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charlies dad

Deadline fast approaching

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Thursday midnight i beleive. Im praying for some long overdue transfer action in the next couple of days. Lets face it, after the first 11, we are wafer thin, not only in terms of quantity, but also in quality. A cursory glance at the programme reveals that little Barnsley have a far deeper squad than ourselves, to battle the rigours of a 46 league match season. It is beyond stupid to think that the same 11 players will remain bang on form, and injusry/suspension free for the rest of the season, fauilure to reinforce now, would be an act of Robert Chase like sabotage, akin to killing off the promotion charge before it begins. I firmly beleive we are 3 decent signings short of having a squad to challenge for top 6 this season, lets see some ambition. Attention switches to the board. Waiting. RSVP.

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Hi Charlie''s Dad

I too am concerned - it is one thing to have a season like last year and to have to give up hope of promotion before the leaves fell off the trees, but to have some hope this time (and hoping good things continue) to know we won''t be promoted unless adequate cover is found, is equally painful, if not more so.

Whether we have someone in mind, or the manager thinks we can just get in emergency loan cover remains to be seen.  On last season''s performances, I hope that loan signings are discounted in preference to signings with promise, long term benefit to the club, and most of all, players who want to be here.  

We must have cover for Adam Drury, and at least one other in midfield.  If Safri is not there are Etuhu and Robinson good enough?  What happens should Hucks or Croft get injured long term?  Would we then revert to longball/target man stuff?  IMO we have several adequate players in the reserve/academy squad, but I don''t expect to see too many of them this season as regular first team players....Also, should McKenzie go, what are our options upfront either should Earnshaw be injured, or changing formations, to play alongside him.

The board have to weigh up options obviously.  But they surely know if they wait too long our chance might have gone.  Failure to get promotion this season will have serious implications for the players already here and our ability to attract players in the future.  The money from Green is there in principle, should we get anything for McKenzie before the deadline would that too be added. 

I wonder, like you, CD, what the board will decide. Wait until January and hope we are then still in a strong position, or bite the bullet now, strengthen and go for it. 

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Completly agree with you not even a hint of a signing PLEASE PLEASE Delia, Michael and Nigel put your heads together and cough up the cash and buy utilitarian GREG HALFORD, right back NEDUM ONOURA versatile DAVID VAUGHEN plus a decent goalie. ASAP

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I think the club are very much finding themselves in between a very big rock and a very hard place.  It''s clear we have a thin squad and need players but asking prices seem to be very high right now for the sort of players that we have targeted or will improve us.  In no way is Steve Howard worth £1m nor Hulse over £2m.  Mcsheffrey was sold for a fee that was just a joke and Jerome does not look to be worth £3m.

The club seems to have 3 options for me:

Bite the bullet and pay over the odds for players and hope we gain promotion.
Look for cheaper (and lower quality) players to bulk the squad up just for the sake of adding numbers.
Look for short-term loans and hope we can buy out of favour Premiership players in January.

None of the options are very appealing but with time running out I can''t see us unearthing another Croft for £600k.

 

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[quote user="blahblahblah"]I hear that Chris Sutton might be able to fill the goalie role...[/quote] are you just being facetious? or do you seriously beleive we should carry on with 20 players, of whom about 13 are any damn good? FFS.

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The team are desperate for cover and its not just a case of spending for the sake of it.  Worthington doesn''t have to spend millions but enough to ensure we are insured against possible injuries, suspension or loss of form.  I''m just hoping that Worthy and the board are pulling out all the stops and that his comments today are a smokescreen of sorts.

If we come out of the window with no additions and only the prospect of some dodgy loan signings, then the board need to be asked some very serious questions indeed.

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Sutton even now is 20 times the player McKenzie or Thorne will ever be , they are both lower league rubbish.

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Ignoring the facile attempt to get the sutton debate started again the club does need more players.  As well as the positions already mentioned I have concerns about the right flank.

As much as I like Zipper he has not performed well on the right flank this, last or any season for us (all his sparkling displays coming up front)  and like Bentley before him Croft has yet to complete a full season for a club.  At his age he is still learning his trade and his form will almost inevitably dip at some stage and he will deserve a rest, if he is not injured or suspended first.  Hopefully this will not happen but its more than likely to.  

Look at the balance croft has given us by being a natural wide midfielder - it is as essential for us to have cover there as it is for Drury at left back,  at centre back, central midfield or a striker.

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[quote user="NotWorthy"]

Sutton even now is 20 times the player McKenzie or Thorne will ever be , they are both lower league rubbish.

[/quote]

 

So Sutton will be 20 times more useful than McKenzie to us even in his mid 30''s, I think you talk rubbish. Leon is a handy player to have, especially in this league, as for Sutton, well he hardly set the world alight at B''ham did he? he is past it, stop living in the past.

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Getting this back over to a Sutton-thread is a bit sad, the thing is that so far I don''t see anyone else having signed him up, so that does suggest he wouldn''t necessarily be that good a gamble for us (this is the cue for news to break of him signing for a big Prem side just to make me look a muppet!!).

The thing is that we do need to remember that the transfer deadline doesn''t operate the same for us in the Championship as it does in the Prem: for them it is 31 August or nothing - but we can still get Loan players in after the deadline, and can even do a loan with an advance deal for someone to sign in Jan (as per Etuhu (and Robinson?) last season), so from that perspective the 31 August deadline does seem to be a bit of a myth.....and if anyone read Neil Doncaster''s column in Saturday''s programme (yes, I''m sad enough to read programmes!) he did seem to be dropping hints about Loans: he said that there are + points that people don''t think about with them, along the lines of no transfer fee to pay and no extended contract so no prolonged commitment to the player.  Certainly with the parachute payment due to expire next season that side of things may be something to bear in mind.

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At the moment I think we are showing an incredible lack of planning. To even go into a season with little or no cover for a position (eg LB) suggests to me a lack of ambition to go with the lack of planning. Had Drury got injured the other day, we have no ready made LB. This would have meant us scrambling around for a panic buy/loan, the incoming player would then have to slot straight in and hopefully not take 5 or 6 games to get used to us.   We may need every point we can get if we are up around the top at the end of the season, we don''t want to be looking back and bemoaning points dropped because we had injuries and inadequate cover.

I hop we can get this sorted quickly as we have made an excellent start but if it is undone by us not having a plentiful enough squad then either the board or the manager is to blame. 

 

Mark .Y,.

 

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[quote user="JayM"]

The team are desperate for cover and its not just a case of spending for the sake of it.  Worthington doesn''t have to spend millions but enough to ensure we are insured against possible injuries, suspension or loss of form.  I''m just hoping that Worthy and the board are pulling out all the stops and that his comments today are a smokescreen of sorts.

If we come out of the window with no additions and only the prospect of some dodgy loan signings, then the board need to be asked some very serious questions indeed.

[/quote]Absolutely correct. In a nutshell.

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[quote user="Branston Pickle"]

Loans: he said that there are + points that people don''t think about with them, along the lines of no transfer fee to pay and no extended contract so no prolonged commitment to the player.  Certainly with the parachute payment due to expire next season that side of things may be something to bear in mind.

[/quote]

I think a lot of people do do realise that loans are clearly cheaper in terms of no long term contracts and transfer fees.  The problem is the disruption it causes to the team and squad.  Players on short term loans start to play well /get fit then go back to their clubs before we see the best of them.  The biggest problem as I see it with loans is that it''s almost self-perpetuating in the sense that you are constantly looking to replace your last loanee.  At the end of last season we instantly lost 2 players from the squad in JJ2 and Rehman.

Personally I would rather buy Croft for £600k (and the potential to sell him for more) than loan Bentley or Marney and raise the price for their clubs.  Unfortunately it''s the way the football is run now that clubs are actually "blooding" the youngsters of bigger clubs

I also think it''s sad that the club are clearly looking down the route of loans when last season''s poor league form was put down to players taking time to settle.  Loaning several players will cause the same problem surely.

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