Summer 2021 transfer window

[prawnking]

I'll happily admit I'd take the money for Adama and get someone with more end product.

Adama goes through peaks and troughs.

If we can sell whilst his stock is high we'll have done well IMHO

End product? Sure. If we sign someone who has a season where they eclipse Adama's Wolves PL assists record for us (during his excellent pre-covid season no one mentions) I'll be happy too

 

[Throbber3]

I certainly wouldn't advocate selling him this week if it means we either don't replace him or the replacement is inadequate due to lack of time.

I don’t think anyone wants that!
But if losing Traore brings maybe 3 new first team players it’s a decent swap on paper. Perhaps ask Spurs for Moura as part ex?

 

[prawnking]

Not looking for a conspiracy, I'm making a distinction to add some nuance to what you said.

I've always wanted him to succeed and would be happy for him to stay, but equally find him frustrating and have doubts he'll ever improve on the parts of his game that are lacking.

I certainly wouldn't advocate selling him this week if it means we either don't replace him or the replacement is inadequate due to lack of time.

Why is it only my comments now that need nuance? I'm making quite a simple point. It doesn't need nuance.

Plenty of unnuanced comments on Adama over the years have gone unchecked, did they not set off your nuancometer?

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

When Adama is shit (he has been, a lot) people say so, when he is good (he has been, a lot) people say so. No need to pick fights over nothing.

 

[Wolvensam]

The only reason I'd sell Adama is to stop this fortnightly argument on here...

 

[sycophantia]

I'll happily admit I'd take the money for Adama and get someone with more end product.

Adama goes through peaks and troughs.

If we can sell whilst his stock is high we'll have done well IMHO

Well most of us are in that camp, unfortunately I'm not confident we'd get someone who has better end product while also getting in those positions as often

 

[The Saturday Boy]

Jota,
Doherty,
Douglas,
Patricio,
Cavaleiro,
Costa
All first team, all sold.

We wanted rid of Douglas, Cav and Costa - they were first team players, but not when we sold them. Jota and Doherty we would probably have kept and Patricio has played pretty much every minute of our Premier League games. It's only those three I would seriously consider as first team players that we have sold and we had replacements in already (Neto) or quickly (Semedo and Sa).

 

[AndyWolves]

End product? Sure. If we sign someone who has a season where they eclipse Adama's Wolves PL assists record for us (during his excellent pre-covid season no one mentions) I'll be happy too

If we could have 2019-2020 Adama every season then I would keep him, but if spurs come in with more money than Jota I'd sell.

I suppose the difficulty is he looked rubbish for most of last season, but then most of the team looked rubbish.

His record over 3 seasons at wolves is 10 goals and 15 seasons. 4 of those goals and 10 of those assists came in one season.

 

[Kenny]

Adama under Lage, I would keep. I think he might have a manager there that can unlock a little bit of his ability.
I can see why he would want to move to Spurs - Bigger club, the Stadium, more chance of getting into Europe & it shouldn't be this way, but bigger the club can mean a better chance of playing international football.

If he wants to go we won't say no. Presume it will be on our terms though and a replacement in as well.

Although Adama may feel he is stepping up a level, I just think it will stall his progression and will regret it in 12 months time.

 

[sycophantia]

Why is it only my comments now that need nuance? I'm making quite a simple point. It doesn't need nuance.

Plenty of unnuanced comments on Adama over the years have gone unchecked, did they not set off your nuancometer?

It isn't just you, you need to read other people's posts better, people disagree all the time...there isn't an anti PK conspiracy

 

[AndyWolves]

Well most of us are in that camp, unfortunately I'm not confident we'd get someone who has better end product while also getting in those positions as often

That's the rub, I accept that other players won't get into the same positions as often but when they do they'll be more productive.

The firefighter analogy someone on here came up with was spot on.

 

[Kenny]

If Adama does go, can we send a TWF group to Sweden and look after Fred for a bit

 

[AndyWolves]

Adama under Lage, I would keep. I thnk he might have a manager there that can unlock a little bit of his ability.
I can see why he would want to move to Spurs - Bigger club, the Stadium, more chance of getting into Europe & it shouldn't be this way, but bigger the club can mean a better chance of playing international football.

If he wants to go we won't say no. Presume it will be on our terms though and a replacement in as well.

Although Adama may feel he is stepping a level, I just think it will stall his progression and will regret it in 12 months time.

I could easily see a Doherty type situation at spurs, we forgive Adama quite a lot but I'm not sure spurs fans would if they're spending £40-50m on him.

 

[Wolvensam]

I could easily see a Doherty type situation at spurs, we forgive Adama quite a lot but I'm not sure spurs fans would if they're spending £40-50m on him.

And this is the difference. Son and Moura are different players to him, but I would argue he isn't as consistent as either of them in terms of end product. I also can't remember a time - apart from his pre-COVID burst - where Nuno gave him a regular run in our team if everyone else was fit.

Part of me thinks Nuno wants him to liven up Spurs attack a bit, but Spurs blunt attack in the few games so far isn't down to their players.

 

[WsWolf]

I have high hopes for Semedo this year myself, but talking about what has actually happened, rather than wishful thinking...

I certainly don't think Doc was idle under Nuno. He actually physically pulled himself together and had a couple of top flight seasons playing at the very limit of his ability and contributed massively to our success. He gets next to no credit for that either, which is a shame.

Semedo struggled with defending, crossing has been patchy too, he cost considerably more than we sold Doc for, and the team performed significantly worse with him in it.

In fact, the whole 'evolution' from that wingback style Doc was a fairly big part of was a giant clusterfuck that precipitated the departure of the manager and the current unsettling flux we find ourselves in. It's hardly been a particularly successful swap for us so far!

Take your point on using potential of semedo.

Doherty was lazy defensively though. The amount of times he was crawling back into position at snails pace used to wind me up no end. Fair enough he was an absolute menace going forward for us and we probably set up so that he didn't have to do so much defending but even so he never really busted a gut going backwards like he did forwards. The first year in particular he was absolutely brilliant for the most part and I can't knock that, he was getting less and less effective as teams realised he only wanted to come inside and not cross.

Conversely Semedo last year was left on an island to defend not only 1v1 but sometimes 2v1 and obviously got cut to pieces a few times. He's a pretty good 1v1 defender though and he's comfortable on the ball but I think he lacks that incisive play when he's in some great positions. This might be because he's not fully used to the players he's delivering to or just an issue with his own abilities.

Suppose the skinny is, we were less effective with the swap under Nuno but we may not be now.

 

[Wolvensam]

Suppose the skinny is, we were less effective with the swap under Nuno but we may not be now.

I notice our full-backs are pretty much playing identically now too - RAN and Hoever played on Tuesday evening but it was no different in style to how Marcal and Semedo played on the Sunday. OK, some are not as effective as others (Marcal isn't the most attacking), but it's a bit more like our first season in the EPL where the attacking intent came from the full-backs first and foremost. Again, that went walkabout a bit for the last eighteen months and I'm not sure why.

 

[sycophantia]

Thought after a rocky start, Semedo's defending has been good...its the other end where I still have doubts, he gets a lot of ball in dangerous attacking positions but still doesn't have as much effect as I'd hoped

 

[Johnny75]

Also Liverpool, so you know don't get over excited

Aren't you supposed to be Mr Positive?

 

[Kenny]

Aren't you supposed to be Mr Positive?

Well just taken a test and its negative*, so living like that today


*attending the game on Sunday and how the pub has meant the first time since Covid started I have been genuinly worried I may have caught it

 

[Jinky]

I have a slight concern that we are aiming too high and will end up settling for players the manager doesn’t want (or better still, not signing anyone at all). Remember Dias? Or Zinchenko? There are others too. We chased around all window for these players, missed out and seemingly had no back up plan. I really hope Shi has learnt his lesson, but I’m not confident.

Yes I’d love Ocampos here. And the lad Botman looks promising - but are they genuine options for us? We have under a week of the transfer window left. Yes, I appreciate we could be waiting for other deals to happen, but I’d rather we just got our business done. We shouldn’t be relying on anyone else (and really, we should have had the bulk of it done before the season started).

I have to say at this point, I’m not hugely confident and I think Bruno (and us) is going to be disappointed. Hopefully I’m wrong.