18 Aug 2016 13:13:53
To everyone saying we should sign Sissoko because 'Koeman will get the best out of him', what makes you think that?
I am by no means criticising Koeman (I'm a big fan of everything he's done so far) , but he has signed several players with great potential who 'just needed to do it on a regular basis' in the past and failed to transform them. I could name about 4 or 5, but the main 2 that come to mind are Eljero Elia and Pablo Osvaldo; players with the ability to be top class on their day but are either too lazy, selfish or uncommitted - problems Sissoko greatly suffers from. Both of them showed incredible early potential and ended up being 2 of the biggest flops in recent times.
Again, this isn't an indictment of Koeman, just saying that this isn't one of his strong suits and I have no idea why so many people are just blindly faithful in our manager being omnipotent. I remember several people saying Bobby would do the same about every player we were linked with last year. We shouldn't sign Sissoko, end of.
18 Aug 2016 14:30:03
Lets flip that coin over and see how many players he has managed to transform and get the best out of them. Every manager will have success stories and the same managers will have stories about not being able to get the best out of a player.
3 of the best managers ( in my opinion ) in my lifetime, Fergie, Shankley, and Cloughie all had players they could not control, Cloughie even went one step further and had a full team he could not control ( Leeds Utd ) yet at the end of the day all 3 were world class managers.
Compare managers with goal keepers, If for the majority of games the keeper manages a clean sheet then he is deemed a success, no one expects the keeper to have a clean sheet for the full season. Now with managers if they can get the best out of 90% - 95% of a team they will be deemed a great success, even the above 3 did not get that success.
18 Aug 2016 17:47:17
As I said, this has nothing to do with me criticising Koeman, I'm just saying he doesn't have a track record of turning players around and so I don't think Sissoko is worth the risk. I looked through his signings and there's not a single one who fit the 'talented but troubled' mould who he got the best out of. He got the best out of a lot of players, I agree, but not out of any who clearly didn't want to give anything, like Sissoko, Elia or Osvaldo.
{Ed001's Note - Dusan Tadic.}
19 Aug 2016 11:37:37
I was tempted to put him in the list of players he couldn't quite get the best out of. He proved in Eredivisie that he could be world class and he has impressive moments (and stats) , but Koeman still wasn't able to get him to regularly perform at the level he was capable of.