Daley Blind.
A potential TFC pick-up candidate?
As a defensive midfielder, left-back or centre-back?
Or... as one twitter poster suggests... 'seems like he has been 32 for the last five years'.
Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/eurofootcom/status/1607735680137936899
https://twitter.com/Total_TFC/status...87569592553472
sounds like criscito will only be playing 6 more months, then coaching in Genoa.
Give me Daley Blind. Please. Perfect for that leftback spot and can more than fill in at CB.
On Sean Johnson, he’s a TAM keeper and you got to think you can have better for less. If he keeps um-ing and ah-ing they should move on and pick-up a diff keeper.
Blind made ~2.3mm euro annualized this year. Almost certainly a DP.
Management was also confident that these two would get TFC in the playoffs- all I want is management who isn't super optimistic to keep saying second half season tfc will make playoff + increase 40% price and then still have seasons available.
Obviously I'm happy with FB and LI
they said they would make a push, realistically last season was all about rebuilding a squad to be competitive from 2023 onwards, which is a fine goal. even if bono hadn't lost his ability to catch a ball for an 8 games stretch down the final months (and oso didnt pick up the concussion) i doubt we would have made a far run in the playoffs last year.
both LI and FB put up numbers that if continued for a whole season would have them both in the MVP race, despite probably only being fully fit for half the games they played. there are already lots of reasons to be positive about 2023.
I don't think they were that confident in getting there in 2022. They always talked about 2023 and going forward (mostly Bob).
As for us falling behind other teams, nobody is really doing anything. In fact we've made the most significant moves of anyone this offseason so far. Obviously we have a lot more moves to go but we're still right in the middle of the holiday week.
FWIW I wasn't happy with the price increase either but after getting LI & FB I expected to have to pay for it.
this is how you can tell some people live with expectations that their experience in Football Manager translates directly to real life - transfer decisions are made in minutes, rumours are constantly present, sporting decisions are made to please themselves and not either a board or an actual supporter's group, everybody else is an AI so it's easy to adjust when teams are predictable...
Last edited by los sonadores; 12-27-2022 at 06:00 PM.
Circling back; an update.
< EDIT: Although there are now follow-up reports he is still training with Independiente; some suggest separately. >
Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/ussoccerplus_/status/1607830795301031938
Last edited by Mr. Inbetween; 12-28-2022 at 10:30 AM. Reason: Updates
Just thinking about this time last year.
I know with today's technology it is far easier to multitask.
Yet, seems Andrea D'Amico is currently busy with other attentions/pursuits.
Is Bill Manning in Toronto/GTA?
Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/FutbolMarroqui/status/1607043148332638208
There’s definitely a middle ground here, as the club has been systemically slow on signing players, notably in areas which are glaring needs for months to years on end. Especially at a time where it has been pathetically performed and so even sprinkling a rumour into the news here and there is simply useful to signalling intent to the fan base.
Things shouldn’t happen instantly, but deals can happen year around and be prepared/signed way in advance. As long as things happen within reasonable timeframes it’s all good. They’ve done well to get the things they have already done completed so far.
Have you noticed the 3m+ cap space (XAM and regular) used in the last year? Or that 1/3 of the players mentioned had his option exercised by the club Dec 2021?
I said “reasonable” for a reason. You of course play with the money you have within the constraints presented. For example, no fullbacks until more than halfway through last year and then brought in two expensive TAM guys. One of which fake retired and the other is likely gone by summer. It is not unreasonable to have suggested they start the season with serviceable fullbacks (read: capable of not being a clusterfuck as opposed to all star quality). That’s all that I’m trying to get across here and the majority of my criticism of deals this year has been related to ineffective use of XAM and cap space.
I get the anger, but JMR looked the part in the first couple of weeks. If he didn't get hurt for 8 weeks two weeks into the season, it seems likely the RB position would have been better. Predicting these things is impossible. Petrasso was serviceable. It is debatable whether shaffleburg would ever have been able to make the transition. So we gambled on the LB position to start the year. It wasn't unreasonable to assume we could have gotten better out of the players we had at the start of the season.
Bradley tore down a lot of what he was left with. I doubt we see that again (let’s hope ever). The number of players let go was enormous. That was indeed instant. But it takes time to replace them, especially when your coach is also sporting director. That much turnover and a new manager/sporting director was likely always going to be a mess.
why are people making excuses for this clown show of a FO and coaching staff
My thoughts on this are more big picture. The longer the time period, the closer I think we should be to having a completed roster (on paper at least). And overall, this rebuilding process has to be a bit faster than normal as our best player isn’t getting any younger.
So by my watch, they’ve got about 1.5 windows left to sort this out and turn the team into a contender. Like you, I’m a bit suspicious as to whether they know what they are doing. But I’m going to wait and see how it all unfolds…
Last edited by ag futbol; 12-28-2022 at 05:09 PM.