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DumbleDelia is Magic

The great January dilemma!

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I think we are all in total agreement what we want in January- At least one striker who will score goals and keep us in the Premiership.  The trouble is with only £1 million (give or take) to spend we''ll have to be careful how we spend it.  If we want to bring in strikers we have several options, but which one is best for us?

Free transfer- Players who don''t have a club and are available for nothing.  Obviously cheap but how many players fit into this category?  Not that many.  Also, why haven''t they found a club already?  I doubt we will go down this route.

Loan- As we allowed two players on loan I would feel it would be a waste to not bring in another player until the end of the season.  We saw last season just what dramatic effects it can have.  It''s also a relitively cheap option.  It could give us the oppertunity of bringing in a Premiership player from a top club who ordinarily we wouldn''t be able to afford to buy.  Although we would probably have to pay the players wages, it could be a good alternative to using some of our precious transfer kitty.

Low fee, high wages- A club like Bolton seem to like this option a lot!  I''m not saying buy a golden oldy who wants one final pay cheque before he retires.  Players who''s contract is up in the summer who won''t sign with their present club fall into this category.  Somebody like John Hartson (just an example!).  Celtic would probably accept any fee as they know he will most probably leave for nothing in the summer.  Downside of course, high wages

Higher fee, lower wages- The disadvantage with going down this route would be that the player we would be looking to sign would be unproven at Premiership level.  Blackburn did this last January with John Stead.  It worked magnificently.  They got a player for round about a million, for not a lot of wages.  However, it was a big gamble.  If Stead hadn''t scored a load of goals where would Blackburn be now?  Probably cursing their board for buying an unproven youngster from the lower divisions.  Can we take this risk?  Personally I don''t think so.

High fee, high wages- Again even this option has it''s downsides.  What if we go nuts, splash out on a player and still go down.  I don''t want city to waste their hard work last summer by overstretching the wage bill in January.  Personally I don''t think we''d go for this option as the "high fee" column, is a little bit on the short side!

So who will we go for?  Only the board and Nigel knows that one!  All I know is that I don''t want to the club to gamble on our future.  I wouldn''t particularly want us to sign an unproven player with no Prem experience (Ashton?), just in case he couldn''t hack it.  But at the same time I wouldn''t want us to sign an expencive journeyman who might not deliver (dare I put Sutton in this category?)

Who knows! Unfortunately for us though we''re going to have to be brave and play our cards right, for we can''t afford to mess this decision up 

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There is the 6th option ,that by Jan we will be sitting comfortabley in mid-table obscurity and Worthy spends nowt!!

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Crikey DD, you have got high expectations if you''re putting Sutton in the journeyman bracket! I cant think of anyone even remotely within our reach who is of his standard. Personally I''d be over the moon to see him back but I dont think there''s any chance.

Having said that I dont think we are entirely agreed about what we want in Jan. The idea of someone scoring goals regularly certainly has its attractions but is simply buying yet another striker going to achieve it. We do already have quite a few and IMO our top priority always has been, and still is, to get a creative midfield player. So far Hucks has been creating chances but if he were injured it wouldnt matter how many strikers we had because they wouldnt have anything to work with.

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I disagree with your financial figure DumbleDelia....Neil Doncaster has stated that the 1.2 Million we recently made is to be ''added'' to whatever the transfer budget would have been for January. Therefore, if the board would have put forward approx the same amount, we could have close to 2.5 Million to spend.

I do however, agree with a lot of what you have said.

Keep that faith!

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[quote]I disagree with your financial figure DumbleDelia....Neil Doncaster has stated that the 1.2 Million we recently made is to be ''added'' to whatever the transfer budget would have been for January. There...[/quote]

......he also said we would get the profits from the two League Cup games added in.

 

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I don''t think it is going to make much difference between 1.25m and 2.5 m    look at earnshaw he cost 3m and he has not exactly done well

I think ashton will go to everton

I hope we go for a loan young player like pongolle from liverpool or aldeirre from arsenal sorry spelling bad

I am sorry but the DOC and Svenn are first div forwards and can''t even see Doc doing much at centre half

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I''m a fan of us getting an ageing foreigner for six months until the end of the season. There''s a good chance of it going wrong, but it worked when djorkayeff went to Bolton, and when Dugarry went to Birmingham. Often abroad players fall out with managers and are just given free transfers to get them out of the club. I''m sure its worth taking a risk on paying 20k a week, and if it goes wrong it goes wrong. At the end of the day, you pay for what you get, and a striker who will get us 10 goals is likely to cost more than a million

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i think we need to spend significantly in january. i would like to see the norwich transfer record broken for a top class striker. this is just a must. by the time january rolls around, i think we''ll see that we''re in ok shape but, like with last season''s swoop for hux, we will need a player this season to ensure keeping us up.

from a financial standpoint, this makes sense from a risk/return profile view. if we are in ok shape come january, then spending 2-3 million plus the wages is not a HUGE investment when it could mean the difference between going down and styaing up. invest 2-3 million and reap 20+ million with another premiership season.

it''s a fair investment to make that may not have been fair to assume at the beginning of the season. during the summer there was probably a sense of "if we find the right striker at the right price, we''ll take him but if not, let''s see how our lads do. and we can always adjust in january." in the financial world (at least in the US), this is called keeping "dry powder" available -- a chunk of money set aside to carry out additional purchases after the results from the initial set of acquisitions is evaluated.

now that we''ve seen how the season has started for us, we can now go into jan with some certaintly that we''re in ok shape to accomplish the long-term goal of stability in the premiership and the time is ripe for a more aggressive investment to make it even more certain.

i feel certain this will happen in jan. from a investment/merchant banking standpoint (which is coincidentally something i have years of experience in), this is a very logical strategy.

of course, i don''t know for sure but i do hope this is right.

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From a financial point of view I cannot seeing us doing anything else other than trying to get a loan player in.  Even then, this is probably the best course of action for us as we are not in a position to "buy" the sort of player who could make a major difference to us.

It makes far more sense to invest in "high" wages for the remainder of the season from January onwards and then take stock to see where we are going. If we stay up, brilliant, and we can then look to more permanent strengthening of the squad. If we go down, shame, but we wouldn''t have a permanent "high" wage player on the books who could cripple us in the following season.

 

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[quote]I disagree with your financial figure DumbleDelia....Neil Doncaster has stated that the 1.2 Million we recently made is to be ''added'' to whatever the transfer budget would have been for January. There...[/quote]

Correct me if I''m wrong (it happens quite frequently!) but I thought I read a few weeks ago that Doncaster came out and said that Nige had spent his entire seasons budget so please please please don''t cash in Preference B shares.  Then, as we saved £1.2M from the shares, thats what Nige''s budget for January would be?

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Most of us agree that a striker tops the shopping list with a midfielder the next most pressing purchase. However whichever of DD''s options we go for the biggest challenge will be attracting any player who is significantly better than what we already have to the club. The first reason is that city will have an uncertain future in the prem even if things go really well win wise over then next few weeks making a long term signing unlikely.

Secondly we are still relative minnows so unless we are prepared to splash the wage cash a star is unlikely.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, most strikers who are any good will not be looking to leave their clubs because they are either doing well, competing in europe or the top half of the prem or looking for a better contract come the summer. Very few ''significant'' deals are completed during Jan - Saha to Manure is the only one I can recall in recent years.

This means we are looking at either a potential future star (Ashton) with the associated risk of no return in early 2005 or a player out of favour at their club - a small choice of players indeed, espcially given Mutus latest allegations!

Find a gem with that criteria - and getting them to sign - is the real challenge for worthy - Good Luck to him

OTBC



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Malcolm Christie would do fine for me....fast, itelligent, skillfull, curently out of favour due to other more eminent strikers having been signed. Sign him up in January on loan and he could do a "Huckerby"

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[quote]Malcolm Christie would do fine for me....fast, itelligent, skillfull, curently out of favour due to other more eminent strikers having been signed. Sign him up in January on loan and he could do a "Hu...[/quote]

You could be onto something there FatMan.  A player who I very much rated at Derby and has had a tough time at Boro.  Way down the pecking order at Boro, something to prove so will try his very very hardest, probably not too expensive.  Yes please

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That''s a fine suggestion Fat. Viduka was out at the weekend for ''boro and still no Christie even on the bench.

He would be a fine aquisition. Him AND Ashton please Nigel!!

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  You have made some good balanced posts here, known as D.D.isM.  Sticking to my previous prudence points, I favour your loan option and the extravagance of fairly high wages, and this has been advised by Fat.M.F. who has produced from his hat a very desirable name as a target man.  This to me is not breaking the bank, but taking a shrewd move to take some of the weight off DH''S shoulders as well as produce an additional attacking option to balance the front line. 

I was not much impressed by Kanu as value for money at £40,000 a week on Saturday.

To juggle our present  team to advantage, I would be tempted to play Helveg behind the front pair for a game or two, i''m sure his lack of fear would ad passing skill as well as steel in mid field, what''s your thinking on this point.

Well played the lads Saturday, especially Charlton, his reading of the game and anticipation was for me exceptional. and we did get more people in their half and the box OTBC!!!

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[quote]That''s a fine suggestion Fat. Viduka was out at the weekend for ''boro and still no Christie even on the bench. He would be a fine aquisition. Him AND Ashton please Nigel!![/quote]

If I recall correctly I think Christie is out with a longish time injury. Seem to recall knee or hamstring problems and they were talking a minimum of 6 weeks or so. This latest setback came as he was trying to return to fitness after a previous injury, not sure if they were linked.

With this sort of record even if he is fit come January may be an un necessary risk we couldn''t afford to take.

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