The hysterically annoying and totally unfounded, but traditional, Summer 2024 rumours thread.

[Blue Maniac]

Kind of backs up my point that the agent chat is bollocks, and our recruitment can’t really be blamed.

I think it’s easier to argue that Manyoo have some kind of vision (even if they don’t have the people to deliver it) than that LCFC have any kind of coherent strategy that identifies the club. I look at last season, and then I look at this summer, and I have no ****ing idea what this club is. We’re kind of decent but also a bit shite, I think?

 

[SilverFox]

We won the FA Cup so the gamble paid off big time for me. Since I started following LCFC ever since being old enough in the 1950's it's all I ever wanted.
I know plenty of fans of similar vintage feel the same.

I think the impact of him spending half a billion pretty much unfettered on players he and Congerton wanted has put us here. The FA Cup papers large Peter Taylor sized cracks. I loathe that man.

 

[SilverFox]

I think it’s easier to argue that Manyoo have some kind of vision (even if they don’t have the people to deliver it) than that LCFC have any kind of coherent strategy that identifies the club. I look at last season, and then I look at this summer, and I have no ****ing idea what this club is. We’re kind of decent but also a bit shite, I think?

We are in an extremely difficult phase. A good club is buried underneath a big problem created by irresponsible financial decisions.

Selling the prize cow for magic beans stuff. Except we didn’t get a beanstalk. The beans grew into Ryan Bertrand and his ilk.

 

[SilverFox]

Imagine if instead of signing players that weren’t good enough (e.g Daka and Soumare who combined set us back almost 50m) and instead we just signed a single proven marquee player. Imagine also if we‘d stuck to our policy of signing unknown quantities, but for reasonable fees.

The marquee players would be saleable safer assets, and if the gambles didn’t work out, it wouldn’t have been such a crippling millstone around our necks.

We’d have had saleable assets and a workable model.

How we ended up with a mix of dross, washed up players, and unmotivated talent who relegated us and left us in this enormous mess is something I can never forgive Rodgers for. The board take their credit too for enabling it, but that **** still spent half a billion like we were ****ing Chelsea, and for me will never be forgiven. A manager who couldn’t avoid relegation with what he had at his disposal. **** me that’s some negligent shit right there.

 

[camberwell fox]

Imagine if instead of signing players that weren’t good enough (e.g Daka and Soumare who combined set us back almost 50m) and instead we just signed a single proven marquee player. Imagine also if we‘d stuck to our policy of signing unknown quantities, but for reasonable fees.

The marquee players would be saleable safer assets, and if the gambles didn’t work out, it wouldn’t have been such a crippling millstone around our necks.

We’d have had saleable assets and a workable model.

How we ended up with a mix of dross, washed up players, and unmotivated talent who relegated us and left us in this enormous mess is something I can never forgive Rodgers for. The board take their credit too for enabling it, but that **** still spent half a billion like we were ****ing Chelsea, and for me will never be forgiven. A manager who couldn’t avoid relegation with what he had at his disposal. **** me that’s some negligent shit right there.

I agree. I loathe the smarmy ****.

 

[ThaiSweetChilli]

Does anyone know what the process to sign a player is?

Who makes the first enquiry? Who makes the final decision? If manager doesn’t want him, does recruitment do it anyway?

From what I know, Cannon is touted to be very good. Preston and Everton fans have said both, but as we know, he’d need a run in the team first.

 

[jb5000]

Signing marquee players rarely works out for clubs at our level - look how much Everton lost on James Rodriguez for an example. The strategy of signing unknown quantities is the only way a club like ours can progress, but we all have to accept that - as they are unknown quantities - some of these signings won't come off and be profitable.
Cherrypicking the two most obvious ones while ignoring the others in order to say that the approach definitely doesn't work is as daft as pointing out the money that was made on Fofana or Maddison and saying that it definitely does. Further to that, Soumare apparently had a decent season in Spain so maybe he could show something under new management or at least have a market to be sold to.
For me, there was clearly a dip in the market for the kind of players we were looking to sell around the height of the Covid epidemic, with the result that Tielemans didn't get the move he deserved at the time, which would have greatly profited LCFC, but instead wound up leaving for a free. How much better would we have been two seasons ago without demotivated players winding their contracts down, and with fresh blood looking to prove itself instead?
Some of this applies to the management too, on reflection we should have allowed Rodgers to go to Arsenal rather than bind him to such a large contract (the same principles for the players apply to the coaching staff), but at the end of the day this approach will have peaks and troughs. We hit an incredible peak to land to fifth place finishes and the Cup, sadly that was then followed by...

 

[Fox Fan]

Some of this applies to the management too, on reflection we should have allowed Rodgers to go to Arsenal rather than bind him to such a large contract (the same principles for the players apply to the coaching staff), but at the end of the day this approach will have peaks and troughs. We hit an incredible peak to land to fifth place finishes and the Cup, sadly that was then followed by...

Another thing about attempting to sell these unknown players on is that to get the best price, you have to have them locked into long term contracts (see Fofana and Marhez), but to get them to sign those contacts, they want mega money.

That's put us in a position where we now have players like Soumare that obviously haven't made it, earning a fortune and tied to the club for years more whilst being unsellable.

 

[Micky]

 

[Blue Maniac]

Ah, a winger, finally

 

[Micky]

Ah, a winger, finally

A number 10 you numbnut.

 

[homer]

A number 10 you numbnut.

Definitely - certainly not a right winger

 

[Micky]

Definitely - certainly not a right winger

View attachment 18856

Read the Brighton forum Homer. He's a 10 but has been continually dumped on the right wing.

 

[Blue Maniac]

A number 10 you numbnut.

Is that a kind of central winger?

 

[homer]

Is that a kind of central winger?

We’re creating a team of them - it’s a new football revolution

 

[Micky]

Shove that in your pipe and smoke it!

 

[camberwell fox]

View attachment 18857

Shove that in your pipe and smoke it!

I don’t believe Homer appreciates his upper pipe being filled quite so much as his lower, back one.

 

[Blue Maniac]

I don’t believe Homer appreciates his upper pipe being filled quite so much as his lower, back one.

It’ll go in a pipe either way

 

[Miles Away]

Loaning Brighton players.

 

[City Fan]

Definitely - certainly not a right winger

View attachment 18856

Wilf’s heat map from last season will show he’s a number 8 apparently.

And Ricardo’s heat map from last season will shows he’s a central midfielder.

Doesn’t mean they are though, does it?