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ncfc2012

new season upon us and we have jerome & lafferty

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as our only forwards, not great is it, neil kept saying lessons learned from last summer what a load of rubbish, the same old problems are still there

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Don''t like your way of communicating , but there is truth in what you''ve posted. I don''t understand the pursuit of McCormack ... Either he wants to come or he doesn''t , either we''re prepared to pay or we aren''t...

If we''re not prepared to pay the money they ask, stop it and pursue another striker. But there did not seem to be a plan B...

I''m nervous about the situation, ''cause with that forward line we are not contenders!

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Jerome deserves the benefit of the doubt. yes it''s a concern our only other striker is Lafferty but Jerome came down last time after only scoring 2 goals and playing a lot of games for Palace and scored 20 with us, inc a vital and well taken goal in the play off final.

He scored 3 (4 really) last time in the PL for us while sharing time with Mbokani, there''s no evidence he''s worsened as a player so he should have a good year again.

Even we wouldn''t go into this season with just those two, but Jerome is more than capeable of holding down the fort till more signings arrive and to be honest at about 20 of the other Championship clubs, he''d be the main striker anyway.

Panic if we haven''t got anyone in with a week to go before the window closes. As it is now it''s just a concern if Jerome gets injured

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Well, everyone on here was desperate for Lafferty to get a chance last season in the prem because "he couldn''t do any worse".
Now there''s a real possibility he might play some minutes and people are ready to jump off a bridge.

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There have been assurances that lessons were learned from last summers'' very poorly conduct window. KTF😄

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I think the frustration stems from this being an obvious need all summer. Just like last year with our defence, we knew Mbokani would be leaving, we knew RvW wasn''t going to be the answer and we knew Lafferty and Jerome were not going to be good enough.

Strikers should have been priority number one and yet we''re less than a week away from the start of the season and it hasn''t been addressed.

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We clearly haven''t learned the lessons of the past. We can''t blame McNally anymore it is the fault of the owners. I wish they would do what is in the best interest of the club and sell up but their narcissism won''t allow them to do it.

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Just look at the transfer window all round though - a couple of clubs aside, not many have done much business yet, and there seem to be more transfers than ever dragging on all summer. It''s easy to panic if you only look at us, but the window is very very slow all round this summer.....

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@Temp

I''m not sure that is actually true though- a quick look on Transfermarkt suggests over 100 permanent transfers have been done so far this window and quite a few strikers have moved. So there is movement in the market and other clubs have made things happen.

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How very dare some of you to be more upbeat! Of course it may well be that transfers across the board have been slow (just look at the lists widely available), we''ve kept our PL squad almost entirely intact (replacing the only leaver and having a series of players commit to extended deals), and only need a striker to be at the squad level of last season (and that''s not allowing for new guys like Maddison + older/wiser Murphys), but forgetting these points we are clearly in the mire.

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@ king canary

how does that compare to most other summer transfer windows though? 100 transfers across all the English league clubs doesn''t seem like many to me with less than a week before kick off - that works out at just over 1 per club, so therefore with two in already we are ahead of the average!

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Should have been clearer- that is 100 across just Championship clubs and only perm deals.

So that is just over 4 per club.

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@ king canary

decided to do a little research. There were 93 transfers in the last week in July ALONE last summer. As I suspected, this transfer window is definitely slower than the norm.

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King - there have obviously been moves, and in that ''over 100'' we have two ourselves (+ been party to several leavers signing elsewhere) - it really hasn''t been particularly busy, though. The Euros have surely got in the way - a lot of things are dependant on a chain that starts in the PL, and they obviously start their season later.

I have an idea in my mind that we have some ££ to spend (and will do) but for us to be able to afford McCormack we may be reliant on selling Brady, which hasn''t yet happened but seems likely (remember the stories that McCormack might sign ''later in the week'') with PL sides in less of a hurry; in turn, Fulham want a ready-replacement who they can''t sign until they sell. Obviously they may get fed up with waiting on us and sell him elsewhere, but the ''churn'' could well be waiting on a sale up the line.

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Jerome is good enough but as has been commented above the concern is what if he sustains an injury or loses form.

I still think that if given a concerted run up front (as opposed to left wing) Lafferty could do a job for us with the system we play.

However, for a club of our status to go into the season with just those two senior strikers is not acceptable and I agree that this should have been addressed several weeks ago.

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I agree with some of this but I also think we need to add two strikers to the team (especially as I don''t think AN really rates Lafferty at all).

So pursing McCormack is fine but in the meantime strikers like Fletcher, Graham and Bradshaw have all been snapped up. I''m not saying these guys would be sure starters but they would provide competition and alternatives to Jerome while we chase that number one target.

So while it might be a slower market there has been adequate room and time to address this clear hole in the squad.

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With bang average players like Graham and Fletcher ? I''d rather we kept our money until someone better and more suitable was available

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I think we should stop chasing McCormack and go for two younger and hungry strikers from lower leagues and give them a shoot, thats more than 60 mins in the season...why spend £15m on a player when you can spend that on 2 or 3 from the lower leagues or across the seas?

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For me the big point is that we are fortunate in that unlike some other sides in this division, having retained the bulk of our squad we really only need to make one or maybe two decent signings this summer with the most obvious one being a striker. I suppose you could say that means its worth being patient to get the right man in McCormack but on the flipside you could say we were fortunate in that we could be focused on that player and should have been able to act decisively and get a deal done quickly.

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@Fenway

Graham got 7 goals in 18 games at Blackburn last season- over a whole season that would be a return of 15 goals. Pretty decent, certainly better than Lafferty and no fee involved. As I mentioned this wouldn''t be the only striker signing, just one to provide depth and competition.

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I don''t disagree with that - AN has said that there are one or two others in the pipeline, so we hopefully aren''t spending all our time and effort on the one player. The thing I can''t agree with that some seem to have is that it is all dead easy - a lot of transfers take time for whatever reason (look at Pogba to Man U, dragging on and on) and I''m certain those at the club get frustrated as the rest of us do, but it is what it is.

When all''s said and done I guess we are fortunate that we haven''t needed large numbers of players and could actually do with shedding a couple in m/f.

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Agree pickles but I can''t see why we could not have done our business much quicker or when did we start negotiating for McCormack?? I suspect it was only recently rather than as soon as we were relegated

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I think people moaning about the length of time the McCormack deal is taking would do well to not start slating the club.
Look at a massive club like Manchester United and a £100 million transfer fee - they still dont have Pogba over the line yet.

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"One or two others in the pipeline", our managers are very good at pulling the wool over people''s eyes, it''s almost like a PR stunt they have been trained to use. I don''t mind if we haven''t got a striker by Blackburn, but we really need one after! Morris isn''t up to it ino

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i have no suggestions of which players from the lower leagues to go for...but i do wonder if £15m for a ageing striker is the right amount, hard to tell in this market!

We will see there is a long way to go till the window closes, all i hope for is 100% commitment and hunger to win from who ever wears the yellow and green!! COYY!!!

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We need to hit the ground running in this league as the top six does not change greatly after the first few weeks.

Jerome is not the answer after last years poor performances and we need two strikers very quickly to boost the attacking threat.

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i do not know who is to blame

is it the club not signing alex''s list of players OR

is it alex not given the club the players to bid for ?

AN must tell the CEO how much of his kitty he wants to spend on each player so i would not blame the club to much

i think its lack of targets not lack of money as we have redmonds money and what ever else we had

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The summer transfer window is open through to 11pm 31 August. That is another 4 weeks to get players in. Best guess is Neil feels he will be more successful bringing players in closer to the deadline, as is normally the case with most clubs. Though not ideal given we will start the season with just two recognized strikers, I am sure we will get by with Jerome up top for a few matches. And it is not like we dont have other players that can play up front. Wes and Naismith and even Morris spring to mind.

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