TeemuVanBasten

You don't sign a "fifth choice centre back" though do you, you sign one who you think has got the potential to challenge for a spot or who has raw potential that you can develop? Hanley was our first choice centre back whilst Farke set about trying to turn Godfrey into one... You don't tell a player that you are signing them to be fifth choice, you sign a player and tell them that you want them to work on a few things then force their way into the side? Obviously we'd sign a player who we'd think would be able to push Hanley down the pecking order, and you'd want the player to have some self belief.... so I don't really see where you are coming from at all mate. Also, we spent £5m on two U23 players last time we got promoted, so I don't see why you suddenly consider that to be such a huge sum of money. Their names..... James Maddison and Ben Godfrey. The idea is to spend £2.5m on a centre back that you think could become a £10m+ player? Semi Ajayi doing very well at West Brom, they'd want at least that for him now if we bid in January wouldn't they? He's 25 and on an upwards trajectory. The thing is Aggy if we'd signed another centre back we wouldn't have started the season with five would we, because we already knew that one had missed pre-season and was going to miss a substantial chunk of the actual season. Had Klose not been injured I don't think he'd have been brought back into the side so early, and we know how that ended. We knew that Klose has had a series of knee injuries including one last season, so going into the season with Godfrey, Hanley and Klose was obviously a risk. Then you've got Farke saying that if he had enough fit centre backs at his disposal he'd try a wing back formation. Well if there is the possibility that we'd end up playing 3 centre backs at any given time then yes.... you probably would equip yourself with 5? I had a look at the squads of other Premier League sides and about half have 5 and the other half have 4. A few of those that have 4 have one of those versatile players who can do full back or centre back / jack of all trades clogger as an additional option (none of our four full backs can move inside). Example: Paul Dummett.... big 6ft squad player who can do left back or centre back.

If that sort of spending is deemed "unrealistic", then staying up is simply unrealistic then. That's unfortunate because I thought we had a real chance. That's really not mega money, not when actually staying up is worth a further £100m. With Webster going for £20m and Mings for £25m.... if we can't afford £2.5m for Ajayi then what are we even doing at this level? And fifth choice? Really? Under Hanley who played about 7 games for us last season? With Zimmermann out injured he'd have been 3rd choice at least until Zimmermann got back. But what would have been stopping him forcing his way into the side? He's a talent, and West Brom have got a bargain.

Somebody literally said that Drmic isn't good enough about 3 minutes before he came on, and he managed to do what none of our other players had managed for about 265 minutes.... so I say lets give Roberts a start or two. If he's not good enough why did we sign him? Or is that an admission that our transfer business has not been good?

We can't sign a loanee until January. And it will have to be a domestic player unless we drop a foreign player from the 25 (although that would be easy, as we'd drop Timm Klose as he's injured for the season).

On a scale of 1-10, how surprised were you that we only spent £1.75m by the time the season kicked off? Personally I was only expecting to see perhaps one £10m player from the domestic market, and perhaps a couple of £2.5m players from foreign leagues.... I did expect us to spend something. We effectively spent nothing.

Try not to selectively quote people like a scummy Murdoch rag tabloid journalist when trying to 'engage' with people and they might decide you are worthy of entering into discussion with instead of telling you to jog on.

Well I thought that Semi Ajayi from Rotherham was great value at a rumoured £1.5m and he had the added bonus of being able to play in midfield. Scored against us last season. We could only sign homegrown players as we've maxed out our foreign quota, but he would have been a handy understudy to Godfrey as the 'ball playing' defender even in the event that all of our centre backs being fit, and a useful insurance policy against relegation (at which point we'd almost certainly be selling Godfrey). I'm afraid I disagree that centre back is the only area of concern though, the Hernandez injury has exposed our severe lack of depth out wide and has unfortunately made it more difficult to drop Stiepermann at a time when he is in very poor form. The option to move Cantwell or Buendia inside would have been nice. There were a few options out wide, Harry Wilson secured a late loan to Bournemouth, could potentially have had a chance if we'd made a move early in the window? There is no doubt that he is an exceptional talent. I suspect we didn't use our second loan spot because we were reserving it for a potential Rhodes loan from Sheffield Wednesday. If we were then that backfired didn't it... Its a shame we didn't utilise that second domestic loan spot.

I'm not sure why you've brought Farke into this Hogesar. He's never been in control of comings and goings, he's a head coach. Its not his fault the club have decided to limit themselves to £1.75m in transfer fees this summer, half the spend of Barnsley, and he would like to have spent money - he has said so himself.

That's not the same as "missing two seasons" though is it... There's an entire season in between those two... And he played 38 games in 05/06 and 23 games in 07/08 so didn't really miss them at all?

"Have Bryam and Drmic been out injured his year?" Thanks for all those rhetorical questions Aggy. I'm surprised you'd forgotten about the 18 days Drmic was out with a Hamstring injury in August though, and Sam Byram is currently carrying an ankle injury??? So obviously the answer is yes to both?

I illustrated quite clearly that you were quoting me out of context like a tabloid gutter journalist, I suggest you get back in that gutter and leave me alone. My point about the pub is that if you decided, bizarrely, to pick a fight with a stranger in a pub and then didn't leave them alone after they'd asked you a dozen times they'd probably spark you out. Now leave me alone you massive freak.

That doesn't appear to be true?

I hope you are right about things getting better Lakey, I really do. But last season wasn't our "best season ever", that's just silly, we're a long way off the levels we were at between 1984 and 1994.... that's our golden decade. Ruined by Liverpool fans at Heysel, we'd have been in Europe 4 times rather than 1 if it weren't for that.

Intentionally ignoring the majority of my words and carefully selecting a few of them to 'win' an imaginary argument that you created in your own head and probably think is being watched by a non-existent crowd of 124 people who are cheering your every post like a year 9 playground fight (they aren't there and nobody gives a toss, leave me alone now you complete internet weirdo).

I keep hearing we've been 'really unlucky' with injuries, why are people prepared to accept this explanation? We're evidently doing something wrong and it is probably the intensity of the training sessions or some bizarre training techniques somewhere. Interestingly, Real Madrid have a serious injury crisis at the moment and some training videos leaked which were heavily criticised by sports scientists all over the world. In addition, we've basically knowingly purchased players with bad injury records because they are cheaper. Why do you think Byram was available for £750k, and Drmic didn't reach his potential and play for Arsenal? Its part of the 'way' we seem to have adopted. Tim Krul had a potential career ending injury. Ralf had 2 muscle injuries and a groin strain last season. Knowingly taking a punt on players with bad injury records is something that Webber has openly admitted to, so why on earth would we then call ourselves "unlucky". Now, we knew that we had a significant number of players with and injury histories (Tettey, Klose, Leitner all had a lot of injuries). So why would this be a huge surprise, and why would this make us 'unlucky', would it not in fact mean that we'd not been as 'lucky' as we'd hoped when knowingly taking risks on things like this? Now most importantly... when you know that you've got probably 5 or 6 players in your squad that would have quite a high chance of failing medicals at other clubs (like Leroy Fer did before we signed him), would that make a pretty compelling case for maxing out your 25 rather than going with 23? How is it "unlucky" to knowingly register only 23 players when you already have 2 player out long term (that leaves 21) and have a good 7 injury prone players in your squad (that leaves 14). Timm Klose = Knee Injury (had one before) Tom Trybull = Ankle Injury (had one before) Mario Vrancic = Calf Injury (had one before) Ralf Fahrmann = Groin Injury (had one a year ago) We've signed players who are prone to injuries, put them into really high intensity training and then cursed our luck when those injuries reoccur. I don't think we've been "unlucky" at all, there was always a realistic chance that our high risk strategy would backfire. If anything we've been naive.

Its not really, its on topic, you just used the words "really unlucky", and I'm not convinced that this is the case at all. Perhaps we've pushed the players too far. The fact that we've started the exact same front 4 every game this season is weird enough, I wonder whether any other sides have done that?

In the whole Premier League there are 9 players out with a groin injury. Its a bit weird that 3 of them are at Norwich City. Clearly we're doing something wrong somewhere.

Not being able to afford to spend £150m is completely understandable and accepted by the majority of fans. But we've spent less on transfer fees this season than Barnsley and about the same as Luton. Perhaps we really are that skint, but it may be a case that we're 'rewarded' some of our existing players a little bit too much? How many of our players Premier League standard, and is it significantly fewer than the number who are now on Premier League salaries thanks to new contracts? There are questions to be asked. I'm personally not convinced that Stiepermann would stand out in a mediocre Championship side or that Kenny McLean is too good for Derby County.

You are missing the point mate. I probably won't ever have a kitchen fire, but I still have a fire extinguisher in my kitchen and home insurance. Just in case I do have a kitchen fire. If my neighbours tell me that they don't have a fire extinguisher or home insurance because "it will probably never happen", I'm not going to cancel my home insurance and sell my fire extinguisher. If they get a fire its their problem. If I get a fire its my problem. How many players Aston Villa have in their squad is irrelevant to our injury crisis. We've already had this conversation by the way Wacky and I'd determined that 3 out of 4 squads I checked had 5 natural centre backs registered.

The only thing embarrassing here is your complete lack of imagination, and Drmic showing you up to be clueless. We're talking about a striker who almost moved to Arsenal for £20m, who has just scored our only goal in 3 games and you are calling me out for wanting to find a way to accommodate him in a side which can't score goals. Probably at the expense of a failing number 10 who spurned 6 chances today. Yeah you sound really enlightened mate. Right same XI again then Kirku, lets give Drmic 5 minutes a week.... proper genius aren't ya mate. Top tier donut.

That's all well and good. Its actually 9 players out injured. But only 1 of those is a forward (Onel), and yet we can't bury chances at the minute. And whilst we've got 9 players injured, the most in the league, there is one with 7 injuries, two with 6 injuries, and two with 5 injuries. And its worse for us because most of those have named 25 players. So ours is 9 out of 23, which isn't 2 injuries worse than 7 out of 25..... its 4 worse.

Actually just wondering whether you are this cocky in the local pub, I'm guessing you are a miserable pipsqueak of a man Kirku. Be gone with you.

I fully support us building a team of free agents and bargain basement gems. But not filling the 25 man squad is unforgivable... even if it were 2 more loans.

You tedious little man.

I must have missed your tenure as Finland manager.