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Bloom's Open Letter



Springal

Well-known member
Feb 12, 2005
23,708
GOSBTS
Must admit, Southampton and Bournemouth both seem to have had average/poor windows. Bournemouth signed no-one yesterday did they ? Are they strong enough?
 


Springal

Well-known member
Feb 12, 2005
23,708
GOSBTS
I have every faith in Tony Bloom and he didn't have to make that statement, he chose to. He's a fan at the end of the day.

Can you imagine Ivan Gazidis, The Glaziers or Daniel Levy doing something that? No, me neither.

We're not even in the same ball park are we though? Man Utd are a PLC so would never make a statement like that..
 


twickers

Well-known member
Jul 17, 2003
1,663
But not always, look at the teams that didn't get what they wanted:

We didnt get a striker
Man City didnt get Sanchez
Chelsea...didnt seem to get as many as they needed
Newcastle...didn't really get anyone
Palace didn't get a striker
Everton didn't get a striker
Arsenal didn't seem to want to keep any players, let alone sign more.

I doubt there's many teams that will be fully really pleased with their work, there'll be upset, frustration at losing prime targets etc.

Agree. Some teams have had disastrous windows. My anxiety this window was the economics. Unfortunately this window the inflated pricing was exasperated. Other windows haven't felt as ridiculously inflated.
 


jasetheace

New member
Apr 13, 2011
712
Hello My name is Vincent Janssen.

I wasn't in their original pod of scouted and researched players.

I wasn't even in their Plan B Panic Buyers cast the net wide list.

They found me scrabbling around in the dirt in the dead of night.

I know what! I will jump from one anonymous frying pan into an anonymous Fire.

Not bleedin likely. Patronising or what! An afterthought.
 


Bodian

Well-known member
May 3, 2012
11,596
Cumbria
I admire his supportive way of saying that it was an "additional striker" we were looking for. Not "a main striker" - but someone in addition to what we already have. Hopefully this will help the confidence of those that we do have - rather than give the impression that 'you're not good enough, we want to replace you'.
 






Bring back Bryan wade!!

I wanna caravan for me ma
Jun 28, 2010
4,315
Hassocks
We may not have been short in any areas Tony, but....we still came up short.

It’s obviously never a straightforward process with so many factors involved to bring in a quality striker. But I still find it incredible that given the amount of time we had to sort this out, we still couldn’t get a deal over the line. Were our targets unrealistic ? Is our wage structure inadequate ? Going by the Janssen bid, it certainly looked like we were prepared to throw more money at the dilemma at the last minute, once our backs were really up against the wall, but by then it was all too late. Janssen looks like a last minute afterthought to me, not an actual target we were ever serious about until we were desperate.

I get that we’re PL rookies this season, but surely we *should* still be an attractive proposition to sign for. A club on the up, magnificent stadium and training ground, stable ownership with a well liked and respected manager, big crowds, great place to live. It’s not a hard sell to join a PL club like ours. And yet one by one, all our targets fell away until there was literally nobody left to bring in. Why ? We weren’t (to my knowledge) in any bidding wars with other clubs, where the auction just got too hot for us. Our targets stayed put, we were the only deal in town. So why ? What is the underlying reason ? This needs looking at.

I don’t just want to hear “its difficult”. Sorry, but other clubs seem to manage it, who on the face of it would be far less attractive propositions than ours. Is it simply a case that we refuse to pay the market rate ? Commendable to an extent of course, and I certainly wouldn’t want us to ‘do a Leeds’ obviously. But there is a balance to be struck, and at the moment, I think we’ve now left ourselves uncompetitive for the first half of the season. Come January the damage could be too great to rectify, and by the end of the season we could well be lamenting a swift return to the Championship, and left thinking “I just wish we’d really given it a proper go”.

Hope I'm wrong.

Perfectly encapsulates the current feelings of a lot of our fans.
 


Hungry Joe

SINNEN
Oct 22, 2004
7,636
Heading for shore
Reading between the lines I’m interpreting an understandable "Go *&%$ yourselves! You ungrateful bunch of *&*&s!"

That's the trouble with reading between the lines, it just ends up being a exercise in projecting whatever the reader happens to think themselves.
 












Dorset Seagull

Once Dolphin, Now Seagull
The key phrase

"in the best possible position to execute deals at the optimum time"

I guess they figured the optimum time was near deadline day in order to satisfy the financials etc which possibly proved to be a mistake as we ran out of time
 




DavidinSouthampton

Well-known member
NSC Patreon
Jan 3, 2012
16,536
This! It's always other clubs that seem to get their shit together.

There were plenty of other clubs that didn't do particularly well yesterday. Apart from the high profile ones, I saw something which indicated Bournemouth were pursuing several strikers and none of them came off.
 




Blue Valkyrie

Not seen such Bravery!
Sep 1, 2012
32,165
Valhalla
Good letter.

Honest, no flannel.

Tony is gutted as well.

I'm sure lessons will be learnt,
 


Yoda

English & European
We may not have been short in any areas Tony, but....we still came up short.

It’s obviously never a straightforward process with so many factors involved to bring in a quality striker. But I still find it incredible that given the amount of time we had to sort this out, we still couldn’t get a deal over the line. Were our targets unrealistic ? Is our wage structure inadequate ? Going by the Janssen bid, it certainly looked like we were prepared to throw more money at the dilemma at the last minute, once our backs were really up against the wall, but by then it was all too late. Janssen looks like a last minute afterthought to me, not an actual target we were ever serious about until we were desperate.

I get that we’re PL rookies this season, but surely we *should* still be an attractive proposition to sign for. A club on the up, magnificent stadium and training ground, stable ownership with a well liked and respected manager, big crowds, great place to live. It’s not a hard sell to join a PL club like ours. And yet one by one, all our targets fell away until there was literally nobody left to bring in. Why ? We weren’t (to my knowledge) in any bidding wars with other clubs, where the auction just got too hot for us. Our targets stayed put, we were the only deal in town. So why ? What is the underlying reason ? This needs looking at.

I don’t just want to hear “its difficult”. Sorry, but other clubs seem to manage it, who on the face of it would be far less attractive propositions than ours. Is it simply a case that we refuse to pay the market rate ? Commendable to an extent of course, and I certainly wouldn’t want us to ‘do a Leeds’ obviously. But there is a balance to be struck, and at the moment, I think we’ve now left ourselves uncompetitive for the first half of the season. Come January the damage could be too great to rectify, and by the end of the season we could well be lamenting a swift return to the Championship, and left thinking “I just wish we’d really given it a proper go”.

Hope I'm wrong.

Well, one of our targets fell away due to Deportivo not managing to sign one of their targets. Bit like Sanchez's proposed move to Man City.
 


Blue Valkyrie

Not seen such Bravery!
Sep 1, 2012
32,165
Valhalla
The key phrase

"in the best possible position to execute deals at the optimum time"

I guess they figured the optimum time was near deadline day in order to satisfy the financials etc which possibly proved to be a mistake as we ran out of time
Interesting phrase. Cash flow, or brinkmanship. On this occasion it failed, and bad luck for sure that Zurich weren't more upfront about known medical issues.
 


DavidinSouthampton

Well-known member
NSC Patreon
Jan 3, 2012
16,536
Reading between the lines I’m interpreting an understandable "Go *&%$ yourselves! You ungrateful bunch of *&*&s!"

I would have read something completely different - like being honest about eing disappointed and feeling the need to explain it to the fans.... which I appreciate.
 




Ninja Elephant

Doctor Elephant
Feb 16, 2009
18,855
I think he, and the recruitment team, are bang on not wildly overpaying. It's very easy for all of us to spend the club's (Tony Bloom's) money willy nilly and with no thought to the consequences.

There is not one single person on this board who has not slammed Palace and Portsmouth for their financial meltdowns and their inappropriate behaviour to get around re-paying their debts. And yet, all of a sudden, we demand to spend ridiculous sums of money on players who may or may not be successful for us. How is that any different to the crazy overspend by Palace and Portsmouth, two clubs who are constantly, and correctly, ridiculed and vilified on this forum.

Financial responsibility is boring. But when the choices are boom and bust, or caution and long term planning - I know what I choose.

The club tried to find the striker, there is no doubt about that. They failed to sign one, clearly. And that failure will be felt throughout the whole club, but we survive and we move on.
 


B-right-on

Living the dream
Apr 23, 2015
6,162
Shoreham Beaaaach
End of the day, the recruitment team are to blame as it was their job to bring in a striker and they didn't. It's no secret that we needed one. So surely they would have a plan A, if that didn't work, B, C, D etc...

And have the brains and nous to know that leaving it until the deadline day, we could potentially be left with no additional striker.

Someone f*cked up. Royally. Whoever was the 'striker finder' I'm sure is on a bob or 2 wages and hasn't produced a product for it. Despite knowing at least 4 months ago.

ManUre did all their deals early. I dislike Jose but you can't fault his method.
 



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