Summer transfer gossip and squad discussion

[AcrossThePondAsh]

I do find our recruitment strategy quite odd at times

Felt we needed a striker so much they were willing to pay a club record fee for Strand-Larsen in January

No hint of a striker since.

Felt we needed a cm so much they were willing to pay £25mil for Shea Charles, no hint of a midfielder since.

Felt we needed a 10 so much they pushed and pushed for Julian Brandt, no hint of a 10 since.

Just seems a bit odd.

On the surface, I’ll give you that, it could look odd but there’s a little “argument from ignorance” sneaking in there (not at all implying you’re ignorant). “We haven’t heard of another striker, midfielder or 10” isn’t quite the same thing as “Leeds aren’t looking for one.” Given how little tends to leak until something is fairly advanced, the absence of rumors may just mean we know bugger all (if I may appropriate the phrase) lol

[White Riot]

It's all very strange.

I get why Gnonto would want to leave, he's not in Farke's unlimited chances pack.

He has international aspirations

But this was what the club briefed



They've signed 0 full backs or wing backs.

The only attacking signing was a free transfer, accepting the fact we've probably paid through the nose for Wilson and even if you are a big fan (I'm not).

It's been very different from what they clearly told The Athletic.

And now the potential Gnonto for Mudryk thing.

1 in 1 out.

We've only got 19 senior outfield players as it is.

Beren, these days, is pretty much a club mouthpiece. The comment about Joel, Willy and Pascal is pre-conditioning the fan base to expect they'll be flogged.

I think we're missing a LWB to compete with Guds.

No playmaker, unless you class Wilson as one and I don't, but he is a decent player, who could turn a match.

But we need a player who can put their foot on the ball, control a match and drive us forward. We had two of them in Bremner, and Giles.

Without that, we'll continue to struggle going forward, or in seeing out matches late on. Maybe the modern equivalent is Grealish, but surely we can find a playmaker when there's a planet full of them?

DCL getting injured, or out of form, is a scary proposition as Nmecha ain't gonna hold the ball up and bring others in to play.

So, we're light of a back up striker, or a player to challenge DCL.

Three players light, and I don't see us bringing any more in unfortunately.

[The Subhuman]

On the surface, I’ll give you that, it could look odd but there’s a little “argument from ignorance” sneaking in there (not at all implying you’re ignorant). “We haven’t heard of another striker, midfielder or 10” isn’t quite the same thing as “Leeds aren’t looking for one.” Given how little tends to leak until something is fairly advanced, the absence of rumors may just mean we know bugger all (if I may appropriate the phrase) lol

Not sure that's true, all our signings this season have been telegraphed early and taken a while to get over the line.

[Sean_Nile]

Not sure that's true, all our signings this season have been telegraphed early and taken a while to get over the line.

Howoever Farke will not be drawn into speculation about who is coming into the club or who they've got their eyes on, so he keeps his cards very close to his chest, even though almost everyone knows of Perri's loan exit, and a new incoming backup goalie from Germany. The rumour mill is active but management rarely give little away.

[Irish Ian]

I can only speak for myself, but here's my reasoning, last year was poor.... With the caveat that the red bull network recommended Stach and Bijol.

Let's be honest no one else including premier league medical teams believed DCL would remain fit. He failed a medical at Newcastle was it? Now you can call it good business or call it a panic signing that worked out. The fact that his injury record/availability in the last 5 seasons before last year is the worst in Europe for his position points to the latter.

Muhamedovic.... Their club dire for gave an interview in which he was overjoyed by the opening bid as they were only expecting 20 million after negotiation.....

Perri..... Signed for 16 million, did averagely well in his first full European no1 season. Same issues reported in their press that we saw.... Again late window panic buy. Didn't work out now on loan and 16 million down the drain. I predicted this at the time on here.

Piroe.... Top scorer in champ.... Not sold on, now on loan with west ham with his contract run down and a paltry 10 million recouped only if they're promoted.

Struijk.... Allowef to run down his contract forcing a 20 million sale.... In this market he's a 40 million defender all day.

Meslier.... 30 million keeper.... Now arsenals no2 ran down his contract.... Gone for nothing.....

Gnonto will do the same next year with one year left.....

James will do the same.....

This isn't how Brighton and Brentford have progressed.

Our head of recruitment before last season had not held the position in any capacity in any league before last year. It shows.... We pay over the odds and are crap at asset management.

We got two strikers for 0 when Palace paid £50m for Strand Larson as an example of panic buying.

Making a distinction between Red Bull and our recruitment team just weakens your argument. We are one club all working together.

Syrujk chose to run down his contract, Piroe wouldn't leave, I wonder what you expect anyone to do in those circumstance?

Noone ever offered Leeds 30M for Meslier, you make a common error of using fan evaluations as a metric..

Gnonto is a squad player who cost us £4.5M. Noone wanted him last season.
Again Leeds fans evaluations making him something he is not.


Funny how Guds and Justin missed your list.

Leeds built a PL squad on less and 100M and somehow its a bad window.

In summary

Bornauw Ave
Bilol Good
Stach Very Good
DCL Good
Nmecha Ave
Okafor Good
Guds Good
Justin Very Good
Perri Poor.
Longstaff. Good.

The fact that an inexperienced recruitment team did this is even more of a positive, despite being saddled with legacy wages from past seasons.
( Harrison, Meslier, Geldhardt)

They havent paid over the odds for anyone.

[Cjay]

On the surface, I’ll give you that, it could look odd but there’s a little “argument from ignorance” sneaking in there (not at all implying you’re ignorant). “We haven’t heard of another striker, midfielder or 10” isn’t quite the same thing as “Leeds aren’t looking for one.” Given how little tends to leak until something is fairly advanced, the absence of rumors may just mean we know bugger all (if I may appropriate the phrase) lol

Let's hope you are right and much is going to be done.

I think the "things don't leak anymore" is a bit overplayed.

Itk lot for a start of 10 transfers usually have 8/9 in advance (Mudryk and Zetterer included).

Hopefully though we have 3 or 4 good ones under wraps.

[Cjay]

Beren, these days, is pretty much a club mouthpiece. The comment about Joel, Willy and Pascal is pre-conditioning the fan base to expect they'll be flogged.

I think we're missing a LWB to compete with Guds.

No playmaker, unless you class Wilson as one and I don't, but he is a decent player, who could turn a match.

But we need a player who can put their foot on the ball, control a match and drive us forward. We had two of them in Bremner, and Giles.

Without that, we'll continue to struggle going forward, or in seeing out matches late on. Maybe the modern equivalent is Grealish, but surely we can find a playmaker when there's a planet full of them?

DCL getting injured, or out of form, is a scary proposition as Nmecha ain't gonna hold the ball up and bring others in to play.

So, we're light of a back up striker, or a player to challenge DCL.

Three players light, and I don't see us bringing any more in unfortunately.

Would agree with this.

I think it's 3 minimum.

You could maybe get by with Justin at left wing back?

But we really really lack creativity in any way in open play.

Lots of effort and running but players who can see or pick a pass?

Brandt was clearly a priority for a reason, he can do that.

All the links since are totally different profile, makes no sense.

Mudryk is just another James, Okafor, Aaronson type, head down and run and hope for the best.

Would he fix that issue? Probably not.

Seems to be a lot of hoping that player repeat form (same as under Bielsa).

What if DCL drops off, or gets injured? Same for Okafor (both of them have been plagued by inconsistency and injuries their whole careers so not impossible by any means).

I like Nmecha a lot, but behind him, nothing.

James as a striker? We've tried that.

For me we are a striker, creative attacking midfielder and left back short.

And can make a case for a left winger as well.

Hope is Wilson can be something different I suppose, but he's mainly a set piece guy.

I still find it odd we seemingly felt super strongly on Strand Larsen, Brandt and Charles and seemingly now don't want those type of players.

A few goals from Nmecha, Aaronson and DCL and decent performances from Longstaff vs some reserves and academy players shouldn't change our transfer requirements surely?

[Victor_OTT_17]

I can read, I read the part where you essentially said our recruitment team isn't good enough.

Ignore him: he talks inane drivel and adds nothing to this site. Oh apart from crap repeat polls: about bad recruitment. Gotta love him...

[Victor_OTT_17]

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Damazipan or acid? You're on summat

[1964white]

Zetterer signed.

Next.....

[Wes Lee Street]

I am ready for whatever is coming next.

Anything. Except for the ludicrous Igor Paixão psychodrama. The possibility that these selling tactics could actually be effective is alarming. There are posters on the RTG Sunderland board actually saying pay the money. If it was €35m last week, and it is now €40m, why not just pay the money?

Why would it not be €45m come Tuesday?

[weasel]

I think we have got our main targets in and maybe players like Strand Larsen, Shea Charles and BRandt were on our list in terms of those positions and if they were available we'd have a go at them - rather than us specifically looking at just any player in that position.

As it is so far we have signed 5 players:

Trafford would have been no.1 on my list and I didn't think we stood a chance of getting him on a permanent deal. Well done whoever was involved in getting the deal done, if we overpaid so what. Rather get Trafford then some other keeper and have a few million left over.

Tarik - had never heard of him but he already looks a snip at £34m in today's market. So what if the selling club thought they would only get £20m. If they'd have put him up for sale at £20m there would have been loads of clubs queueing up. And who is to say that didn't happen and the price didn't keep going up as other clubs made bids. Again top marks to our club for getting the deal done. Max Kilman at £40m anyone.... hhm thought not.

Wilson - can hardly complain when we got him for free and so what if some of that saving is offset by higher wages. After the season he had then this was again really well done by the club as I'm sure Wilson could have gone to lots of other clubs (like with the Brandt situatuion). We got in early, got a deal done and he can add that bit of subtlety and creativity at the top end of the pitch.

Elvedi - If he is cover then hard to really think of who else we could have got for such a modest fee. As it is I see him forcing his way into the first team. Seems suited to our way of playing, vastly experienced, seems like a nice guy (off the pitch), has worked with Farke before. Simply a very sensible signing.

Zetterer - must admit that like Tarik I had never heard of him and it is more than I would have expected us to pay for a back up keeper (albeit it appears a similar fee as to that which Frankfurt paid last year). Hard to judge until he plays and obviously the hope is that Trafford will keep hold of the no.1 spot and not ge tinjrued or sent off. Likely we will get a look at him against Chelsea in the cup.

So it seems to be very sensible but very good signings. No sense of panic with our main signings done before the season started and now bolstering the squad (with Elveidi and Zettere). If we don't sign anyone else I still rate this window very highly judged on what I have seen so far of the new signings.

I don't get all the negativity. Some people just want to be miserable gits!

[WhiteRose]

We will have to see how the season goes I guess - don’t see anyone of significance coming in now. You do have to ask though why if the budget was so tight spend 70+ million on 2 players? Especially when the club said they would spend most money on attack. DCL and nmecha for a 40+ game season is wing and a prayer territory

[Pullhard]

We will have to see how the season goes I guess - don’t see anyone of significance coming in now. You do have to ask though why if the budget was so tight spend 70+ million on 2 players? Especially when the club said they would spend most money on attack. DCL and nmecha for a 40+ game season is wing and a prayer territory

Medical team will need to continue to work their magic.

DCL, Nmecha and Justin came in for a combined £10m or so but had poor injury records. Medical team got them on the pitch and kept them on the pitch. They deserve great credit for that.

[The Subhuman]

Wouldn't say Justin was injury prone. Two big injuries in his career which can happen to any player but very injury free for the rest of it.. He's been fit for 3/4 years now

[Cjay]

Medical team will need to continue to work their magic.

DCL, Nmecha and Justin came in for a combined £10m or so but had poor injury records. Medical team got them on the pitch and kept them on the pitch. They deserve great credit for that.

Isn't just injuries though, medical team and the players did great last season.

But form as well.

We saw ourselves 2nd season under Bielsa players don't always have the form 2nd season.

DCL has been inconsistent his whole career, we know about Aaronson and James for example.

Oakfor similar.

Isn't just injuries, what if these players lose form for 5,10,15 games?

I know DF doesn't care much about form if it's a favourite but loss of form with no real replacements would be as bad as injuries.

[SG90]

So tomorrow will just be another Monday then! I don't understand our obsession with wanting back ups rather than key players for the first team

[The Subhuman]

I want a full squad, we've already seen Rodon go down and if Willy is on his way then we don't have enough for 8 outfield players on the bench as it stands

2016/7 First team squad projection based on who's at the club

1 James Trafford
2 Jayden Bogle
3 Gabriel Gudmundsson
4 Ethan Ampadu
5 Nico Elvedi
6 Tarik Muharemovic
7 Jaka Bijol
8 Anton Stach
9 Dominic Calvert Lewin
7 Harry Wilson
11 Ao Tanaka

Bench

12. Michael Zetterer
13. James Justin
14. Ilia Gruev
15. Brenden Aaronson
16. Noah Okafor
17. Dan James
18. Sean Longstaff
19. Lucas Nmecha
20.

Squad

21.
22.
23.
24. Joe Rodon
25. Alex Cairns

So we have 19 squad players plus an injured Rodon and a space filler in Cairns

We need 4 over the next two days (Diogo Leite is a free agent so can be signed after but he's been in talks with Porto as well as being linked to us, he's Portugese)

[Lumiukko]

I want a full squad, we've already seen Rodon go down and if Willy is on his way then we don't have enough for 8 outfield players on the bench as it stands

2016/7 First team squad projection based on who's at the club

1 James Trafford
2 Jayden Bogle
3 Gabriel Gudmundsson
4 Ethan Ampadu
5 Nico Elvedi
6 Tarik Muharemovic
7 Jaka Bijol
8 Anton Stach
9 Dominic Calvert Lewin
7 Harry Wilson
11 Ao Tanaka

Bench

12. Michael Zetterer
13. James Justin
14. Ilia Gruev
15. Brenden Aaronson
16. Noah Okafor
17. Dan James
18. Sean Longstaff
19. Lucas Nmecha
20.

Squad

21.
22.
23.
24. Joe Rodon
25. Alex Cairns

So we have 19 squad players plus an injured Rodon and a space filler in Cairns

We need 4 over the next two days (Diogo Leite is a free agent so can be signed after but he's been in talks with Porto as well as being linked to us, he's Portugese)

Definitely looking light there. If I remember right, we don't need U21s to be in the 25 man squad to play either so we don't need to register the likes of Leinou even if we do see him taking up a bench place at some point. Definitely not getting 4 players in, in two days.

[SG90]

We don't need a fifth CB and a backup LB, we need a playmaker.

What happened to the £25m we were willing to spend on Charles?