I think Andrews is a terrific prospect and I really hope he will play a lot this season. I don’t like picking on any of our players but I haven’t really seen anything from Ngakia in his several seasons with us (by our standards) to suggest he’s ever kicked on from the promise he showed as a youngster with West Ham, or that he looks capable of a long period without injury.
I'm pointing out that, given Manga has already admitted in May he recognised he made a mistake with his first January transfers, it could have even been his decision to some extent to reverse it - as opposed to one made by others above his head in opposition to what he now thinks. If he is in agreement with the decision being made now, and maybe even in part decided upon it himself due to him recognising it was an early mistake made with imperfect knowledge that needed to be rectified, then it is not necessarily either drastically undermining or not endorsing him in the present moment. PS I never said "at all". PPS - Andrew French is also admitting he hasn't spoken to Manga in a while, and maybe he missed the Sport1 interview he gave.
There's thinking a player might not be quite as good as first thought, and then there's discarding him after 6 months, I don't see any reason why Ferreira couldn't be a useful squad member
Because we had 3 RBs and Ismael seems to want 2 players for each spot in the squad. I know in the past the club have abided by the phrase "you can never have too many right backs", but at the moment the decision was clearly made that 3 right backs is indeed one too many, and somehow Ferreira was the most obvious one to shift out.
25 man squad equates to two players per position on average plus three. Extra keeper is one of those. So what’s the other two. Pretty certain it wouldn’t be full back as they are normally full backs only. Other positions can be moved around
This is disappointing, maybe VI sees him as a bit lightweight? An optimistic view but has Leventhal been proven right about anything this summer? Really hope he's wrong about CDM
But Ferreira got injured as well. I wouldn’t make him first choice and if that is the situation and he’s not happy with it this makes sense. It’s guesswork obviously but I do think there is a little bit of an overreaction to this news
Given how awful Ngakia is (and let’s face it so is Morris) I’m amazed you are trying to justify this decision. Have you seen the state of our squad in terms of depth 4 days before the opener? At what point will you actually question what they are doing to us?
That’s a fair point. Alternatively this is what the road to no external debt looks like. Sell what you can, slash the playing squad, and don’t spend any money on new players. I think it will become clear before the transfer deadline which path we are on. We will either bring some decent players in, and all will cheer and recognize a much needed squad revamp. alternatively no players or trash will come in and we will continue to sell any saleable asserts. It’s going to be a fascinating August.
As I say, it's not strictly a 25 man squad as U21s don't count. IIRC last season we had 6 players who played at RB/RWB, Andrews only got his chance because Ferreira and Ngakia were injured, who plays there if Andrews and Ngakia get injured this season, is the next chip off the youth team block anywhere near as good as Andrews? Ferreira has been playing LB this pre-season, I'd have kept the 5 full-back options we had and had him playing at LB if absolutely necessary, there was simply no need to get rid of him
I don't see that what you wrote is necessarily an "alternative" to my point. Both theories could potentially be rooted in truth.
Just need to clear out some more of this rubbish like Ferreira and Arouja so the Manga/Costa rebuild can begin
Particularly risky given our medical department's proven record of ensuring injured players remain unavailable for at least twice as long as the physical problem would usually require
Leventhal claiming that we'd been considering loaning him out for a while, but were waiting until we'd brought in another left-back first: "News: Joao Ferreira loan to Udinese from #WatfordFC for season been discussed internally for a while, and now actioned. Valerien Ismael wants 2 players per position in FBs. Andrews & Ngakia (RB) & newly arrived Lewis/Morris (LB)." "Internally there have been discussions regarding a potential loan for the Portuguese to Udinese during the summer, but it has only now been concluded following the arrival of Jamal Lewis from Newcastle." https://twitter.com/AdamLeventhal/status/1686398682705416195
But we’re not in a position to have 4 decent full backs. Morris isn’t that bad either just lacks a little pace. You wanted a reset so to do this you need to get rid of players not good enough or ones that don’t want to be here and that’s what’s happening. Yes the squad needs improving but space for new players needs to found. If Ngakia starts ahead of Andrews then I won’t agree but having 3 right backs makes no sense. If you’re suggesting we should keep all three then I think you’re wrong. If you think Ngakia should have gone then I agree but it then requires somebody wanting him and Ferreira happy with not being first choice. I think we’ve done well trimming the squad so far
He looked lightweight and defensively hopeless in the few appearances he managed to squeeze in around being a crock. No loss.
I'd say so. I don't think the very good HG players stay here beyond 16, but since I'm not expecting promotion it'd be nice to see a few.
There are 46 games in a season, and his main competition is a kid who's played less than 10 games in his career, he'll get his chance
Yeh this is a strange one. I think Andrews is great but was hoping to see how this guy was gonna develop as I think he’s a real raw talent, with pace to burn . I’m assuming someone will come in . As has been stated Ngakia looked nowhere near the level Andrews is playing at vs Palace.
Have to hope he's out of the loop, but I doubt it, he's given a reason why he thinks we're not signing someone rather than just make a random guess...
The usual suspects panicking at a young reserve RB being loaned out for a year. Asset stripping? We are just getting our cost base down. Yes would have been better to have F&Andrews competing for the RB spot but if we can’t get rid of Ngakia and F didn’t want to be reserve, then we are where we are. However, you can never have too many RBs.
Thought Nkoulou looked decent when he actually played, heaven knows why we didn't get him at the start of the season when we could have got him match fit. The others were varying levels of average to poor
We will almost certainly have plenty of space in the squad to sign a random free agent during the season, and with the squad how it is right now, we will probably need one!
I’m not sure how in the know Leventhal is though. He seems to have been ostracised by the club over the last couple of years.
And the usual apologists will make their excuses for the diabolical owner. I guess the tipping point would be Asprilla, but even then I'm not sure with some of you.
So which bit of my post did you disagree with ? Or does every bit of transfer news need to conclude with criticism of our “diabolical owner”?
