Its a fucking outrage mate. But their loss is our gain.
It's finally over. Thought's about our squad?
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Well put. It's very early, but I am also struggling to see the difference between Alberto and Suso.
Alberto scores goals I suppose, and has more of a physical presence (or could do).
Suso had his chance and didn't quite deliver. If you stick with him then it's not an improvement. Albertos turn now.
chance? the lad is 19, still plying his trade and when he did play in the premier league he was not bad. Alberto did his business in the second division and if you factor into account the climitisation period for a foreigner not bound to play many games, suso would arguably have been a safer bet. Let's hope Alberto will prove me wrong.
Clearly BR thought "not bad" was not good enough.
indeed, harsh on suso if you ask me - which I appreciate you haven't.
So if you don't deliver then you get to stay? Ok?
Come back Carroll, all is forgiven.
...or perhaps overrated on FIFA 14.
erm, are you seriously considering Carroll and Suso to be situations which are analogous?
Suso had completely different level of expectations and to say he did not deliver is harsh. Last year he started a number of games and for a player his age was showing progress.
Expectations set by whom?
Carroll had no control over his transfer fee, in the few games he played he did do well, quite powerful at times. Look at the finals. But BR felt his skill level, mobility and style of play didn't fit what he wanted form a team and was frozen out. Fair enough in my eyes, probably harsh to Carroll but net effect was loaned and now transferred.
Suso has the skill and mobility to play in the style Brandan wants, he didn't deliver possibly due to his strength and power, he got loaned out. It's up to him to show he doesn't get transferred.
Can't have it both ways in treating a player.
One was 23/22 and an established premier league player who cost thirty five million pounds - a RECORD. He was shit.
The other is a teenager, whose not even yet had a breakout season in the top flight.
There is a universe of difference in what you would expect.
Again - Carroll didn't set the transfer fee. Again - I never said he wasn't shit. But he played well on a few games and showed why Kenny chose him. Like I said check out the Man City game and the Cup finals. Again - Brendan didn't think he was good enough.
Again - Suso hasn't lit the world on fire like Sterling, Ibe, Wisdom. Again - Brendan didn't think he was good enough.
I don't think Alberto and Suso are like for like players at their present levels of development. Suso is very good between the boxes, but he needs top-level match experience and to hone his decision-making and goal-scoring in the hole, and in order to do so he needs first-team games -- which we can't afford to give him at the team's present level. And with him looking boss so far in his loan stint, sending him to Almeria seems to be paying dividends.
Alberto plays mainly in one of the forward positions (he has said his best position is as a false #9), notching 11 goals and 17 assists for Barcelona B. While he's defo one for the future, his attacking game around the box is quite advanced and cultured. In terms of what the first team needs right now, i.e. goals, I think he's more equipped to make an immediate contribution.
Alberto plays mainly in one of the forward positions (he has said his best position is as a false #9), notching 11 goals and 17 assists for Barcelona B. While he's defo one for the future, his attacking game around the box is quite advanced and cultured. In terms of what the first team needs right now, i.e. goals, I think he's more equipped to make an immediate contribution.
Dunno. Its not out for a few weeks. I'll let you know.
It's pointless even trying to reason. One minute he's crying we haven't blown £30m on someone, the next we should have persevered with a 19 year old who wasn't pulling up trees despite playing fairly regularly, yet two new lads are being questioned after a couple matches. Same old.
Fair points - they are not like for like players, but they do fall into the attacking midfielder bracket.
But overall, if we're a bit tight on cash, I could see merit in keeping Suso and using the Alberto money + aspas money to buy one very good player (and keep suso) rather than 2 hopefully good players.
I hope you're right about immediate contribution!
After seeing Eriksen snapped up for £11m, and after seeing Aspas and Alberto not setting the league alight as yet, I'm inclined to feel the same. But without knowing the real ins and outs of our window, it's probably facile to say forgoing on Aspas and Alberto would deliver us an Eriksen or a Yarmolenko. As Mark said before, Eriksen's price tag might have been more prohibitive earlier in the window, or it could be a simple case of him snubbing us.
I believe there were several windows of opportunity within the window. We saw that Aspas and Alberto were available and reasonably priced, and we went for it. While they don't look great atm, what I have seen from them in pre-season, what I read about them, and our committee's track record thus far give me faith that they'll come good in time.
mark, Mark, Mark, so logical, so unfeeling...
I think the explanation for why we bought Alberto and Aspas instead of investing that £15M in someone else is extremely simple - Rodgers likes A&A as players, they were available for reasonable money, that's why they are here now.
It can be counterproductive to over-strategize a transfer campaign. You can't sit down at a table and make a perfect plan that covers all weaknesses and guarantees a squad of perfect harmony of everybody's footballing and personal qualities. Were that possible, there would be whole research institutes working day and night for the richest clubs - but, thankfully, football is not a science. Managers still have to rely on their gut feeling and judgement when buying players - which is only right as they, managers, are the ones with the responsibility and the power to make those new players succeed. And of course, new signings are much more likely to succeed if their manager believes in them, wants to work with them, and sees the qualities in them that he knows how to improve.
There are some managers who like to buy a finished article and just replace it when the times comes, but I think for a manager like Rodgers every player he buys is a project, an opportunity to improve a player by "educating" him. So he would view a player's value not as the sum of his current abilities, but as his current ability + the projection of his future ability after some time of working together. No wonder Rodgers emphasizes the "hunger" and teachability in any new player - those qualities can hugely affect the projection. That's why players like Coutinho and Sturridge are at a different level already compared to where they were in their former clubs - we are reaping the rewards of their education. And that's why players who are not very teachable are mostly no longer here.
I think when Rodgers says that Alberto is a "Coutinho type signing," he means that in Alberto he sees the qualities he likes and also the qualities he feels he can improve through working together, thereby raising the level and the value of the player dramatically. This doesn't mean Alberto is exactly at the same stage of his development as Coutinho; what matters though is that at the end of the process we get a significantly better and more valuable player than the one we bought.
You can ask, why can't we just buy a player who already has the exact qualities we need? There are 3 reasons: it's very expensive (if you want to buy ready-made players AND compete at the top level, then you have to buy "proven" top-class players, which means paying the top price), it's a bad financial strategy (because such players lose value, whereas the "project players" can increase in value) and also there is some intangible advantage to having a core of players who have received their education and found their top level at your club (Barcelona and Bayern prove this point).
Like many others, I also wanted us to buy an attacking player who is good enough to help us in the short-term and seems like he still can improve - but usually players of this type cost a fortune and most importantly, the manager's judgement is paramount here: the player might be good and might look great to us, but if the manager is not sure he can improve the player all that much if they work together, his judgement is all that matters. We will never know what combination of factors prevented us from signing the likes of Eriksen or Ljajic, but to question the wisdom of buying the players that our manager rates and wants to work with is wrong in principle. Like I said in the beginning, you can't possibly account for all the factors, so the simplest strategy is also probably the most effective - you like the player, you think price is fair - BUY. It's when you stop trusting your instincts and judgements and let the statisticians, the owners, the agents, the press and everyone else influence your decision - that's when all the monumental transfer cock-ups happen. A&A might work out or not - jury is still very much out (and it should be) - but even in the worst case scenario we'll be OK. When you have the right strategy, the only mistake you can make is not following it.
It can be counterproductive to over-strategize a transfer campaign. You can't sit down at a table and make a perfect plan that covers all weaknesses and guarantees a squad of perfect harmony of everybody's footballing and personal qualities. Were that possible, there would be whole research institutes working day and night for the richest clubs - but, thankfully, football is not a science. Managers still have to rely on their gut feeling and judgement when buying players - which is only right as they, managers, are the ones with the responsibility and the power to make those new players succeed. And of course, new signings are much more likely to succeed if their manager believes in them, wants to work with them, and sees the qualities in them that he knows how to improve.
There are some managers who like to buy a finished article and just replace it when the times comes, but I think for a manager like Rodgers every player he buys is a project, an opportunity to improve a player by "educating" him. So he would view a player's value not as the sum of his current abilities, but as his current ability + the projection of his future ability after some time of working together. No wonder Rodgers emphasizes the "hunger" and teachability in any new player - those qualities can hugely affect the projection. That's why players like Coutinho and Sturridge are at a different level already compared to where they were in their former clubs - we are reaping the rewards of their education. And that's why players who are not very teachable are mostly no longer here.
I think when Rodgers says that Alberto is a "Coutinho type signing," he means that in Alberto he sees the qualities he likes and also the qualities he feels he can improve through working together, thereby raising the level and the value of the player dramatically. This doesn't mean Alberto is exactly at the same stage of his development as Coutinho; what matters though is that at the end of the process we get a significantly better and more valuable player than the one we bought.
You can ask, why can't we just buy a player who already has the exact qualities we need? There are 3 reasons: it's very expensive (if you want to buy ready-made players AND compete at the top level, then you have to buy "proven" top-class players, which means paying the top price), it's a bad financial strategy (because such players lose value, whereas the "project players" can increase in value) and also there is some intangible advantage to having a core of players who have received their education and found their top level at your club (Barcelona and Bayern prove this point).
Like many others, I also wanted us to buy an attacking player who is good enough to help us in the short-term and seems like he still can improve - but usually players of this type cost a fortune and most importantly, the manager's judgement is paramount here: the player might be good and might look great to us, but if the manager is not sure he can improve the player all that much if they work together, his judgement is all that matters. We will never know what combination of factors prevented us from signing the likes of Eriksen or Ljajic, but to question the wisdom of buying the players that our manager rates and wants to work with is wrong in principle. Like I said in the beginning, you can't possibly account for all the factors, so the simplest strategy is also probably the most effective - you like the player, you think price is fair - BUY. It's when you stop trusting your instincts and judgements and let the statisticians, the owners, the agents, the press and everyone else influence your decision - that's when all the monumental transfer cock-ups happen. A&A might work out or not - jury is still very much out (and it should be) - but even in the worst case scenario we'll be OK. When you have the right strategy, the only mistake you can make is not following it.
What does A&A mean?
Aspas and Alberto
T
the_khl
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I agree with most of this, another good post from you mate.
And because I agree I am also feeling slightly worried, simply because we've bought a player like Alberto instead of the ones mentioned, whom despite being young, have already delivered at highest level. I am worried that it becomes the rule rather than the exception that we are only going for unknown/unsuccessful fringe players at their clubs (or players doing well in smaller clubs like Aspas) instead of picking up the ones that are already highly rated. By that token we would've never gotten the likes of Suarez and Torres for instance.
I know it worked a treat with Coutinho and Sturridge, but instead of only follow this path only he really should've addressed the lack of creativity in the squad. Strategy or no strategy, that seems a great mistake to me especially if Coutinho should get injured. Maybe not as pivotal as the mistake to let Carroll leave without replacing him in the squad - but it's a long Season and we look far to slim for my liking in that area.
Nope, give me credit, I got this one wrong on my own.
Huh? What?
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