.

[ljkeane]

18 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Grealish did about as much as anyone expected him to in his first season at City. He certainly did better than Mahrez in that respect.

I agree you need to give Grealish time to acclimatise to fairly major change in style of play but he got 4 goals and 3 assists and didn’t really nail down a spot in City’s first choice line up. I think it’s a stretch to call that ‘as much as anyone expected’.

[Spockydog]

Honestly, it was about as much as I expected. And certainly nowhere near poor enough to be in the conversation for biggest ever waste of money. 

Did anyone seriously think he was going to waltz into that squad and immediately secure himself a week-in-week-out starting place?

I think he did just fine. But I would be looking for improvement next season. 

Edited June 12, 2022 by Spockydog

[Raja]

 

[Wilbur]

It really is a pity that Liverpool will lose Sadio Mane.

He has been one of my favorite players, both on and off the pitch.  Off the pitch, he seemingly wanders the land doing good deeds, and on the pitch, he has been both electric and industrious.

The only silver lining of his departure will be that I will no longer have to watch him get hacked down from behind repeatedly throughout games and get no calls from the referees.

[Rorschach - 2]

22 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

That’s probably close to the plan, although it seems like some back-ups would need to be recruited.

I think Allan and Doucure are both out of contract next summer.  Would you renew them now?  Would they re-sign?

I think Gomes’ contract is up next season too but I expect he’ll be let leave.  He had some purple patches but then disappeared.

If it's up to me (spoiler: it isn't), I'd resign Doucoure and leave Allan. Gomes too. In fact, if someone would like Gomes, I'd sell now. 

He was very good at times when he first arrived, but especially after his injury he's been more off than on. But we'd absolutely need some replacement there. We can't rely on Davies to fill that role - or any other midfield role for that matter.

[baxus]

On 6/12/2022 at 4:39 PM, Iskaral Pust said:

I’ve always had it in mind that the success rate for big transfers is much more fraught than you would hope after paying huge sums, but this ESPN article does a decent job of assembling some data to test that.  Admittedly there is a large recency bias because they have not inflation-adjusted the numbers.  But their subjective ratings seem pretty fair.  Just imagine how the list would look if Lukaku and Grealish were included too (this list requires a minimum of two seasons to evaluate after the big transfer)

ESPN

Alisson and VVD 4/5? The two of them literally elevated Liverpool to a whole other level, and rather quickly too.

So much for that list.

EDIT:

KDB is also 4/5, according to this list which only further undermines its credibility.

Edited June 13, 2022 by baxus

[Winterfell is Burning]

6 hours ago, baxus said:

Alisson and VVD 4/5? The two of them literally elevated Liverpool to a whole other level, and rather quickly too.

So much for that list.

EDIT:

KDB is also 4/5, according to this list which only further undermines its credibility.

Yeah, and even some of the others are debatable (Walker only gets a 3, Mbappe a 4, Bale, who scored a bicycle kick in a CL final and was a key player in winning 4 of them, gets a 2, etc). Pretty bad overall.

[ants]

Well, the Socceroos are off to the World Cup, after beating Peru in penalties. We’re going to suck, but we’ll be there. 
 

(playing France, Denmark and Tunisia). 

[BigFatCoward]

4 hours ago, ants said:

Well, the Socceroos are off to the World Cup, after beating Peru in penalties. We’re going to suck, but we’ll be there. 
 

(playing France, Denmark and Tunisia). 

It worked so fair play to him, but the aussie keeper was a prize prick in the shootout. It wasnt very sporting or dignified. 

[Spockydog]

What a bellend.

[ants]

Haven’t watched it yet. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Mixed feelings about Australia qualifying.

On the one hand happy for Irvine, that he qualified and will be able to play in a WC. On the other hand it's that silly mid-season World Cup in bloody Qatar. 

[Consigliere]

Reports that Moshiri is entertaining offers to buy Everton. Matt Law reported that a consortium headed by Peter Kenyon are interested in buying the club.