They have said they will only sign someone if a quality player becomes available I have no problem with that no point in signing players for the sake of it as they will be overpriced and short term solutions
It's a really difficult one. When they say they will sign when a quality player becomes available, you have to say they have been true to this in this window so far - both fonte and snodgrass would be first team starters on their respective form.
But the question remains will a quality striker become available even in the summer?
"We have really good strikers in our squad and that's why we won't have a Hogan deal. It's not a question of him."
"We were maybe after a RB but we couldn't find someone who could improve our starting XI. That's why we haven't got one."
Really good strikers ;hmm
Carroll and Sakho are really good strikers, but both are made of glass and one didn't want to be here six months ago. Calleri and Ayew I have yet to be convinced by and Fletcher clearly isn't trusted. Antonio can do a job but as was said before, I don't want a striker that can just do a job.
And as for the right back thing, I'm just staggered. Byram breaks again and then what? Nordtveit at right back? Arbeloa? Sorry Slav, but I just don't get the logic.
and Sakho when he recovers that's 6 players including Carroll to play upfront. Any decent player worth having will almost certainly not be moving in Jan as their clubs won't want to let them go I don't see a lot of players worth singing in Jan.
It's not a problem holding back in January for reasons Pearce's has cited. The problem comes when you make a real hash of the summer window too which for us always seems to be the case where strikers and rights backs are concerned.
I don't know enough about Hogan to know if he's worth a go or not but my worry is the last quality striker we were able to bring in was Carroll. None of the so called top strikers in the summer were remotely interested in us and we were in Europe and I doubt much will change this summer. Finishing in the bottom half of the table , which is still a possibility, wouldn't make us attractive. My hope is that they've someone in mind for the summer, like but not necessarily Sturridge, and they're waiting for that.
I did listen to it but wondered why when they sat down and Bilic said no they didn't say "ok that's a no go" right at the very beginning as it seems as if they kept going in with bids virtually for the whole of January. If Bilic did say no from the outset why didn't they say so then. Surely they discussed targets at the start of the window not the end. It does seem a little that Callieri's fluke goal at Middlesbrough swayed Bilic as he wax young right up to the end of last wee.
So Slav is a liar. Slav has no backbone, no self-esteem, and is happy to do and say whatever the DD's tell him to?
That is the inevitable conclusion if you are right in what you think.
Or, he's simply saying what he thinks, and you are reading it wrong.
I think that he's saying what the board want him to say. Not because he's a liar or has no back bone but in the football world you have to be careful what you say as you can easily get the sack. If he comes out to the media and says 'i want this player, this player, this player, but the owners don't want to spend'. Who gets the sack? My opinion is the board are cheap
It does seem a tad bizarre because we could easily have been spending £20M on Zaza or was it always our intention, regardless of his form, to not play him enough to trigger the clause. Maybe if we had had to buy Zaza we would have needed to sell Payet to pay for him.
Win lose or draw I hope we manage to score in our next couple of games or we may just start to look a tad foolish for saying our strike force is sufficient. In about 30 games this season our strikers have hardly hit the net. Carroll and Antonio are the only ones to have scored more than one
But is there any way to say where the leaks came from?
What about Brentford doing it to drum up some competition and push up the price?
Or his agent?
Why would our club be the ones leaking it? What benefit is it to them?
And the article says:
NO bid was forthcoming, no fees had been agreed and there was minimal contact over the past three weeks
Wouldn't that be a kind of hint that we weren't that keen?
The potential benefit would be to unsettle him and possibly to eventually get a reduced deal when they cave because they have an unsettled player.
I'm sure they did also leak some but this game has gone on throughout the whole window and a lot of it has clearly come from us because of what the information is - like the rumours of Bilic being the one who will decide. Didn't the Insider hint at Hogan before it was scrapped? If we were going to say we don't want him, why not earlier? It's not like we've brought in another striker - our available options have not changed.
Comments
We complain enough about signing stop gaps, so we should be pleased that the club are not prepared to go down that route.
Bilic on Scott Hogan:
"We have really good strikers in our squad and that's why we won't have a Hogan deal. It's not a question of him."
Bilic on RB:
"We were maybe after a RB but we couldn't find someone who could improve our starting XI. That's why we haven't got one."
But the question remains will a quality striker become available even in the summer?
Notts County manager Kevin Nolan has signed midfielder Kevin Nolan.
Yes. You read that correctly.
Carroll and Sakho are really good strikers, but both are made of glass and one didn't want to be here six months ago. Calleri and Ayew I have yet to be convinced by and Fletcher clearly isn't trusted. Antonio can do a job but as was said before, I don't want a striker that can just do a job.
And as for the right back thing, I'm just staggered. Byram breaks again and then what? Nordtveit at right back? Arbeloa? Sorry Slav, but I just don't get the logic.
That is the inevitable conclusion if you are right in what you think.
Or, he's simply saying what he thinks, and you are reading it wrong.
Finishing in the bottom half of the table , which is still a possibility, wouldn't make us attractive.
My hope is that they've someone in mind for the summer, like but not necessarily Sturridge, and they're waiting for that.
Surely they discussed targets at the start of the window not the end.
It does seem a little that Callieri's fluke goal at Middlesbrough swayed Bilic as he wax young right up to the end of last wee.
But is there any way to say where the leaks came from?
What about Brentford doing it to drum up some competition and push up the price?
Or his agent?
Why would our club be the ones leaking it? What benefit is it to them?
And the article says: Wouldn't that be a kind of hint that we weren't that keen?
If he comes out to the media and says 'i want this player, this player, this player, but the owners don't want to spend'. Who gets the sack?
My opinion is the board are cheap
But I guess Liverpool wouldn't be interested in anything but a straight sale
The potential benefit would be to unsettle him and possibly to eventually get a reduced deal when they cave because they have an unsettled player.
I'm sure they did also leak some but this game has gone on throughout the whole window and a lot of it has clearly come from us because of what the information is - like the rumours of Bilic being the one who will decide. Didn't the Insider hint at Hogan before it was scrapped? If we were going to say we don't want him, why not earlier? It's not like we've brought in another striker - our available options have not changed.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3fgWZgWQAEIQWU.jpg