A Few Thoughts...

Just thought I'd write a few points on my thoughts about what's been going on recently and just to cover some points that I think might have been missed.

Firstly, I am just as disappointed as the rest of you at this transfer window. Here are a few positives and negatives I managed to come up with:


Pros:

1) We managed to get rid of a lot excess luggage that's been dragging itself around the team and getting paid but not giving us our money's worth. Barragan, Piatti, Orban, Yoel and Danilo all needed to go and they did.

2) Despite initial rumors stating otherwise, we did manage to retain Diego Alves. Previous posts have correctly described the lack of identity of the club (signified by players who have been here 2 years or more at least). Diego Alves is one who has been there for about 5 years now. His presence is important not only because of the identity issue but he is a true leader on the field. As far as being vocal and talking to his team, Diego does plenty of that. He should really be getting the captain's armband and not Perez which worries me (Diego might not be in Ayesteran's plans). I'm sure you are all familiar with how every time we are defending a corner, you hear one loud voice scream "Ariba! Ariba!" encouraging everyone to jump up. Or when we concede he claps and encourages the team to get back in. All that on top of the fact that he is our best goalkeeper undeniably.

3) We didn't rush into expensive Negredo, Rodrigo and Enzo Perez type signings. This point might be due to necessity rather than smart judgement. Garay may have been a tad bit overpriced but I am not complaining too much since he is a quality player and we desperately need a quality defender. This FFP might be a blessing in disguise in the case of Mangala cause I fear what could have happened if we did have the money. Would we have spent 30-40 million on him despite him not proving his worth yet?

Cons:

1) We did lose a lot of Valencia CF identity. A lot of the players marketed as Valencia CF's future are gone now. You can say the club is larger than any player and that we have lost our best players in the past all you want but it doesn't make it better. When Lim first bought the club we all thought good now we can keep some of our players for a change. Yet mad spending to no one other than the benefit of his friends cost Valencia CF a lot.

2) Once again we benefit others while we suffer. It's true that a lot of the players did ask to leave and there is always the "you can't turn down Barcelona or Real Madrid" but we're not giving them any incentive to stay or even fighting for them. I mean Andre Gomes's release clause was some absurd 115 million euros or something. We didn't even get close to that. 30 million?! I get the urgency to sell with FFP but really? Why set an absurdly high release clause if you're going to accept an amount that low. We're helping the league champions who don't need any help as it is and we're hurting ourselves. More on this point is that our last two signings (Mendes and Garay) are both Mendes inspired.

3) Replacement that we did get were not adequate and are unproven in some cases. Our defense I feel has definitely improved but Mangala could still be a question mark. Abdennour had one game where he did do well and we saw his potential but has easily been our worst players since. He needed to leave. His mind looked set on the Premier League for a while now so let them take him please. However I don't think Suarez is a big improvement on Fuego, could be wrong but it doesn't seem that way. Munir has some promise and is a lot more mobile than Alcacer (who relies more on positioning) but again is unproven. And Montoya...same deal.

4) We learned Lim's judgement is questionable. They say stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Why are we doing the same thing over and over? We keep trusting Mendes to give us the next superstar of the century and pay absurd prices that nobody else is willing to pay of them plus his commission and have always been disappointed. Why do we still deal with him? This comes back to letting Ayala, Rufete and Salvo go. Ayala made us really good signings since he had special influence especially on Argentine players. Otamendi for 12 million euros was a steal and we sold him for close to 50 million after one year. That is what I call return on investment. Now you invest in this 50 million in 3 or 4 "Otamendi's" and so on. Who knows how many actual prodigies we turned down cause they weren't Mendes related. Yet clubs seem to always sell us their junk and "prodigies" for such high prices and not willing to step down a bit. Yet we always make it easier and facilitate them signing our players. Why do we always have to be the ones to step down? Lim if you're reading...Please get those 3 back, and lets start making good deals again. Getting them back will not be a sign of weakness but a sign that you actually care.

5) Financial Fair Play? We don't have enough money? Lay Hoon was explaining that people thing we get the money from the signings instantly and that we have a 100 million or something euros to spend but in football money gets paid over 2 or 3 years. Fair point. We need to meet FFP so we sell even if we don't want to do so. And even if we sell we are still in a shortage of money. Well why then are we still waiting on a shirt sponsor? You cannot complain that you don't have enough money if you are not making the most out of the opportunities you have. Every year for the while now we have a shirt that's blank from the front and we keep waiting and waiting and no sponsor. I just looked up a table of Premier league incomes from shirt sponsors. Let's say we are slightly better than West Ham's annual income of 8 million euros annually on shirt sales at 10 million (This just a worst case scenario), then over the past 2 or 3 years we have 30 million euros, the amount for which we sold Gomes/Alcacer. But we keep leaving the shirt blank waiting for a better deal. Well some deal is better than no deal. Put Mendes's companies name or something since we like him so much, just get some money for it already.

6) Manager probably is weak link. We have not had a proven manager for the past while now. They all make their way into the club and leave the next year and we have no consistency in results or managerial position. Ayesteran did have a decent run last season but is he really the manager we need? I was thinking the other day, we have a manager that keeps saying I would love to go back to Valencia one day in interviews and is currently managing Newcastle in the 2nd division of the English League. Please tell me we can at least convince him to come here? He helped Valencia a lot and was an important part on Valencia's path to greatness. Who better to put us back up than him? I wouldn't even mind keeping Ayesteran with him. I have nothing against him, I just think it's about time we get an experienced manager.

7) Clubs mocking us? I know this is the least of our worries but Barcelona president said something that I found offensive. I hope the translation was incorrect but he said something along the lines of (while talking about the Alcacer signing) that playing for Barcelona alongside Messi, Suarez and Neymar and telling your grandkids about that is better than staying at Valencia and scoring even 50 goals a season. And then adds with all due respect to Valencia. Some respect that is? Is that the speech they give to our players when they take them from us?

Conclusion:

Anyways, I haven't written in a while, I will try to be more regular but here is a summary of what I thought over the past while (good work from SlickR to keep up with all the pre-season and transfer window). The last two signings especially gave me some hope in that we might be able to compete for mid table somewhere if we play it absolutely right. I don't know if we're ready for top four yet but we can sure try. A lot people I read in some posts (not necessarily on this blog) say there is no point in supporting the club anymore and things like that. The least we can do is stand by our team. There are a lot of negatives but let's at least make the fan's support a positive in the lack of other positives.