now it's clear you are on a WUM. How are Stoke the more attractive proposition here?
They can offer more in wages. I mean a fringe player at Bayern and Inter did move to Stoke, so I mean... It is true.
The relative strength of the Premier League
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They can offer more in wages. I mean a fringe player at Bayern and Inter did move to Stoke, so I mean... It is true.
He moved there because he was nowhere near good enough for Bayern and did not have a chance to be first team player there and did not impress enough at Inter for them to have kept him. It's quite clear he moved for playing time and not because he finds Stoke a better club to play for, this is just nuts.
Fringe player who plays in about 20% of games is not an 'in and out first teamer' like you tried to describe him.
Well Manucho and Bebe who were at United are playing for Rayo Vallecano now with neither of them permanent fixtures in the first team...
Shariri moved to Inter last January and played in 15 games for them in the league. How is that not in and out of the first team?
And they did not keep him. Guess why?
How often did he start at Bayern since you have his stats and called him a first teamer for them too?
He played 746 minutes, that equals to 8 games.
He played the equivalent of 31 games in 3 seasons.
Two and a half.
Dude out of all the examples of a poor transfer strategy in PL, you choose Stoke?
Stoke are one of the best run clubs in the PL. In the last three-four years, they haven't spent much and yet they've steadily improved. Shaqiri and Imbula have been good for them too, infact only yesterday Imbula bossed the match against Stamford Bridge.
League only:
12/13: 13 starts, 13 subs, 6 bench, 2 injured - 1368 minutes
13/14: 10 starts, 7 subs, 4 bench, 13 injured - 782 minutes
14/15: 3 starts, 6 subs, 7 bench, 0 injured - 339 minutes
He started 14 games for Inter for the rest of the season. They only had 25 games left to play that season.
How is that NOT a first team starter?
So it's safe to say that until the third season (in which he was sold to Inter) he was playing in most of the matches Bayern played in which he was fit.
Yes. He was their best player.
It's true that Stoke are doing well in the league this year, but that doesn't change the fact that they mostly bought flops from other clubs for high fees.
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In the league, he started 8 games out of 21.
I mean what does this argument prove to you?
Me: Shaqiri was around the first team for Inter and Bayern
Others: Prove that he played in over half the games he was fit
You: Yeah he was their best player.
I mean no-one has ever said that, no-one has ever attempted to say that and no-one will ever say that here. What I'm saying is that you tried to highlight Stoke's transfer policy as ridiculous, when I said buying fringe first team players from clubs higher in the football league hierarchy is a valid transfer strategy.
According to this:
http://www.squawka.com/players/xher...eason-2014/2015#137#all-matches#1-38#by-match
He started 8 out of 20 and came on for another seven. (He went off injured in one as well).
So he took part in 3 quarters of the games. How is that not in the first team squad?
For entertainment value, the Premier League is absolutely the best. Many teams regularly running each other close for the title and, recently, 'lowly' mid-table teams battling the big guns. Who wants to watch leagues where there's only two teams regularly competing for anything?
Quality wise though, our top teams are falling behind the other top teams at an alarming rate. City are the only team who have a good amount of truly world class players and they are aging now, this is a big part of why we're so competitive.
Quality wise though, our top teams are falling behind the other top teams at an alarming rate. City are the only team who have a good amount of truly world class players and they are aging now, this is a big part of why we're so competitive.
Sorry, I didn't realized that being a squad player in the first team squad was the criteria, I thought you were talking about important players, meaning starters.
Edit: inter played 1890mns, and Shaqiri played 746 of them.
You are trying to pretend that somehow Shaqiri had an important role at Bayern and Inter but chose to move to Stoke because he found them a better option. It's false. He moved there because Bayern and Inter ditched him.
No problem, I think part of the nightmare in this thread is that words like "first teamer" or other search terms don't really have a definition so as a result we argue over stupid stuff.
I don't think an important Inter or Bayern player would go to Stoke. I do think fringe players might.
How is a player who starts in 1 in 3 games a first team player? They got him and had to pay €18m to keep him, clearly he failed miserably considering they did not even trust him to start even half of their games.
Best thread in a while
Even Bayern who have a lot of money are not going to spend 18m for that type of performances, they will expect a lot more.
Yeah. It's laughable really, he played an impressive 339 minutes for Bayern in his final season and two(!) minutes in the KO stages of the CL during his entire time there. At Inter he started one of their last nine matches of the season and probably only because Hernanes was suspended due to yellow cards.
Being a first team squad player means feck all, when the likes of Stoke buy the important players of the best German/Italian teams then truly that point would make sense.
Yet the PL isn't better than either of those leagues bar Ligue 1. Regarding the British/Irish players only 26 started in the 10 games in midweek, which is only 11% of the players, so it was still only about 40% of the players who started in midweek who was from the local area.
Then how come is Spain doing so much better in Europe? Unlike when the PL allegedly was the best league in the world from about 2006 until 2009, it's not only four teams who're doing well in Europe, it's basically every Spanish club who plays in Europe regardless of tournament who does well. So there seems to be a big strength in depth in Spain when it comes to local players, unlike the PL where the strength is almost solely based on a massive amount of imports.
I don't think it's a bad idea to take a punt at Shaqiri. He's clearly a talented player, still young, and had a great start to his career. It just went downhill a while ago and it's difficult to predict why and if he can turn it around. I don't think it's particularly smart to build your team around too many of these struggling characters like Arnautovic, Affaley, Bojan and Shaqiri and pay them wages that are so high that you can't ever get rid of them without subsidising them at a different club. But so far it hasn't backfired at Stoke, not sure if it has improved them the way they expected to though.
However, it is pretty stupid to portray these players as some kind of superstars who would play an important role for the better sides in other leagues like some did in this thread. They all failed at various clubs in the other top leagues and went for the big paycheck in England that no Spanish, Italian or German club would give them after the performances they've shown. You can get the same performances from other players for a lot less money with a lot less risk.
However, it is pretty stupid to portray these players as some kind of superstars who would play an important role for the better sides in other leagues like some did in this thread. They all failed at various clubs in the other top leagues and went for the big paycheck in England that no Spanish, Italian or German club would give them after the performances they've shown. You can get the same performances from other players for a lot less money with a lot less risk.
I agree with the crux of what you've said on the subject, though I'd say the underlying issue probably isn't even on which players they use their money on specifically, but how they use it as a substitute for team-building in general - the English game has always seen a fascination with the individual, unlike what Spanish (save for the Galacticos) and German teams have been doing in the past decade. Especially mid-table and below Spanish sides need to rely on their youth & academies, their technical and tactical development of the team as a unit and not a collection of individuals, simply because they don't have the finances to invest in big name players or even talents. It's also the basis of Barça and Bayern's immense recent success, though they can obviously supplement it with star players, but I'd still argue it's those systems which allow them to flourish more consistently and to a higher peak than the teams in the same financial bracket (RM, City, Chelsea).
A good example of "team-building over specific personnel" would be Rayo Vallecano... an immensely modest team from the suburbs of Madrid, promoted for the 2011/12 La Liga season, they finished 15th, 2pts off relegation, with Michu (a player debuting in the top-flight having never scored more than 10 in a season in the lower leagues) taking up an AM/second-striker role scoring 15 league goals, which subsequently earned him a transfer worth €2.5M to the PL (where he had a sensational first season as well, bettering his prev. record by scoring 18 goals, fyi).
The following season Rayo got rid of their coach and got Paco Jémez in; they covered the loss of Michu not by a new signing, but by playing his team mate Piti (who'd scored 3 in 35 games, 29 starts as a striker for Rayo in 11/12) in that behind-the-striker role. Rayo finished 8th in 2012/13, 3pts off a European place, with 31-year old Piti (in only his 2nd ever top-flight season, having only once before scored 10+ goals in the lower leagues, in 2005) scoring 18 goals in the league -- in the process surpassing Hugo Sánchez as the highest goalscorer in a season in Rayo's history. They subsequently lost him to Granada... on a free. He scored about 8 goals in the 2.5 seasons after that.
They got in former RM youth player Alberto Bueno on a free and striker Joaquín Larrivey who'd had trouble settling at Cagliari (you get the picture, neither of them scoring vast amounts, although Larrivey had 2 great seasons about a decade earlier in Argentina) for less than €1M. This time they shared the burden, with Bueno as attacking mid getting 11 goals and Larrivey as striker 12 -- Rayo finished comfortably mid-table (12th) in 2013/14.
These two stayed and again Rayo had an unremarkable if secure season, finishing 11th in 2014/15. Larrivey got 11 goals in his 2nd season there and buggered off on a free to Celta (and since went to the ME after a good season at Balaídos). Bueno, in the same role as Michu and Piti before him, scored 17 in 28 games and left for FC Porto (where he's barely featured).
This season they had Javi Guerra doing well at centre-forward, with 9 in 21 apps and 24-year old Jozabed also with 9 in 21 from MF. Rinse, repeat.
Tactics, team-building towards a coherent system (like the English clubs had in 2004-09, but with a rather reactive style instead of the more proactive nature of post-2010s Spanish/German teams -- what seems to have been lost to PL sides in this transition), etc. is so much more valuable than even the most expensive individual. Which is why the obsession of the PL with them ends up exactly like you posted earlier as them "pissing their financial advantage [over the rest of Europe] into the wind". Or to put it another way, the focus on the result (players' individual stats/performances, etc.) over the factors or processes leading to those results (player and team's profile, gameplan, tactical organisation, etc.) to their own detriment.
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Great post Skorenzy,was nice to read a piece of Rayo's history
I agree with all that. What's interesting is the question why it's the case when English clubs bring in so many foreign managers? Does the different ownership structure influence the managers too much similar to how it's a problem at Real? Is it the English football culture that demands something that hinders the development of these well working units? Maybe a bit of both? I think there's some truth in the latter. Individuals are celebrated for doing things on their own while players who make teams tick and play consistently on a higher level are often underappreciated and sometimes scrutinised in an unfair way
We see hints of it in some Premier League teams at the moment and it should be interesting to follow, if Klopp's and Guardiola's approach translates well to the league over the next few years (maybe van Gaal's as well, if he gets to stay one more year) and if smaller clubs then also start to act differently. The massive amount of available money might actually prevent it from happening though and clubs with managers who try to implement a different approach. In the end, clubs tend to attempt the 'easy way' more often than not and that's usually trying to buy your way to the top and in the highly inflated market, English football has created for itself, that's a lot more difficult than many seem to realise. Because what looks like so much money still isn't enough if you have to overpay so much all the time.
Yes but what i mean from the domestic talents is not just the big names and the national players. But the second and third tier of German and Spanish talents are better than their respective english counterparts. Many of them would be national players for many other teams. Too many to get mopped up by two teams. Players like Aduriz, Nolito, Mustafi, Iñaki Williams, Borja, Raul Garcia, Lucas Perez, Gaya, Parejo, Stindl, Geis, Meier, Malli etc So much quality in there. Most of them are not quite good enough for the big two but good enough for others and are highly regarded.
Foreign players have been more important to La Liga's success in Europe than Spanish players.
The likes of Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol, Pique, Alonso, Ramos etc. have played there parts to though, even if Messi and Ronaldo are the overwhelming stars of the show. Spain have also dominated international football for the last about 10 years.
Yeah and they all play for Barca and Madrid, my original point was about lower table teams.
Really? Atletico seem to have plenty of Spanish players. For Valencia Gaya, Barragan, Parejo, Fuego, Rodrigo, Negredo and Alcaer come to mind. Bilbao are almost all Spanish and looking at the squads of Villareal and RSSS I see that cute red and yellow flag a lot too.
And don't forget Messi when talking about Barca, he may have an Argentine passport but he joined La Masia when he was like 13(?!).
Do you have any example of that? Spanish teams can only register 3 non-UE players.
Pretty much every team besides Barca 08-12.
Comfortably sixth.
It's like the whole world is involved in a conspiracy to prove you wrong.
The funny thing is at the time I meant I didn't think we'd get top four. I had no idea how fecking closeWest Ham were.
Ffs.
Ffs.