Fair play, we took a gamble, it hasn't paid off, but the loan will mitigate our wage losses and hopefully put him in the shop window for a sale in the summer to recoup a good proportion of our initial outlay. Bah!
At least it was a cheap gamble. As soon as we bought Hanley we had too many CB's Hanley, Klose, Zimmerman & Raggett is probably as good as it's going to get for a club with our resources.
The too many comment was directly related to our available resources. I think if things had worked out as Farke hope we would never have bought Hanley, but they didn't and keeping Zimmerman, Franke & Raggett just doesn't make sense. Of course if Martin had been seen for what he was and not had his contract extend then maybe we could have kept Franke & let Martin go.
If Klose stays then I think Zimmerman and Hanley are good partners for him, Franke is surplus to requirements, Raggett should stay out on loan rather than warm the bench or rot in the reserves and Martin is adequate cover for 4th choice CB. Of the saleable players we have, Klose is the one I could most happily reconsile selling to fund improvements. If we were to sell him, bring in Raggett to challenge Zimmermann to start with Hanley. Still loan out Franke and we are not too badly weakened. Like others I would not be upset in some respects to lose Nelson if he continues to act like a petulant teen. However, unlike Klose who I think we might not need to replace, Nelson would need replacing and for all his faults, I just can't see us getting someone even as good as him, let alone better. Bah!
The Scottish press seem keen to see Naismith back at Rangers. We are keen to see him go back and thus end an absolute farce of a transfer from Everton to NCFC under AN. What was it - £8m? Without his wages, City would be able to perhaps keep others at Carrow Road. Along with RvW they represent what are the worst cases of wasted money in the last 5 years? It seems that he and Dorrans will be together again. A transfer fee of any size would be a bonus but I bet his contract is terminated by mutual consent?
Agreed but in mitigation, decent money was made on Snodgrass, Brady and more recently Jacob M. We can't change the facts now, but to get his exorbitant (and totally unjustified) obscene wages off the payroll will help.
I wouldn't mind betting that that's exactly what will happen!!! As Cromer says - it will save us around £2M in his wages alone.
Transfer low-lights as far as I can tell... Naismith 8.5m RvW 8.5m Hooper 5.0m Canos 2.5m (tho sold for about the same apparently) Vadis, Lafferty, Becchio (remember him?) Matt Jarvis (3m signed over 2 years ago - 19 appearances. Contracted to June 2019) However, some decent returns on investment for Brady, Grabban, Johnson, Redmond, Fer, Snodgrass.
Not sure I'd include Hooper as deployed correctly, he could (and still can) be very effective. AN loved stockpiling players, even though the club can ill afford such luxuries. Canos, Pritchard and Maddison, all signed by Neil but never considered for selection Bewildering - and very stupid
New head coach during the transfer window.....?? http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...-daniel-farke-next-manager-news-a8122101.html
I'm not sure signing Maddison could be said to be stupid, clearly a very good move to get in such a prospect to take over from Wes, OK so he didn't play him but overall that was still a great move. Same for Pritchard, great player, will probably turna profit, but this one was stupid given we had Wes and Madders. Bah!
I'm sure this is squit, but it could be the remaining players who Webber hasn't signed upset that the days of costa del colney are over. Bah!
It could be true, but there are no quotes to support the story. Personally I think a team in a poor run should be working hard to get out of it. With a nearly fully fit team now, injuries are less of a worry and extra fitness could make a difference over a busy Christmas schedule.
Hooper was rarely deployed effectively because he's ill-suited to the lone-striker formations and tactics favoured by every manager he played under. We really only started to get the best from him when paired with Elmander. So he was a poor signing because there was no way he was ever going to fit in properly. It also didn't help that it seemed to take him 5-6 consecutive games of playing poorly before he started to find form.
DF's view on Naismith seems to differ widely from the views expressed on here: "DF says he read Naismith’s interview and is absolutely fine with it. Says if he was to paint a picture of the perfect pro, it’d be Naismith." While his salary seems high to us, it's hardly that compared to other experienced PL attacking players. It was a reasonable gamble to stay in the PL which didn't pay off. Gambles often don't.
