Credit and caution

[Maverick 0]

Unlike most hysterical posters today , I think the board deserve a degree of credit for the Ashton saga.

Credit because this time last year,there were several clubs being linked with buying Ashton from Crewe and our board was the only one willing to put their money where their mouths were and stump up the money Crewe wanted.In reality,a player like Ashton was never going to stay with City for long , regardless of whether we had stayed up or not.Staying up may have prolonged his City career for perhaps another season and a half but in the end he would have moved up the ''chain'' to a club like Liverpool or Newcastle.The fact is that he now has to do that via West Ham instead but dont be fooled by his ''West Ham are a big club'' quotes - I''d be surprised if he stays there much past the end of next season provided he progresses as a player.I also think the board deserves credit for holding out for a fee as high as they got.Given his failings - no pace , injury prone - I think we got a hell of a deal and the price reflected his worth to us more than his ability as a player.I''d go as far as to say that Ashton has now definitely moved for the largest transfer fee that he ever will in the rest of his career unless he shows a staggering improvement as a player.

The caution element is more worrying - Worthy now has money to spend and given his recent failings in that department I think we have cause to be worried about what will come into the club next.A look a yesterday''s teamsheet before the game filled me with dread.The weak links could be identified immediately -

Colin - seems to have gone backwards as a player.His distribution can only be described as shocking.

Charlton - has been poor lately and reaffirmed that yesterday.

Hughes - for all his efforts , he is not a Norwich type player and he is not a skilful player either.

Jarrett & Etuhu - possibly the worst central midfield combination in this division.The game simply passes them by week after week.

Thorne - he at least seems to be trying but is another who lacks the quality required and never looks like making the difference.

Charlton aside , all these players have been signed since the end of last season and add to them the ineffectual (and seemingly injury prone) Robinson and the even more injury prone Louis-Jean and it can be confidently said that Worthy has not signed 1 player since we went down that has made any improvement to the team.

Now we can assume from the quotes that Worthy made after the game re ''round the clock attempts to bring in new faces'' that he will have some of the Ashton money to spend immediately.That is why I am even more worried than if we had sold Deano on the 31st of the month.

[LinkNR9 0]

I agree with most of your post except for Thorne - won more headers than Deano did over the past few weeks, and suffered the same appalling midfield service thet Deano did - and Charlton, who had a good first half down in front of me in the Wensum Wing.