Spent £10m on L1 players (5 Viewers)
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BlueSkiesForever
Well-Known Member
Yeah I’m sure there are but I’d rather us not be wasting £4-5 mil on L1 players, the step up to being a quality player at championship level just seems too much for most L1 players, particularly when we’re paying the sort of money we are for these players. Risking £1-2 mil on a L1 player is fine but £4-5 mil just seems a waste to me.
BlueSkiesForever
Well-Known Member
Dasilva - below average
Palmer - great in some games, far from great in others
Collins - shit so far
Kane - alright I guess
Dabo - brilliant at his peak, not particularly consistent
And all of those players, bar Dabo (who was maybe the best out of that lot), were picked up by a prem club and then released, only to be picked up by a Championship/L1 club, meaning that they clearly didn’t fulfil the position the original prem club saw in them. I think buying a player from another championship or L1 team is different to buying them straight from a prem team, you know that they’re not amazing by the fact another Championship/L1 team is willing to let them go.
Grendel
Well-Known Member
I think Charlie Wakefield was better
Ring Of Steel
Well-Known Member
These are huge, sweeping conclusions to be drawing after 9 games.
TomRad85
Well-Known Member
Dabo was far from the best of the lot. Relative to where we were at the time he was very good, but as a Championship player he was probably the worst of the lot.
TomRad85
Well-Known Member
As i've said before too, there's a certain hypocrisy to expecting to receive huge money for your second tier players and not expecting any filter down to the third tier.
TomRad85
Well-Known Member
How often do all 3 promoted League 1 teams go straight back down? 2 of them sit above us right now and last season Ipswich went all the way through the league with most of the team they were promoted with. It's a nonsense statement.
BlueSkiesForever
Well-Known Member
After a season and 9 games, I’m talking about Kitching as much as EMC. I think EMC will turn out decent in the end but still a 50% success rate on players costing around £4 mil from L1 isn’t great.
BlueSkiesForever
Well-Known Member
But how many eventually go back down to L1 within 3-4 seasons? Like the prem, the championship is effectively full of teams that have either been in it for a considerable amount of time or have moved between the prem and the championship, for example, Millwall, Blackburn, Stoke, West Brom, Bristol City, Swansea, Hull, Preston, QPR, Middlesbrough, Cardiff etc.
It’s very rare that a team, like Ipswich, can get back-to-back promotions straight from L1. I would just rather put weight in signing European players than L1 players every time, particularly for the money we’ve spent, for example Kitching who is fine but isn’t a £4 mil player. In comparison, MVE cost almost the same and is probably worth around x5-x7 what Kitching is worth.
BlueSkiesForever
Well-Known Member
Fair enough, it’s just opinion (and I’m not really arsed about going round in circles with this discussion because it’s sort of going nowhere anyway), but I thought Dabo had his bad days but at the time for where we were I think he was probably one of the best of those 5 mentioned, maybe
SlowerThanPlatt
Well-Known Member
Da Silva and Palmer were not released, they went to Bristol City for fees at the same time
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
BlueSkiesForever
Well-Known Member
That's the opposite to your argument about the signing of Sheaf
No it’s not, we bought Sheaf from Arsenal, that’s not the same as buying a player like Kitching who was purchased by Leeds, loaned out and then released by Leeds to then find his way to Forest Green Rovers, then Barnsley, then us.
BlueSkiesForever
Well-Known Member
Sorry when I said released I meant let go or bought out, obviously that’s not the correct definition of “released” but I just mean the player in all likelihood wasn’t good enough to stay at the original club so they let the player in question leave.
SlowerThanPlatt
Well-Known Member
So Ben Sheaf?
skybluecam
Well-Known Member
Sheaf wasn’t good enough to stay at Arsenal.
As usual your argument seems to boil down to “just sign good players duh”.
Perennial Lurker
Well-Known Member
With foreign sounding surnames
stupot07
Well-Known Member
Tbf Sheaf was brought in on loan based on his performances for Doncaster in league. He had to perform and hit certain criteria including appearances in the championship with us to get signed permanently
Ring Of Steel
Well-Known Member
great point
Ring Of Steel
Well-Known Member
SlowerThanPlatt
Well-Known Member
You mean Arsenal U21s/reserves where 95-99% don’t have careers at that level
long way home
Well-Known Member
I don't think the club has the balance right in the transfer market yet. This could be down to multiple things but unfortunately last summer im sure didn't work out as they wanted. Today most of us see an unbalanced squad which in my opinion is effecting results. Time will have to be given to those brought in and those recruiting, but lessons have to be learnt if we are going go progress. And the next opportunity we have to improve the squad i would suggest it needs to be experienced players. That need no introduction to English football. Or looked at as a project, i think we have enough of our own to be bringing more in on that remit.
Legia Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
.... and whose teams regularly get turned over by League 1 and League 2 teams in the EFL Trophy!!
Mucca Mad Boys
Well-Known Member
The transfer market has inflated values across the EFL - we wouldn’t have got the money we did for Hamer or Vik had been a few years prior.
BlueSkiesForever
Well-Known Member
Yes Sheaf isn’t, or wasn’t, good enough for Arsenal but what I’m saying is that signing players that have been passed around championship/L1 teams that have initially come from a prem club is worse than just signing them from directly prem club purely because of the fact you know they can’t be that good if they’ve been playing for Forest Green Rovers (not on loan).
I’m not saying every L1 or Championship signing is shit but imo you need to see some sort of proven quality before spending £5 mil on a L1 player that’s all. (My original point was directed towards L1 players tbh, it’s just sort of snowballed
)
BlueSkiesForever
Well-Known Member
My original point was don’t blow £4-5 mil on L1 players tbf, I’m not sure where the current argument has got to tbh
SlowerThanPlatt
Well-Known Member
Come from a Prem club? Again you mean the reserves, very different things. What level in the pyramid would you place a PL U21 team at?
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Never sure why people pretend not to get fairly basic arguments on here. Obvious a young player that gets picked up by a PL club has shown more promise than one who hasn’t and obviously going straight from Champ/L1 loans to a Champ club is different from being released and picked up in L2 or NL. This isn’t even controversial, I swear half this forum just plays dumb.
Legia Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
Yes, but its not as simple as that. Someone who has been a pampered Academy player at a PL club, who then gets released downwards doesn't necessarily have the same motivation as a player from the lower leagues that has been released at a younger age. Given League 1 and League 2 teams regularly turn over the PL U21 teams in the EFL Trophy this also suggests many of those players are not automatically going to make it as good Championship players either. I notice someone mentioned Charlie Wakefield earlier, but over the years we have signed a lot of duds on loan from top PL clubs also. Ben Sheaf is the exception rather than the rule, and it was his year at League 1 Doncaster that made him a worthwhile signing, not his years in Arsenal's academy.
TomRad85
Well-Known Member
Pointless stupid argument. It's not like we don't look abroad, we've signed loads of fucking players from abroad. Good players come from everywhere, we'll weigh up what we think is the best option and we'll go for it, be it a foreign player, a player from lower leagues or a prem reserve.
English football maintains a reasonable strength further down the pyramid than any other country as the level of interest ensures more players can stay in the professional game and continue to develop and improve. I can't imagine the Norwegian league where we got Torp from, for example, is any better than League 1.
English football maintains a reasonable strength further down the pyramid than any other country as the level of interest ensures more players can stay in the professional game and continue to develop and improve. I can't imagine the Norwegian league where we got Torp from, for example, is any better than League 1.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Sure sure exceptions exist. But they’re exceptions for a reason.
BlueSkiesForever
Well-Known Member
TomRad85
Well-Known Member
The chances are someone playing regularly in League 1 is already having a better career than 95%+ players playing in Prem academies will ever have.
BlueSkiesForever
Well-Known Member
Thank you! I thought there was a simpler way of putting it, I’m just really not good at describing my thoughts well