This squad is enough to make everyone nostalgic. Palop, Alves, Drago, Adriano, Maresca, Kanouté, Saviola, Fabiano, Renato, Escudé mostly acquired in 2004 and 2005, plus cantera of Ramos, Puerta, Capel and Navas
Which led Frank Rijkaard to say ‘If I could buy anyone it would be Monchi’, despite Barca having the strongest squad in Europe at that time.
So Monchi has hit the jackpot on numerous occasions but had some difficulty in other years. I think the key is the market, the players on sale, finance and timing.
It will be very interesting to see what happens in this post World Cup market, it could be very intense but spiked by the amount of EPL money.
I think we’re living in a different age now to past Monchi miracles. That’s not to say he can’t do it, but these days many teams have access to all the scouting databases, so they can see the players overperforming in lower divisions and at smaller teams. It’s not just teams like Man City and Chelsea that have huge pools of young talent either, even some smaller teams like Atalanta have huge squads with tens of players out on loan.
TLNR: there’s way more knowledge of, and competition for the diamonds in the rough these days, so rebuilding a squad isn’t as easy or cheap as it used to be.
Lots of challenges in the new era. So much money that teams like Man City, Chelsea, etc. can load their rosters with young “talent” and just loan out/sell the ones that don’t work out. You see rosters of 30-plus players.
The other thing is the reliance on data to analyze players. 1) Everyone has big data now so there is no real advantage to this system, 2) your data is only as good as your algorithms for analysis at a large scale.
Data can’t predict a player’s guts, the size of his balls, or how much fight he gives. That takes eyes on the players. I’m not sure if our scouting network is as big or as good as it used to be.
I was probably there, I rarely missed a home game in that era, who were we playing?
Or ambition. We made a lot of good buys by rehabilitating players who were lacking in love and support. Big data can’t unravel the human side of things.
Clearly our scouting network is surpassed by the big clubs but they’re paying a fortune in fees for child protégés that don’t come good. There’s always a niche to mine somewhere.
Above all, we are holding Sevilla to very high standards as if the club were in the top 20 of Europe and the club has never been at that level. The fact that we qualified for EL or CL for 15 of the last 16 is an outlier, a freak statistic, and the fact that it coincides with Monchi doesn’t signify that correlation is causation but 6 uefa trophies is enough correlation for me.
Celta Vigo. We won 1-0, Saviola in the third minute after a knock on from Kanoute.
I had been used to seeing the likes of Andy Johnson (Crystal Palace) and Henry in the PL, but something blew me away the absolute pace of Dani Alves and Jesus Navas on the right and Adriano on the Left. I’d never seen anything like it.
I only went to the game as Bétis were away to Barcelona (and lost 7-2) I believe, otherwise I wouldn’t be here now probably.
I mean, technically speaking, data could measure both of those things, but I’m not so sure the players’ unions would allow it. One seems a bit invasive and the other seems a bit too intimate
The big clubs have gotten whiff of what signing youngsters can do and now just sign every kid who can pass with both feet. Best case scenario it gives them good homegrown talent like foden. Even if they don’t work out they can be sold for a good fee. I think Sevilla would find it hard to get decent youngsters from overseas or other provinces but real homegrown talent is pretty solid, they usually get into the final 4 or 8 of la liga youth tournaments and Gil was an example there is talent there, Carmona and Salas have some quality but whether they can be fixtures in the first team is yet to be seen.
The model was usually find talented players who can take the next step and established players from 2nd tier clubs or leagues i.e WBY and Bacca, or players from clubs who have talent but need a change of scenery i.e Kanoute, Gameiro. This tactic has worked pretty well for the past 15 years or so and it’s only the last 3 seasons when we started spending large amounts on mediocre crap.
There are other clubs using this model right now and the first I would list is Brighton, they changed it from route one football to possession based and mixing experienced players (Welbeck, Lallana and Veltman) with young upcoming ones (Cucurella, White and Mwepu before his heart condition). They’ve done well even after Graham Potter left and made more than 70m in sales in the last window.
The next club would be Napoli, currently leading Serie A after selling most of their leading players in Koulibaly, Insigne, Mertens and Ruiz then replacing them with Anguissa, Raspadori and Kvaratskhelia. Talent exists out there, you just need to know where to look.
I think we’re still good, few had heard of Kounde and Diego Carlos before Monchi went for them. If we’re lucky and his body holds up Marcao and Nianzou could be just as good. Bono was another inspired signing. Just need to get back to basics.
I dunno, maybe not that fast, but I just want the team to be in a place where we no longer need them, and certainly no longer need to start them. While I suspect this won’t happen, I sorta wish we could free up those wages and slots for some younger players from France or Argentina to come into LaLiga and test their mettle…
The thing is we have to be carefull with our expenses, things could go really quick south if in the winterbreak if you are overforcing, like a desperate PL team, imagine paying more big contracts, maybe even players who are reluctant to join a team in misery. We are at a point where we are not allowed to make many more mistakes, because we made too many already.
Imagine signing players where in the contract you already have to sign something like if we demote, you can leave for x price.
There are plenty of players who would like to join a Sevilla in need, and profit from a big contract. But a team full of players who play for bread is not good. We need players with heart, passion and potential.
I like him, but he’s just a more barbarian looking more team oriented Rafa Mir. Less refined in the box tho, he compensates in other ways but it’s not going to solve much how we play in my believe. We need something special. He’s definitely a good, demotion team player, and will win some games for you.
Can’t get anyone better in January for an affordable price. I doubt we’ll even be able to get Muriqi as he just signed for Mallorca on a permanent contract this season for 5 years. He felt very good there and would most likely want to stay at least until the end of the season.
We won’t attract many good players in the situation that we’re in. Hoping for some Monchi magic and help with convincing by Sampa, but it will be difficult.
For the club we really need our players to perform well and get some of the spotlight during the worldcup. Which is just the best stage, to raise interest and prices for our January window. Bono could have a huge impact this tournament. I don’t want to sell him, but if some crazy premier league offers come if he shows up like we know good Bono can, well it would fuel our renovation. Youssef with some goals would be the better sale of course. Acuna en Montiel, or Papu if they shine? anything can happen at a tournament like this. They rumour Delaney already has found a deal with Kopenhagen to return there, (him buying a house there strengthens this rumour) anyway. Anything that can help us with the overhaul
