Fair enough maybe you agree this time in regards to a couple of the rumoured targets, but what happens the next time when the manager (Mourinho or otherwise) actually wants someone that you actually would like the club to bring in & they overrule that? You mentioned that paying over the odds repeatedly for 29/30 year old players is a dangerous precedent to set in a post previously with me & I can somewhat understand what you're saying.. but this here is an even worse precedent to set. Having non-footballing men having an opinion on footballing talent more important than the manager is ludicrous if that is indeed what happened in that last window.. the **** do the Glazer's know about footballing ability or the club's DNA or Woodward for that matter.
You don't need to be a footballing genius to know that spending £120M and 150k a week on two 30 year olds is bad business unless they are extremely special players. Like I said I think Alderweireld would have been a good buy but I'm not bothered about missing out if the bar is being set on the ages of the players we are willing to stump up big money for, as long term I think it's best for the club and the sport in general, it's why I also agree on the planned UEFA initiative that will limit clubs to a 100M net spend per season, something has to be done about the stupidity of the money in the game right now.
It's a bit like giving him a bone covered in dog **** though isn't it? Mourinho doesn't like Felliani that much otherwise he'd be starting him every week. He tends to use him to protect leads when we are getting bombarded by crosses or to try & find us one. He'd never have signed Felliani had he taken over from SAF immediately & probably wanted to keep him because he knew the miserable bastards couldn't be trusted to get a replacement.
Mourinho sees that player he wheels on at the 70 minute mark crucial to his tactics, he had Mikel for the role at Chelsea, he used Diarra for it at Real, it's key and that is why he wanted to keep Fellaini, there was no way we were going to buy a 4th top class CM had he gone when he already has 3 starters, you know who the Fellaini alternative was? Manduzkic, a big striker he could pump it long to and who'd add aerial strength at set pieces. We weren't getting some class CM if Fellaini had gone and I think you're underestimating how much Mourinho values his "qualities" in regards to his tactical approach.
That offer, although I only recall it was for allegedly £15m or so, came at the start of the summer before the World Cup. Valencia only got hurt during pre-season did he not? Darmian should have been long gone before he got to play against Leicester by default.
As I said I believe the issue was the method Juve wanted to use for the payment, basically in installments rather than up front, Juve are tighter than a strippers wardrobe.
That's a good question, maybe, maybe not, I was only using him as an example of how **** our transfer window was. Even if you don't count the likes of Willian or Alderweireld, there were still a whole host of other perfectly acceptable names we'd been connected with & we only managed to land Fred, who seems decent & a 19 year old RB. I'm sure there were probably others as well we don't even know about, like the Dalot deal nobody knew about that till it was pretty much nearly complete.
When you look at the strongest, consistent links we were only really linked with Sandro as a LB and from quite early on Mourinho was talking up Young and Shaw, then the lump signed a new contract and that removed the need for a second CM for better or worse. That left a CB and RW, with the CB none of the options were deemed worth the fee or better than what we had bar Maguire who Leicester were unwilling to sell, and on the RW it was Willian or Perisic, both of whom were deemed too expensive for their talent level and age, Ante Rebic was offered as a younger alternative who has the same grafting style of play, but Mourinho rightfully was unconvinced on his quality, there was no point in Pulisic, Bailey or Malcom as Mourinho didn't want a young flair player out there, he wanted an experienced workhorse winger, the board and Mourinho just had no common ground except on Maguire.
t:, I don't get the 'backlash' on Spurs' lack of spending this pre-season, a new stadium doesn't come cheap, that's bound to have an effect on capable quantity of money being available.
