Injury updates- Cantwell and Hugill out until late December/early january (Although Hugill may need surgery), Mclean out 4 months and Xavi still out for an unknown peroid

[Canary Wundaboy 1,358]

53 minutes ago, cambridgeshire canary said:

unironically would love to see Holt play in the yellow and green for us again. Sure he's almost 40 but he can't do that bad right?

Scored a great header at the Russ vs Wes testimonial not so long ago and he’s still playing....

[wcorkcanary 4,329]

Im sure WFLGH would relish the intensity of DFs training regime.

[kirku 1,332]

20 minutes ago, Canary Wundaboy said:

Scored a great header at the Russ vs Wes testimonial not so long ago and he’s still playing....

Wilbrahimovic looked in good nick..

[Thirsty Lizard 3,155]

1 hour ago, hogesar said:

Has everyone gone mad due to lockdown?

There was plenty of mad nonsense on here before lockdown Hoggy - no reason why it should stop now (and I hear that Chris Sutton still lives in the area - he maybe about 90, but he could still do a job for a couple of games surely?)

[hogesar 9,618]

42 minutes ago, Canary Wundaboy said:

Scored a great header at the Russ vs Wes testimonial not so long ago and he’s still playing....

Next time we have a defensive crisis we can get Fleming and Mackay back into the fold too!

[Jim Smith 2,314]

7 minutes ago, Thirsty Lizard said:

There was plenty of mad nonsense on here before lockdown Hoggy - no reason why it should stop now (and I hear that Chris Sutton still lives in the area - he maybe about 90, but he could still do a job for a couple of games surely?)

I'm only semi joking. We have one fit striker. We have 11 games in about 26 days. We can;t afford to flog him into the ground. I have no idea if any of the kids are up to stepping up but signing a free agent on a short term deal not the most ridiculous idea in the world surely? That is assuming they can be registered to play still?

[Grando 260]

4 hours ago, Feedthewolf said:

I'd rather see one of the AMs playing as more of a false nine. Josh Martin might be able to do it. Failing that, I guess The Marco Stiepermann Experience™ would thresh around up there like a giraffe on a unicycle. 

Well, Stieps was "born to score goals"...

[Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man 3,783]

30 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

I'm only semi joking. We have one fit striker. We have 11 games in about 26 days. We can;t afford to flog him into the ground. I have no idea if any of the kids are up to stepping up but signing a free agent on a short term deal not the most ridiculous idea in the world surely? That is assuming they can be registered to play still?

It was mentioned earlier in the thread that Drmic isn't being considered because he hasn't met a lot of his teammates and would need a few weeks to get up to speed. I think that Drmic, already on the payroll, would be brought into the fold before any free agent.

And let's be honest, as poor as Drmic was last season, I'm confident that he'd offer more than a 39-year-old Grant Holt who hasn't played pro football for three-and-a-half years and hasn't played at this level for five.

[Feedthewolf 4,844]

32 minutes ago, Grando said:

Well, Stieps was "born to score goals"...

He was "born", I'll give him that.

[FenwayFrank 2,457]

2 hours ago, cambridgeshire canary said:

unironically would love to see Holt play in the yellow and green for us again. Sure he's almost 40 but he can't do that bad right?

You haven’t seen him recently have you 😁

[Feedthewolf 4,844]

2 minutes ago, FenwayFrank said:

You haven’t seen him recently have you 😁

I saw him playing for Wroxham in the FA Vase last season, he barely got a kick.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

Soto has played for the US national team now. Can't we now get him a work permit and bring him back from Telstar?

[Feedthewolf 4,844]

20 hours ago, Feedthewolf said:

I can't imagine that anyone who played for the U23s in Norwich today will be travelling all the way to Stoke and back just to make up numbers on the bench. McAlear and Dickson-Peters will be on the bench, along with Barden, McGovern, Vrancic, Rupp (even if he's not fit), Martin and Zimbo. Same starting XI as Saturday, just with Tettey in for Rupp.

No insider knowledge here, just my hunch.

Well I was nearly right... aside from Martin starting ahead of Placheta!

[Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man 3,783]

3 hours ago, keelansgrandad said:

Soto has played for the US national team now. Can't we now get him a work permit and bring him back from Telstar?

To qualify automatically, he needs to play in a certain percentage over a certain period of time, and it depends on the United States' world ranking. 

You can apply for an exception, but I'm not sure on what grounds they can be granted. 

@Bethnal Yellow and Green, you're needed again!

[Bethnal Yellow and Green 1,557]

10 minutes ago, Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man said:

To qualify automatically, he needs to play in a certain percentage over a certain period of time, and it depends on the United States' world ranking. 

You can apply for an exception, but I'm not sure on what grounds they can be granted. 

@Bethnal Yellow and Green, you're needed again!

Work permits are supposed to be done on a points based system (its all the rage with  visas). 

There are two routes:

Route A is to play a certain percentage of competitive fixtures for your country. The higher the FIFA rank (for what they are worth) the lower the percentage of games you need to play.

Soto does not qualify through route A as he has played zero competitive games for the USA. The USA haven’t played a competitive fixture since the whole COVID thing so the friendly could possibly be taken into account, but that is unlikely. 
 

Route B is to get enough ‘points’ through hitting certain criteria. This includes being signed from one of the ‘big leagues’ in Europe (I believe that is top flight in Germany, Spain and Italy in Europe or Brazil and Argentina in South America); if a player has wages over a certain level compared to other players in the league; if the fee paid is over a certain level compared to other transfers made in the league. 

Soto fails on pretty much all criteria so is unlikely to get a permit this season (also he couldn’t be recalled until the transfer window opens anyway). 

Work permits do still have a weird way of ending up with players that don’t seemingly appear to meet the requirements though. Watford signed a young Brazilian striker who only played a handful of professional games and he was given a permit. There is still a bit of a dark art in permits despite the system used now supposedly removing that. 

The previous system used the international criteria and had an appeals process that was based on submitted evidence. This was very open to abuse as clubs would wheel out the manager to say the player was the best thing since sliced bread and appeals panel found it hard to rule that they knew more than the manager signing the player.
 

Arsene Wenger was known to charm the panel and get permits for all kinds of players who never appeared for Arsenal. Gordon Strachan once described Koki Mizuno as ‘the best player I’ve ever worked with, including Kenny Daglish’. Mizuno made 11 appearances for Celtic over two years.