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Benjamin Stambouli - Sold to PSG

I'd be very glad if that's the case. Another idea could be that he feels having Stambouli,Mason,Bentaleb,Dembele, Paulinho is good enough depth and doesn't want to stagnate Mason or Bentaleb by signing a first teamer who will prevent them starting.
 
stinkfoot said:
Anyone else of the opinion that Poch has been so pleased with Stambouli's progression into the 1st team that it negated the need to go all out for either Schneiderlin or McCarthy in this last window?

I am. :)
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Could be, I like what I have seen from Stambouli and he is the best we have at the club as a sweeper in front of the CB's, hope to see him as a starter for us going forward.
 
stinkfoot said:
Anyone else of the opinion that Poch has been so pleased with Stambouli's progression into the 1st team that it negated the need to go all out for either Schneiderlin or McCarthy in this last window?

I am. :)
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That must be why he started Paulinho ahead of him at the weekend?
 
Modric THFC said:
That must be why he started Paulinho ahead of him at the weekend?
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I'd say Stambouli was obviously being rested. He's played a lot of football since Bentaleb went away, and I assume was being given recovery time ahead of Arsenal and Liverpool. Bentaleb returning early has been a subsequent bonus.
 
Gutter Boy said:
I'd say Stambouli was obviously being rested. He's played a lot of football since Bentaleb went away, and I assume was being given recovery time ahead of Ar5ena1 and Liverpool. Bentaleb returning early has been a subsequent bonus.
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Why rest vital Stambouli and not Kane and Eriksen. Why bring him in when we're three nil up?
Stambouli has started 2 of the last four games. I don't think Poch is as into him as a lot of people on here.
 
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Stambouli is our second best midfielder behind Bentaleb. I think he offers more than Mason. He was clearly rested against West Brom. Kane and Eriksen weren't rested because they're alot more important to us, with out Kane we are stuck with two strikers who can't score and without Eriksen wed have not many who can produce moments of magic.

Paulinho is fine and came in and done a job. I expect a stambouli / Mason partnership against Arsenal and I'd be very happy with that. I'd want Bentaleb to start but I won't cry if he doesn't. Those two are more than capable.
 
stinkfoot said:
Anyone else of the opinion that Poch has been so pleased with Stambouli's progression into the 1st team that it negated the need to go all out for either Schneiderlin or McCarthy in this last window?

I am. :)
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I suspect Levy would be gleeful if that were the case. 'A manager who actually likes my bargain-bin buys, and doesn't walk out after asking me to shove my talk of 'ambition' up my arse? Make him a club ambassador if it comes down to it, but I want him here at this club until the day he keels over.'
 
DubaiSpur said:
I suspect Levy would be gleeful if that were the case. 'A manager who actually likes my bargain-bin buys, and doesn't walk out after asking me to shove my talk of 'ambition' up my arse? Make him a club ambassador if it comes down to it, but I want him here at this club until the day he keels over.'
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One way of looking at it. Unsurprisingly from you it's the way that also lets you have a go at Levy at the same time.

Stambouli might very well illustrate something that's been missing from some of our previous managers. But to me it's not liking bargain-bin buys or your strange ramblings about ambition. It's quite simply having more than one suitable target for positions we need strengthening in. Doesn't seem likely that Stambouli was our first choice central midfield target, but when those who presumably were ahead of him on our list weren't gettable we had identified someone we could get that fits our team and that's actually good enough. That's to the credit of Poch and Baldini, hopefully similar can be said in the future. Because either we have to stop targeting top players or we have to accept that we won't get all our targets, and backup options are necessary. Even if you call them bargain-bin buys...
 
Gutter Boy said:
I'd say Stambouli was obviously being rested. He's played a lot of football since Bentaleb went away, and I assume was being given recovery time ahead of Ar5ena1 and Liverpool. Bentaleb returning early has been a subsequent bonus.
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I would be a bit strange to rest a player for a game a week later? I could understand not playing them due to them being tired having had a game a few days before but not resting them for a game in 7 days time.
 
Mumorn said:
Stambouli is our second best midfielder behind Bentaleb. I think he offers more than Mason. He was clearly rested against West Brom. Kane and Eriksen weren't rested because they're alot more important to us, with out Kane we are stuck with two strikers who can't score and without Eriksen wed have not many who can produce moments of magic.

Paulinho is fine and came in and done a job. I expect a stambouli / Mason partnership against Ar5ena1 and I'd be very happy with that. I'd want Bentaleb to start but I won't cry if he doesn't. Those two are more than capable.
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If Bentaleb has come back fit then I think it will be him and Mason in the deepest roles with Dembele in the ACM role Ericksen left and Lamela right. Chadli to come on in the second half to get us the winner.
 
braineclipse said:
One way of looking at it. Unsurprisingly from you it's the way that also lets you have a go at Levy at the same time.

Stambouli might very well illustrate something that's been missing from some of our previous managers. But to me it's not liking bargain-bin buys or your strange ramblings about ambition. It's quite simply having more than one suitable target for positions we need strengthening in. Doesn't seem likely that Stambouli was our first choice central midfield target, but when those who presumably were ahead of him on our list weren't gettable we had identified someone we could get that fits our team and that's actually good enough. That's to the credit of Poch and Baldini, hopefully similar can be said in the future. Because either we have to stop targeting top players or we have to accept that we won't get all our targets, and backup options are necessary. Even if you call them bargain-bin buys...
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A) Call it what you wish, old boy. I have no wish to disabuse you of any notions you may have on the matter. I will only point out that AVB considered Levy's talk of ambition worthless, and so did Harry, to an extent. So it isn't me rambling on about it: it's our dear leader who kept claiming, both in public and presumably in private to his managers, that the club had 'ambition'. AVB called him out on it, it made the news, and that's the interpretation I'm going with: my own views on the matter are a bit more complex. And you know this, given how often we've clashed on this point.

B) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...uthampton-midfielder-Morgan-Schneiderlin.html

Weren't gettable? Did we try before coming to that insipid conclusion?

Sigh. Stambouli's been a good player, I've maintained that for most of the recent past. But at some point, one has to face the facts about his signing, which many a news outlet reported at the time and continue to report now. But to our chairman's most rabid, wild-eyed defenders, these reports are all highly suspect, so I'm not holding out much hope on this point.
 
Finney Is Back said:
If Bentaleb has come back fit then I think it will be him and Mason in the deepest roles with Dembele in the ACM role Ericksen left and Lamela right. Chadli to come on in the second half to get us the winner.
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Oh! You were doing so well right up until the last bit about Chadli.

At least you did not say Chadli to come on in the second half to concede a needless penalty :)
 
DubaiSpur said:
A) Call it what you wish, old boy. I have no wish to disabuse you of any notions you may have on the matter. I will only point out that AVB considered Levy's talk of ambition worthless, and so did Harry, to an extent. So it isn't me rambling on about it: it's our dear leader who kept claiming, both in public and presumably in private to his managers, that the club had 'ambition'. AVB called him out on it, it made the news, and that's the interpretation I'm going with: my own views on the matter are a bit more complex. And you know this, given how often we've clashed on this point.

B) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...uthampton-midfielder-Morgan-Schneiderlin.html

Weren't gettable? Did we try before coming to that insipid conclusion?
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A) Sure. Levy keeps purposefully lying to his managers/head coaches knowing that he will be found out on it mere months later. This is the relationship our chairman has with our footballing men that's seen us fairly consistently over-perform in terms of league position compared to wages/budget.

B) Dead link. Headline seems to say that Wenger also wanted Schneiderlin. Seems that we both failed to get him then? Perhaps there were limits to how many players Southampton wanted to sell? Perhaps our budget was constrained by the fact that we also needed strengthening in other areas? Perhaps, just perhaps, even for Poch there was a limit to how much he wanted us to spend on Schneiderlin?

Levy is operating within the financial constraints of the club. If you want big net spends and investments call out Lewis, if you really think that's fair to expect. Levy has obviously prioritized the new stadium, new training ground and the academy, whilst re-investing everything we've made in the transfer market into new first team signings. There have been frustrating times in the past when people have complained about this strategy and at least their complaining has made sense to me, now this strategy seems to be paying off and I don't get what Levy is supposed to do.

Was brought up in the Redknapp thread over in general football. Levy is just about the only chairman that has managed to control Redknapp and where Redknapp hasn't left the club in a financial mess. That's what his approach has been getting us. But go ahead, wish for someone else... Ignore the financial mess so many clubs finds themselves in, ignore the struggles at clubs like Villa, Saudi Sportswashing Machine, Liverpool and Everton - never mind the clubs that have been really messed up by financial problems. Ignore the fact that essentially the only clubs that have managed to achieve the aims we've set in the last decade and a half (to become a consistent top 4 team) have had massive injections of oil money. And keep blaming Levy based on newspaper speculations and opinions of managers we've sacked, managers that obviously have no bias or reason to distort the truth.
 
braineclipse said:
A) Sure. Levy keeps purposefully lying to his managers/head coaches knowing that he will be found out on it mere months later. This is the relationship our chairman has with our footballing men that's seen us fairly consistently over-perform in terms of league position compared to wages/budget.

B) Dead link. Headline seems to say that Wenger also wanted Schneiderlin. Seems that we both failed to get him then? Perhaps there were limits to how many players Southampton wanted to sell? Perhaps our budget was constrained by the fact that we also needed strengthening in other areas? Perhaps, just perhaps, even for Poch there was a limit to how much he wanted us to spend on Schneiderlin?

Levy is operating within the financial constraints of the club. If you want big net spends and investments call out Lewis, if you really think that's fair to expect. Levy has obviously prioritized the new stadium, new training ground and the academy, whilst re-investing everything we've made in the transfer market into new first team signings. There have been frustrating times in the past when people have complained about this strategy and at least their complaining has made sense to me, now this strategy seems to be paying off and I don't get what Levy is supposed to do.

Was brought up in the Redknapp thread over in general football. Levy is just about the only chairman that has managed to control Redknapp and where Redknapp hasn't left the club in a financial mess. That's what his approach has been getting us. But go ahead, wish for someone else... Ignore the financial mess so many clubs finds themselves in, ignore the struggles at clubs like Villa, Saudi Sportswashing Machine, Liverpool and Everton - never mind the clubs that have been really messed up by financial problems. Ignore the fact that essentially the only clubs that have managed to achieve the aims we've set in the last decade and a half (to become a consistent top 4 team) have had massive injections of oil money. And keep blaming Levy based on newspaper speculations and opinions of managers we've sacked, managers that obviously have no bias or reason to distort the truth.
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A) Previous managers have said so. And one manager having a bias I can understand, maybe two. But Ramos, Redknapp and Villas-Boas have all come out with much the same thing: promises were made that weren't kept, ambitious talk was replaced with the cheap option, etcetera. Now all of them might conceivably also be biased, but I'll take the testimony of three men over the testimony of one, especially when that one person has also shown much the same behaviour with our newest manager as well. So yes, that is the relationship Levy has had with our managers, who have achieved in spite of him rather than because of him, a situation that has been in evidence from about the summer of 2010 onwards.

B) Not a dead link anymore, I checked. (The problem with linking anything with 'Arsenal' in the web address is that it gets the 's' and 'l' replaced by 5 and 1 automatically, but I think milo's fixed that :p ). However, for convenience's sake:

"Southampton turned down a £10  million bid from Tottenham last summer and, although the player initially wanted to leave, club directors decided that they would refuse all offers. Spurs, though, never actually improved on a single £10 million bid which Schneiderlin had wrongly thought would trigger a release clause. Relations between Tottenham and Southampton had also become strained earlier in the summer by the departure of Mauricio Pochettino and his coaching staff."
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Like I said before: did we even try before scarpering away in glee because we as a club wouldn't have to put our money where our mouth was? We made another profit in the window, as per usual, which has rapidly overtaken everything else in terms of paramount importance to this club. And then you're surprised when our managers blast the chairman for lying to them about ambition? (As an aside, I agree Lewis is as much to blame as Levy: again, you know this given how I often I harp on about it. But Levy is the point-man that our managers seem to dislike, so he's the obvious target.)

We have none: our ambition is to tread water until ENIC can gain their massive profit from selling up. What drive we had to climb up the table evaporated about five years ago, and now we're the proverbial 'flash' lads - wowing managers and players alike with promises of backing and ambition, and then revealing the ugly truth once they've signed on. And yes, Redknapp did get himself reined in by Levy - to the extent where he asked for Cahill, Samba, Tevez or someone and was given (repeat after me :) ) Saha and Nelsen on free transfers, a move which utterly derailed a promising season where we could have been title contenders and turned it into a horror show.

Please don't conflate our basement buy approach with strategy, ambition or backing the manager in charge, braine: it is none of those things. I'm glad we've found a seemingly brilliant manager who seems to be able to surmount all the obstacles Levy (advertently or otherwise) tosses casually into his path, but that doesn't excuse our glorious leader, not at all.
 
Maybe we just signed this guy purely as a squad player? He's doing ok in that capacity and he didn't take up much of our transfer budget. I don't expect him to ever be a key first-teamer, he will just fill in when we need him.
 
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