Ian

Agreed. @NeymarSmith needs to learn the way of the Pinkun (double down, use lots of CAPITALS, then completely disappear when proven wrong).

Unless he is want away and we get an excellent offer, I would say there is absolutely no chance we should try and move him on. I find it absolutely bizarre people are not too bothered about him moving on, given he is precisely the sort of player we would be looking to sign in the Championship and probably with a reasonably high fee too.

Whilst I have pretty limited knowledge and understanding of this country's laws, this seems pretty ludicrous to me. I suppose that if Hawkeye are contractually obliged to offer 100% accuracy and no failure of technology, and the contract is with the EPL (of which Bournemouth are presumably still a shareholder) there could be some grounds, but surely there is no way that a company would make those promises and leave themselves open to legal action?? Given that other cameras and VAR were also available to the refereeing team enabling them to make the correct decision my mind just boggles as to how the blame could be placed squarely on the shoulders of Hawkeye.

No, I absolutely do respect your right to your viewpoint - hence why I was very keen to see and understand your actual argument. I understand why the more insecure fans with short memories would find this season embarrassing, but I personally don't feel that way as it was always going to be a ridiculously hard task given the transformation that was undertaken the previous season. I also have very short shrift for pundits and managers who don't do their research about us and instead just focus on the usual tropes. What I don't respect is your attempt to belittle those with a different view by describing them as "dumplings". The fact you have doubled down on that by throwing out yet more ad-hominem terms such as "snowflake" probably says a lot less about my apparent wokeness than it does about your inability to have a debate in good-faith without a narcissistic edge to your posts.

Ha ha, he was good for a soundbite that's sure!

Is that 7 million a direct quote though? I always thought he was talking about salary rather than directly about fees. It's one thing to be able to afford the transfer fees, and other to be able to match the salary the other club was offering. If Webber was purely talking about transfer fees I would say he's being pretty disingenuous, as there's no doubt the club could afford this if it really wanted. That said, I always think he plays the media a little bit anyway to make his job look just a little bit harder...

Couldn't, or wouldn't? I suspect it is more that they not think that 7 mil was good value for that player and weren't prepared to take the risk.

I think Webber and Farke are are a decent team, and that's why I believe we probably just weren't able to attract those sorts of players at that price point and salary. I know the media love to simplify everything in terms of transfer fees = quality, but we know the importance of recruiting the right sort of player too. Whilst I certainly believe Farke/Webber will have made mistakes in hindsight with certain transfers, I don't believe that between them they would have just decided to "go with what we've got" without making sure there weren't alternatives. I think we are pretty much on the same page with this anyway?

Not really, I'm suggesting that "Crafty" should put up a valid argument rather than slagging fellow supporters off, and that if he chooses to do so in such a condescending manner he should probably have some credentials. This is probably the opposite of what the delightful Roeder had in mind.

Great post, and one that reinforces my disdain for the average supporter who believes we are a "laughing stock". On that point, did you actually have an argument relevant to this thread, or are you just going to continue with your endless list of ad-hominems? You are clearly so vastly superior to other posters on this thread I am surprised you're not in the position of running a professional football club yourself.

My understanding was that the reason our VAR implementation was so delayed is that other leagues' implementations would be used to determine what worked well and what didn't. I think the implementation this season has been nothing short of a disaster, and absolutely incompetent. I don't believe that it's a case of "first-season syndrome", because it is so absolutely flawed that these are not simply teething errors but should probably amount to misconduct (particularly when IFAB themselves say it is being used against their guidance). Don't get me wrong, I would like nothing more than to see someone sue over it, and watch the fireworks in the courts, but I just don't see it happening because it seems almost impossible to prove that a single decision can be directly responsible for a team's relegation.

I have no doubt there will be a margin of error, particularly in sports like cricket and tennis where it's actually predicting things like spin and bounce. The difference is that cricket and tennis legislate for this with "Umpire's Call" and the challenge system, whereby the EPL is apparently run by absolute idiots who don't understand technology.

I don't necessarily disagree with you in principle. I am more sceptical of what we would have got for the £15m mark, but I do understand that spending that sort of money may have slightly improved our chances of competing this season. But that said, if you have faith in Webber, and agree he is the man responsible for our transfer strategy, do you not think it more likely that he actually did look into signing players with that sort of price tag in place? I can't see him being the sort of person who would just say "freebies and loans only this season lads" without having already looked into other options and weighed up whether the squad improvement was worth the financial risk. I suppose what I have difficulty with is fans and pundits who worshipped Webber and Farke like the second coming of Christ last season, only to act as if they are total idiots this season. I don't think there's any question they are trying to build something for the longer term (as per our demonstrable transfer strategy), so for my money, I think the coming season is probably the most important one in terms of validating their overall strategy and spending over the past couple of years.

I just don't see it. It's effectively legal action based on an incorrect refereeing decision, of which there are surely dozens of examples throughout the seasons. Is there not something in the PL/FA rules whereby a team is bound by the decisions made even if incorrect?

Exactly, it's just lazy thinking. Don't get me wrong, I am as disappointed with how this season panned out as anyone. But we are where we are, had we spent 40/50 million we may be in the same place but with a vastly greater set of problems given where we are as a club. It's very easy to criticise and correlate directly in hindsight, but could you imagine the reaction on here had we bought a few Naismith's, but were still fcked by injuries and VAR and went down anyway? Or do people genuinely believe that spending an additional 30/40/50/60 million would really have solved all the problems with our squad? I just don't see that spending that much on 2/3 players would have made much of a difference overall.