Laughable Chimp

39 minutes ago, VillaJ100 said:

The value of their asset has increased from like the £70 million they bought us for to I reckon 600+ million. So they're fine

But how much does that increase in valuation come from the owners directly inserting more of their own money into the club? If they bought the club for 70 million and then dumped a further 530 million of their own money into the club, then even selling for 600 million wouldn't mean they'd turn a profit.\

28 minutes ago, DevonIsAPlaceOnEarth said:

I’m not sure what Purslow has done wrong other than the Gerrard appointment - agree that’s a big mark against him, but what owners have never made a dud appointment.

The man is probably busier with business related to the expansion.

Well if we're judging him from the business side of the operation we've reported a total of 260 million pounds in losses since he's been at the wheel.

Our owners are supposed to savvy businessman right? I may not be an accountant, but I just find it hard to see our owners seeing us as a profitable venture if we continue to post significant losses.

46 minutes ago, DaveAV1 said:

What you’re leaving out though, is that we played the first 13 games under a very poor manager and the next 7 under an elite manager, who will continue to be our manager for the remaining 18 games. So expectations for those games can only reasonably be based on the 7 games played under Unai. 

7 games is far too small a sample size to be able to make predictions off the rest of the season off. Look back at the first 7 games under Gerrard and try and tell me that was a good predictor of what was to come. We're on hot form right now but the reality is that its extremely unlikely we'll be able to maintain this form until the end of the season. We can't extrapolate what will happen in the rest of this season based on just these stretch of games.

6 hours ago, thabucks said:

Alex Scott or Alberto Moleiro for £20 mill+…

Which one you choosing ? 

Probably alex scott. 

Can’t help but feel Duran’s arrival has effectively closed the door for him considering he’s 2 years younger and arguably better already. He needs to really hit form with Boro.

33 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

Is Zaniolo a player we should be looking at? Looks like he’s got some decent attributes and a position we could use.

3 goals and 2 assists in his last 40 games and last I heard he was being linked with bournemouth for 30m. Then add in his injury record. Stay the **** away.

5 hours ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Cool story bro...

Sure it's been mentioned numerous times, but Leon Bailey is in the top 5 fastest players in Bundesliga history.

He's also in the top 10 recorded Premier League speeds. Lol

I don't think Jack even cracks the top 20 or 30.

Semantics don't change the facts 

Never forget

https://www.sportskeeda.com/football/5-fastest-players-english-premier-league-history-nunez-walker-traore

53 minutes ago, Tom13 said:

So how's he been doing at Watford lately? Missed the last two games, not sure if injured again?

His Google page annoys me, no way is he 68kg.

Hasn't scored or assisted since October so, probably not that well.

34 minutes ago, Jas10 said:

 

This would blow the transfer record for the chilean league out of the water.

8 minutes ago, nepal_villan said:

It feels as though the likes of Brighton and Brentford pay a lot less for potential. 

Brighton like to sign players from more unknown leagues. Think Polish league, Czech league, Japanese league etc.

La liga isn't an unknown league. The MLS isn't either, you could argue its about the same level as the Championship. If you have a young player already performing in these leagues, chances are they're on many scouts shortlists and will cost some money.

15 minutes ago, Steero113 said:

 

Dewsbury Hall was 22 when he broke through at Leicester in the PL. He'd been at the club 8 years and not played a game for the first team before that season. 

Dewsbury-Hall had a successful spell with Luton in the championship the season before he broke through with Leicester though.

Unless we decide he's good enough to be with our first team(unlikely), Azaz will probably be given a season-long loan in the Championship next season. If he manages to perform there as well, he'd practically be 24 by the time he'd be seriously considered as part of our first team. That's pretty damn late but it shouldn't be an issue if he is indeed good enough. But there will be no room for mistakes from him.

Strasbourg must love us.

5 minutes ago, nick76 said:

Our bench against Southampton suggests otherwise.  A couple of injuries could really smash us, even aside from injuries you need options and fresh legs especially with the five sub rule now and the ability for the opposition to refresh their team second half.

Yep, we might need some backup in certain areas. I just think we don’t really need it in midfield. We’re bare in the fullback, wings and striker areas. That last one should be solved when Duran gets up to speed.

With Sanson gone we should still have Dendoncker to tide us over and Mcginn when he comes back. Worst comes to worse, we could always move Ramsey back into central midfield and move Bailey back out wide. A replacement isn’t really necessary

Tbh, considering his form in league 2 last year, to the point of winning the league 2 young player of the year award, I was a bit surprised we only got him a league 1 move this season. Yeah jumping 2 leagues up is a bit much, but consider Azaz’s age, we might’ve needed to throw him into the deep end more with him.

And its not like we’ve been shy about moving some of our other players quickly up the leagues, even when they weren’t as successful for as long as Azaz had been. Jacob Ramsey went from half a season in league 1 to the PL. Kesler took 1 year to go from league 2 to the championship. Archer went from an okay loan in the national league straight to the championship, etc.

It does strike me as our academy setup just never rated his potential much as our other youngsters but he keeps proving them wrong.
 

8 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

Ollie Watkins was playing in League 2 at age of 22. Had never played higher than that. 

Minor nitpick but if wikipedia is to be believed, he would’ve turned 22 on 30 December 2017. He had joined Brentford in the championship 6 months earlier.

3 hours ago, VillaChris said:

I still think he'll be alright.

He did fine at Swindon so get him in the right environment and he can thrive. Not saying he's going to be anything like him but how many loan spells did Kane have?

The Liverpool goal was very exciting and an ice cool finish. I do remember after that loads saying he should be involved in first team squad and be coming off the bench in prem games. Given those demands were two years ago that I think it was a touch premature although we do have Kaden Young on the bench currently of course but that's just to gain experience and lack of attacking numbers.

Perhaps he'll go back abroad again at some point. I keep on saying it but it really would be useful for us to get a feeder club up and running somewhere in the world where likes of Barry could get a season playing in conditions cultivated by us.

 

According to wikipedia, 4. But I did some research on harry kane’s loan spells before and I think its actually a poor example for a player that struggled at his younger years.

Firstly, he had 1 loan at league 1 level, 3 at championship level so already a higher level than barry is.

Secondly, And its not like he kept failing his loans and kept being loaned out because of it, he succeeded at his first 2 loans. Its only the last 2 that were a bit iffy and one of those he was injured almost the entire way.

Lastly, he did all these loans before he even turned 20 years old. Whilst Barry is currently struggling near the bottom of league 1, at that exact same age Kane was part of the leicester squad that played against watford in that famous playoff semi-final. A year before that he had already had a successful spell with millwall in the championship, even winnkng their young player of the year award.

so yeah, kane really is not a good example of someone making it despite having a disappointing start.

6 minutes ago, Zatman said:

They have Matthew Hoppe as well who had an ok time in Bundesliga a few seasons back, though Archer has come on before him today

Never heard of him before. What a bizarre career he’s had going from scoring goals in the Bundesliga at 18 to not even getting gametime at middlesbrough now.

There were actually other forwards middlesbrough had that I didn’t mention in my original post because based on their form, they didn’t seem like they’d be competition to Archer. I didn’t notice Hoppe as he’s had even less gametime than these guys I didn’t mention.

12 minutes ago, MSvillain said:

I guess it’s more that we could’ve picked a better club where he was more likely to get minutes 

Think we just got unlucky here really. I don’t think playing a centre mid up top was intended to be a long-term strategy for them. He had only been playing up top for them for like 2 games before Archer came in. Boro probably strongly considered the possibility that this experiment wouldn’t work and they would need a proper striker starting for them at some point. We loaned them archer with the expectation that this would happen, which it still might.

Obviously, we shouldn’t completely write off a player who’s only 19 years of age but I think its safe to say he probably won’t make the grade as a pl footballer. I can see him having a solid career in the championship though.

4 minutes ago, gwi1890 said:

Don’t get why people are worried about “doing it in a poorer league “ should we just sign talent from premier league  only? Dembele has a decent record in European competitions , 8 goals in 25 that would suggest he’s more than capable of reach in double figures in the premier league.

By my count its 8 goals in 36 actually. 1 goal every 300 minutes.

Ashley Young's penalty record(not including shootouts) is 5 scored to 3 missed. That's not a good return.

I'd go with luiz.

29 minutes ago, nick76 said:

He’s on £70k per week.  Given his contract is to expire in four months, his ability to get free transfer wages most likely will enable him to earn around what Ings earnt or a massive signing on fee with a more reasonable wage…either way it’s huge money. Very similar to what Kamara got from us.  So yes he will likely earn more than Ings over the equivalent period…fairly obvious really!
 

https://www.capology.com/player/moussa-dembele-35258/profile/

 

 This is a player who neither has the pedigree of Ings nor has the potential of Kamara. He isn’t exactly a hot property here and is very much a player who has lost his way. Yet you think we’d be paying him as much as we did for those two?

Jesus, just because he’ll be coming in for cheap doesn’t mean his salary is going to suddenly balloon to stupid levels. If he was given a salary that large, he’d be the highest paid player for several clubs. Do you really think we’d give that money to a guy who is most likely going to be our backup striker, paying him more than most our starting lineup? Ollie would be demanding a payrise.

Just now, Nigel said:

Tbf I'm better than ollie based on that!

Wheres the 'run around a lot' metric?

Closest would be pressing stats but fbref removed that a few months ago.

I remember his pressing stats being good, but not as good as you'd think based on how people describe him.

6 minutes ago, Indigo said:

Salaries on FBRef aren't verified, they actually caught a lot of criticism for including starting to include this on the site a few months ago.

They are "verified" according to Capology, their source for their wage data. "A player's wage is considered 'verified' if it's been provided directly by the club or agent, and/or confirmed by multiple sources".