Evangelos Marinakis And Co

[wassy04]

You are basically asking a bunch of average players, bar the odd exception, to take responsibility for being average?

The manager is doing what the manager does. Any expectation to the contrary is naive. Surely they did their homework on Hughton and knew what they were getting?

I also don’t buy this “be careful what you wish for” scaremongering that’s being perpetuated.

Yes I think this is pretty fair, basically saying if they don't overachieve they've failed.

I think the short term nature of our transfer windows is what frustrates most. Whilst its good that the investment is there (at least in some windows) the continued attempt to put together a promotion team in one season is frustrating.

On paper once again IMO the majority of the signings made sense if you're trying to get promoted this season. However given how last season ended was that a realistic goal? Would it not have been better to acknowledge how average the squad was and that we overachieved last year rather than repeatedly publicly setting playoffs as a goal.

For me this is the major issue that is costing us. Our best chance of success is building a team to have a go once every couple of years using a base of academy players to supplement the squad. Repeatedly outwardly stating the aim of promotion, building unnecessary pressure and expectation, despite not being able to compete on budget with the top sides is silly.

I want the ownership to stay and make a success of it. Hopefully they do and the stadium plans come to fruition. Just think a realignment of targets would help. Acceptance this season is gone, allow CH to plan for next season this window would give us a realistic shot of going for it next year when hopefully we can actually be there.

We'll see whether they take that approach or keep going for journeymen signings to try and achieve an unrealistic promotion charge in Jan.

If we wanted promotion this season then it’s my view (although you already know this) that the signings don’t meet the ambition. 

We should NEVER permanently sign squad players. 

Take Blackett for example, is he any better than Hefele or Benalouane? No, yet we’re still paying (or have paid up) our commitment to them whilst also signing Blackett. It’s absolutely bonkers.  

You seem to have really changed your stance on this Wassy?

Not changed just trying to better articulate it. My opinion has always been that the mistakes were made in previous windows and that the squad we had last year overachieved so would take a big overhaul to improve it. Hence my continued defence of some of the signings we've made. 

In another thread I explained I felt we needed at least 8 signings to fill previous gaps and replace cash/Watson. Never denied that we've made some weird and questionable signings. Just don't like the 14 signings figure that gets bandied around when I feel most of those were required. (Blackett, fred, cafu etc are obvious examples where they were not necessary)

I do agree though, it wasn't worth signing all those squad players to replace existing bad squad players. 

I do think Knockaert, Taylor, Colback, Mckenna were good signings. Plus Soh will hopefully be good. I still think Ioannou could come good too. 

Arter and Christie look really poor signings though. Hard to even name the rest!