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TeemuVanBasten

Our mistake was signing Hugill over Toney

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People keep talking about the £58m we've spent this summer (although that is gross of course, as £37m came in).

But our mistake was not finding the additional £2.5m to sign Toney over Hugill last summer. From Peterborough as well, a local team who have been a reliable source of young talent for us in the past... Drury, Bennett, McKenzie for a start. 

£2.5m rising to £5m upon promotion for Hugill, or £5m rising to £10m upon promotion for Toney.

I'm sure somebody will come along and simply argue that the club couldn't afford the additional £2.5m last summer, and of course we couldn't have foresaw Covid-19, but it is a bit depressing when you realise that the summer before we allegedly spent £2.7m in loan fees for Ralf Fahrmann alone despite all accepting we had no chance of survival, and that loan fee would have covered the difference in up front payment.

Alternatively, we could have just bought Toney instead of Hugill and the Polish De Waard. Both useless and a million light years away from being Premier League standard, the Polish lampost offered nothing last season and we'd have coped just fine without. 

Bare in mind that last summer (post relegation) we paid fees for 5 permanent signings, and they collectively have 1 start between them in the league this season. Webber has often been vocal about the transfer business of the regime before him, but we're going into games with £16m worth of wingers sitting on the bench, at what point do we need to scrutinise the past three summer windows and start to ask some questions? 

 

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24 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

People keep talking about the £58m we've spent this summer (although that is gross of course, as £37m came in).

But our mistake was not finding the additional £2.5m to sign Toney over Hugill last summer. From Peterborough as well, a local team who have been a reliable source of young talent for us in the past... Drury, Bennett, McKenzie for a start. 

£2.5m rising to £5m upon promotion for Hugill, or £5m rising to £10m upon promotion for Toney.

I'm sure somebody will come along and simply argue that the club couldn't afford the additional £2.5m last summer, and of course we couldn't have foresaw Covid-19, but it is a bit depressing when you realise that the summer before we allegedly spent £2.7m in loan fees for Ralf Fahrmann alone despite all accepting we had no chance of survival, and that loan fee would have covered the difference in up front payment.

Alternatively, we could have just bought Toney instead of Hugill and the Polish De Waard. Both useless and a million light years away from being Premier League standard, the Polish lampost offered nothing last season and we'd have coped just fine without. 

Bare in mind that last summer (post relegation) we paid fees for 5 permanent signings, and they collectively have 1 start between them in the league this season. Webber has often been vocal about the transfer business of the regime before him, but we're going into games with £16m worth of wingers sitting on the bench, at what point do we need to scrutinise the past three summer windows and start to ask some questions? 

 

This- we struck lucky with Pukki and Buendia- and in fairness have done well developing talent. But in terms of first team signings - Webber had an absolute stinker last Prem campaign and it’s looking like it’s all wrong this time too- overall a very poor return for the money spent. We are worse than we were last season having splashed cash

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Normann looks like a brilliant loan. And the last time we were in the Prem we signed barebones because we couldn’t afford anyone good. 

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26 minutes ago, Dean Coneys boots said:

This- we struck lucky with Pukki and Buendia- and in fairness have done well developing talent. But in terms of first team signings - Webber had an absolute stinker last Prem campaign and it’s looking like it’s all wrong this time too- overall a very poor return for the money spent. We are worse than we were last season having splashed cash

We spent a grand total of £10 million in the Prem last time. You do know that are squads in the Premier League that cost getting on for a BILLION to assemble don't you?  

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33 minutes ago, Dean Coneys boots said:

This- we struck lucky with Pukki and Buendia- and in fairness have done well developing talent. But in terms of first team signings - Webber had an absolute stinker last Prem campaign and it’s looking like it’s all wrong this time too- overall a very poor return for the money spent. We are worse than we were last season having splashed cash

Oh, I'd say signing Tim Krul on a free was bit of transfer genius wouldn't you? 

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2 hours ago, Dean Coneys boots said:

We are worse than we were last season having splashed cash

Comparing to last season is not relevant, the standard of opposition is dramatically different. Comparing the start of this season to end end of our last PL campaign we are clearly coping better, and its way too early to predict the final outcome.  

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27 minutes ago, Surfer said:

Comparing to last season is not relevant, the standard of opposition is dramatically different. Comparing the start of this season to end end of our last PL campaign we are clearly coping better, and its way too early to predict the final outcome.  

You’re dreaming if you think this season’s squad is better than last. We sold our best player, lost our second best player (Skipp) and brought in mostly journeymen to replace them. The results are there for anyone to see.

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5 hours ago, Thirsty Lizard said:

Oh, I'd say signing Tim Krul on a free was bit of transfer genius wouldn't you? 

No.

We were able to sign a free agent with Premier league experience because he'd had a stinker at Brighton and wasn't performing that well in the Eredivise. 

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6 hours ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

People keep talking about the £58m we've spent this summer (although that is gross of course, as £37m came in).

But our mistake was not finding the additional £2.5m to sign Toney over Hugill last summer. From Peterborough as well, a local team who have been a reliable source of young talent for us in the past... Drury, Bennett, McKenzie for a start. 

£2.5m rising to £5m upon promotion for Hugill, or £5m rising to £10m upon promotion for Toney.

I'm sure somebody will come along and simply argue that the club couldn't afford the additional £2.5m last summer, and of course we couldn't have foresaw Covid-19, but it is a bit depressing when you realise that the summer before we allegedly spent £2.7m in loan fees for Ralf Fahrmann alone despite all accepting we had no chance of survival, and that loan fee would have covered the difference in up front payment.

Alternatively, we could have just bought Toney instead of Hugill and the Polish De Waard. Both useless and a million light years away from being Premier League standard, the Polish lampost offered nothing last season and we'd have coped just fine without. 

 

 

You do realise that Sargent is performing far better than Toney was, when at the same age? Or has this detail escaped your attention?

He clearly has a wonderful attitude and no shortage of ability, which gives him every chance of being a success.

It was easy yesterday to grab hold of the negatives - Sargent's horrible miss when he panicked, Normann's 3 near post corners to McClean which were a few centimeters away from being perfect etc etc - but the reality is that there were encouraging signs, and Sargent's continued development was one of them. Did you notice that he a Pukki were required to press 4 defenders across the width of the pitch? Do you know how hard that is?

 

 

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A few people said as much last season.

however this season I’m more concerned about the fact we’ve signed a European wonder kid who can’t get on the pitch as he’s being given the Farke snub treatment and we’ve switched to a formation that basically makes it impossible to play him and Rashica. 

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9 minutes ago, Pugin said:

 

You do realise that Sargent is performing far better than Toney was, when at the same age? Or has this detail escaped your attention?

He clearly has a wonderful attitude and no shortage of ability, which gives him every chance of being a success.

It was easy yesterday to grab hold of the negatives - Sargent's horrible miss when he panicked, Normann's 3 near post corners to McClean which were a few centimeters away from being perfect etc etc - but the reality is that there were encouraging signs, and Sargent's continued development was one of them. Did you notice that he a Pukki were required to press 4 defenders across the width of the pitch? Do you know how hard that is?

 

 

Sargent had a poor goal scoring record in Germany and yesterday showed why. He may be a useful player to have around due to his workfare etc but he is not going to score enough goals at this level to justify being one of only two attacking players in the side. 

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Some of you live in an unhealthy "if only...." mindset, constantly looking back on past decisions and thinking life would have been perfect if we had done A instead of B. Life doesn't work out like that.

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6 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

Sargent had a poor goal scoring record in Germany and yesterday showed why. He may be a useful player to have around due to his workfare etc but he is not going to score enough goals at this level to justify being one of only two attacking players in the side. 

And as recently as 2018 Toney was loaned out to S****horpe for half a season. S****horpe!

Sargent is getting into some half decent positions and his size and physicality are a real asset even against top defenders. Let's see how it develops. The big disappointment yesterday was that we sacrificed creativity for battling.in midfield and that the three 'dogs of war' in the middle sat off a little too deep. Farke needs to find a way to get Cantwell back into it, then we might look like a viable Premier League side. 

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1 minute ago, Pugin said:

And as recently as 2018 Toney was loaned out to S****horpe for half a season. S****horpe!

Sargent is getting into some half decent positions and his size and physicality are a real asset even against top defenders. Let's see how it develops. The big disappointment yesterday was that we sacrificed creativity for battling.in midfield and that the three 'dogs of war' in the middle sat off a little too deep. Farke needs to find a way to get Cantwell back into it, then we might look like a viable Premier League side. 

Or Gilmour. Another player we are at risk of not getting the best out of. 

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Toneys overated. He's just flavour of the month. Like Brentford he'll get found out after a decent start. Won't even get 10 goals this year.

 

 

Chances of this coming back to haunt me? 50%

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7 minutes ago, canarydan23 said:

****ing Webber, not being a clairvoyant. Booooooo.

To be fair, Toney was the most obvious potential signing ever.

That said, he’d probably be on our bench or left out of the squad right now like Gilmour, Tzolis, Rashica and Cantwell.

Absokutely beyond ridiculous that we are currently leaving all 4 of those players out right now. Farke not covering himself in glory with the  management or use of our creative players. 

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Toney might not of hit it off here the way he has at Brentford. Who knows? Like saying why didn't we move for messi in the summer as he was a free agent. We could've paid him a million pound a week and stay up easily 🧐🤯

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I don't massively rate Toney, I don't think it was a mistake to not sign him and agree he is just the current flavour of the month. However, he is lightyears ahead of Hugill, who is awful. (Apparently) nice guy, good to have in a team, a bit of a unit, will run around all day and put in the effort, unfortunately he can control a ball further than I can kick it and his technique is Sunday league standard.

Edited by All the Germans
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1 hour ago, Pugin said:

 

You do realise that Sargent is performing far better than Toney was, when at the same age? Or has this detail escaped your attention?

This was not the season for a rough diamond in that position, you are one of the people who are taking the Championship for granted, it is a difficult league to get out of and we can't rely on a yo-yo each year. 

Farke and Webber themselves have both said that this is the season we needed to stay up. 

This isn't an anti-Sargent post, and there is no reason why if we'd signed Toney a year ago we couldn't have signed Sargent this summer, you are confusing two seperate issues, perhaps that detail escaped your attention (or you are fitting my post to fit your own narrative, you decide). 

 

 

Edited by TeemuVanBasten
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50 minutes ago, Herman said:

Some of you live in an unhealthy "if only...." mindset, constantly looking back on past decisions and thinking life would have been perfect if we had done A instead of B. Life doesn't work out like that.

Plenty of people said it at the time, including me, we aren't all captain hindsight. 

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8 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Plenty of people said it at the time, including me, we aren't all captain hindsight. 

Jimmy Hill Award winner this week.

World of sport mourns loss of football legend Jimmy Hill ...

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I've got a radical idea. Why don't we just SUPPORT the team, the players, the staff and each other instead of constantly feeling the need to add to the noise. Too many noises become wind. It's windy here.

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24 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Plenty of people said it at the time, including me, we aren't all captain hindsight. 

But hang on, I seem to remember we got promoted last season, and still we question the transfer policy in the summer immediately before said promotion?

It's a nonsense argument, Hugill was part of a squad that got us to the Premier League. Signing Toney might have caused rifts with Pukki, he might not have settled as well as at Brentford, particularly if he wasn't the main man like he was at Brentford, it could have gone **** up.

We didn't sign him and got promoted. That's the only hard fact. Everything else is just speculation that people will inevitably use as a stick to beat the club with whilst the chips are down.

That's all this is.

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I don’t think anybody is slating Webber for not being clairvoyant, can’t remember reading that anywhere.


I do think it is fair to be  critical of this transfer window. Not so much the signings we made, there’s lots of promise there, it’s more about the ones we didn’t make. The glaringly obvious chasms that were created when skipp left and Buendia left, along with the foolishness of believing that pukki, Idah, and Sargent was going to be a front line that was going to be up to delivering what is required in the premier league.

Edited by Coneys Knee

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8 hours ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

People keep talking about the £58m we've spent this summer (although that is gross of course, as £37m came in).

But our mistake was not finding the additional £2.5m to sign Toney over Hugill last summer. From Peterborough as well, a local team who have been a reliable source of young talent for us in the past... Drury, Bennett, McKenzie for a start. 

£2.5m rising to £5m upon promotion for Hugill, or £5m rising to £10m upon promotion for Toney.

I'm sure somebody will come along and simply argue that the club couldn't afford the additional £2.5m last summer, and of course we couldn't have foresaw Covid-19, but it is a bit depressing when you realise that the summer before we allegedly spent £2.7m in loan fees for Ralf Fahrmann alone despite all accepting we had no chance of survival, and that loan fee would have covered the difference in up front payment.

Alternatively, we could have just bought Toney instead of Hugill and the Polish De Waard. Both useless and a million light years away from being Premier League standard, the Polish lampost offered nothing last season and we'd have coped just fine without. 

Bare in mind that last summer (post relegation) we paid fees for 5 permanent signings, and they collectively have 1 start between them in the league this season. Webber has often been vocal about the transfer business of the regime before him, but we're going into games with £16m worth of wingers sitting on the bench, at what point do we need to scrutinise the past three summer windows and start to ask some questions? 

 

But this is hindsight. Of course with a crystal ball Webber would have gone for Toney instead of Hugill, but who knew Hugill would be so useless and Toney so brilliant. Brentford got it right we got it wrong. Sergent will come good his miss yesterday wasn't as horrendous as people make out he just didn't put his foot through it. The Brighton miss 6 yards out was worse.

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