So what has changed?

[Sooty57 414]

Ok, so we didn''t get a "marquee" signing at a vastly inflated price, but why do some see that as automatic relegation?

We still have the players that beat Arsenal, Spurs and Man U. Possibly we have a few more options in attack... that remains to be seen.

The chances are that maybe as few as 36 points will be enough to secure prem place. That is quite do-able with what we have. We also still have our transfer budget largely intact, ready to spend in the more leisurely, and more realistically priced, summer transfer window.

Spending sh*tloads of money does not guarantee safety, and if we had got RVW , Hooper or anyone else, and gone down, people would be queuing up to moan about the board driving the club into administration.

I know a lot of people on this forum won''t like this view, but to quote a famous film "Frankly my dear, I don''t give a damn"

[Alan_Grey 0]

I agree with you completely.

Very few teams did business this window, even few did significant business. I wonder how many of their fans are saying they are headed down? Villa fans might have a point, actually.

[ricardo 8,034]

Nothing much except the King of Spain has gone, Moro has morphed into a shorter guy with a South American accent and the coffers are £200k lighter.Apart from that all A OK.

[clarkey1972 0]

[quote user="Sooty57"]Ok, so we didn''t get a "marquee" signing at a vastly inflated price, but why do some see that as automatic relegation?

We still have the players that beat Arsenal, Spurs and Man U. Possibly we have a few more options in attack... that remains to be seen.

The chances are that maybe as few as 36 points will be enough to secure prem place. That is quite do-able with what we have. We also still have our transfer budget largely intact, ready to spend in the more leisurely, and more realistically priced, summer transfer window.

Spending sh*tloads of money does not guarantee safety, and if we had got RVW , Hooper or anyone else, and gone down, people would be queuing up to moan about the board driving the club into administration.

I know a lot of people on this forum won''t like this view, but to quote a famous film "Frankly my dear, I don''t give a damn"[/quote]

Good post.

Agree 100%

We will have even more to spend in the summer being held to ransom by celtic would be stupid, its not like we are bottom of the league and panicking.

[lappinitup 629]

The most important thing is we haven''t lost anyone. Imagine how gutted we''d all be if we''d have lost Snoddy, Holt or Bassong.

[ron obvious 1,711]

Ricardo, I think it''s a bit disingenuous to equate Morison with Becchio. For whatever reason, Moro is not doing it at the moment. He might as well not be there.

On that basis it would be difficult for Becchio to be any worse. He is scoring goals. Whenever I''ve seen him he looks a classier player than Morison.

It''s a gamble, as all signings are, but the downside risks are very small I think.

And I''d be very, very surprised if Kamara is worse than Kane.

[Ginja 43]

[quote user="ricardo"]Nothing much except the King of Spain has gone, Moro has morphed into a shorter guy with a South American accent and the coffers are £200k lighter.Apart from that all A OK.[/quote]

Let not forget we haven''t won in 7, managing only 2 points from 21 and scoring 6 goals

Things are far from A OK just yet, we need a win and pronto...

[PurpleCanary 6,386]

[quote user="Sooty57"]Ok, so we didn''t get a "marquee" signing at a vastly inflated price, but why do some see that as automatic relegation? We still have the players that beat Arsenal, Spurs and Man U. Possibly we have a few more options in attack... that remains to be seen. The chances are that maybe as few as 36 points will be enough to secure prem place. That is quite do-able with what we have. We also still have our transfer budget largely intact, ready to spend in the more leisurely, and more realistically priced, summer transfer window. Spending sh*tloads of money does not guarantee safety, and if we had got RVW , Hooper or anyone else, and gone down, people would be queuing up to moan about the board driving the club into administration. I know a lot of people on this forum won''t like this view, but to quote a famous film "Frankly my dear, I don''t give a damn"

[/quote]

 

In that case you mind if someone disagrees...

For what little it is worth my assessment is as follows:

We have got in a goalie who may be marginally better than Bunn, which is fine. Nothing has been done about the lack of back-up to Bassong and Turner in central defence. The problem of a central midfield that can''t hold on to the ball has not been addressed. Becchio is at worst a marginal improvement on the (for what ever reason) Morison of this season, and may be better than at-worst. Hughton may also feel he can now play with two strikers at some parts of games. So a potential plus there.

Overall, given that we are in a relegation fight, that looks insufficient to me. I don''t mean we will now get relegated. But it appears we had considerably more money to spend than we spent. I am not advocating spending money for the sake of it on players the manager doesn''t want (let alone with stratospheric wages attached).

But given the obvious needs a net outlay of perhaps a few hundred thousand looks very odd. For example, it seems that we may have been haggling with Birmingham over a difference of a few hundred thousand for Curtis Davies. If we are saving the money for Hooper that makes sense, but if we don''t (as we didn''t) get Hooper then could we really not afford to meet or at least get much closer to Birmingham''s price?

Bowkett and McNally have never lost an opportunity to stress how paramount staying up is this season. The board seems to have done its bit by providing McNally and Hughton with enough money to ease our relegation fears. But one way and another we seem to have missed out on two serious targets and spent very little. If we do end up going down the next AGM will be an interesting affair.

[Sooty57 414]

I don''t mind you disagreeing one bit Purple. It would be a pretty boring place if we all agreed on everything. Your reasoned response is a welcome change from some of the doomladen drivel on these boards. I agree with much of your sentiment. I would also have loved to have seen us strengthen the squad IF the right players had been available.

My initial post was more of a reaction to those wringing their hands in despair at out inevitable relegation bought on by the deliberate ploy to deceive us with false bids on players we never intended to buy. I also dislike players being rubbished before they have even had a chance to step on the pitch and prove themselves. OK, the MLS is not the EPL, but that doesn''t mean that Kamara won''t do a job for us, at least in the short term. As I said in the original post, we still have basically the same team that has beat some of the top clubs, and 14 games left to play, and are 7 points clear of the drop.

Had we been a couple of points clear of the relegation zone I would probably have been a great deal more concerned.

[PeekJNR 0]

We now appear to have the option to have a Plan B if things arent going well or we need to mix it up. That being formations and/ or players.

Essentially we now have 3 (4 if you include Jacko) Strikers who are at our disposal, and the ability to replace Holt almost like for like if he were to get injured. As many people have stated Kamara is an unknown quantity that can hopefully work in our favour. Watching his ''Tribute'' videos looks like the type of player we have been missing. Hopefully these arent his only good moments and he comes good at FCR. Carrying on with Kamara, it seems as if he were to played on the wing he looks a very similar player to dare I say it, Hucks. His direct play and pace along with his apparent want to take players on can surely only work in our favour. (Providing a cross comes into the box and people get into the box). And from the reverse cross if another player were to be putting the ball into the box, looks like a more than capable header of the ball. He seems to have a mean shot on him, (saying that so does Johnson, we only need to tell him its the between the 3 sticks not Row Z).

What I like about Becchio is the fact he is left footed and also something I have only discovered, 6ft 2. Now Moro was around the same height but that makes Becchio taller than Holt, who is 6ft. The fact he is left footed also makes him harder to defend against as a striker imo, although it seems he can finish with both. He is incredibly strong from what I have seen and will not be easily shrugged off the ball. It seems in all honestly weve bought a slightly younger, taller, left footed Grant Holt.

I feel as a fan we have strenghtened our squad on paper with these two signings, however only time will tell if we have so.

[Highland Canary 78]

The weaknesses so evident in our squad have not been addressed. So, to answer the OP, very little. Our decline will therefore continue.

[JF 694]

Whats changed? Well the formation that served us so well for the 10 game unbeaten run appears to have been found out and there is no plan b. We have 2 very combative central midfielders but combined they must be the most uncreative midfield in the league, So that leaves our isolated centre forward feeding on scraps every match. As the post above said it should have been clear to everyone we needed to strengthen and freshen things up, We didn''t and that may as yet cost us our PL place.

[Joanna Grey 0]

"...Moro has morphed into a shorter guy,,, "

Yeah, all of half an inch difference.