Bill Shankly (or maybe it was Bob Paisley) always said you need 8 men to carry the piano and 3 to play it. I think that's probably changed a bit in modern football but the concept is still fairly sound.
258 games at Bradford and Burton, and 33 for Hearts, its hardly a career in the Scottish League. Apologies for the D H comment , totally out of order.
I don't know that we're that far away from having a decent side really. These days, some of the players have to be able to tickle the ivories while they're shouldering the weight of the instrument and I think we've got some who can do that. We do need a bit more dynamism in midfield and a bit more alertness in central defence. I reckon, depending on who leaves of course, the key signings need to be a centre back, a central midfielder, and a centre forward more like Maja, with a couple more attacking players if we can.
Yeah we're not far off to be fair, after all we nearly got promoted without having a goal scoring striker for half a season so we must be doing something right. As you say it depends on who leaves but personally, if it's possible financially, I'd like to see serious strengthening now rather than tweaks so we do go straight up and have a team competitive in the championship without needing another overhaul. If we're already on a knife edge financially I guess it'll have to be adding a player here and there instead.
I wonder where we are gonna be, budget wise. Is takeover still on? Is Sartori going to be involved? Have Stu and Charlie a plan if no to these 2. It’s a bit in the air ain’t it for now.
Yeah, ideally a big outlay now to develop a Championship-ready team is what we need. I think with the last parachute payment coming now is the time to do that. I'm a bit concerned that we still have a problem attracting players (based on the Jan striker situation) and so if we don't fork out now it might be harder this time next year.
Juan was there on Sunday, looking enthusiastic and like he was enjoying the occasion (before kick off at least anyway). I don't think he'll be going anywhere (other than back to Uruguay to run the place). There was a load of blokes that I didn't recognise with him and Stewie and Charlie who all looked well-heeled. They could have been anybody but it's possible that they were schmoozing potential new investors. It would have been the ideal opportunity to do so.
There was someone sitting next to Methven who is an American investor that we're looking to get on board, can't remember his name. Just had a look, he's called Mark Campbell. Donald also said that 'four or five' potential investors were at Wembley to watch the League One play-off against Charlton, and were not put off by their defeat.
It’s just a case of having a real go this year, and maybe they have to stretch it a bit to keep us above ‘standard League One’. Us and Portsmouth automatically look like the strong 2, the teams coming down, well Bolton are - 12 points and Rotherham will be solid and push as always. If there’s a decent budget there and we can add a spark in midfield and clean up the back line, we should be very strong. Should...
That's good then! I've not seen any of that. I was sat only a couple of seats from the VIP enclosure (someone did me a massive favour and sorted some amazing seats for me and the wife) so I was watching what was going on in there before kick off and there was a load of blokes shaking hands with those three (and Quinny and Kevin Ball and Jim Montgomery) so I was hoping that they might be investors and not just sponsors or hangers on. It was interesting watching what was going on.
We definitely need to kick on from where we are, which I think is a good starting point. Ipswich should probably be strong too. But Jack Ross and the board and anyone who comes in should now have a better idea of what's required to get us out of this division.
Developing our own might be part of the answer, we have some potential in this area and its what I would have preferred this season tbh. Short term fixes, forced on us by short term thinking scuppered our season, half way through, but only just, we are in amuch better situation now to think ahead imo.
What happens with that last parachute payment will have big impact on our competitiveness over the next two campaigns. I don't think we'll have a problem with players who are out of contract. What player, of the caliber we are likely to be recruiting, wouldn't want to play at the SOL. Donald might have a problem doing business with other owners who actually had to pay for their clubs.
This is probably true. There will still be some (or have WAGs) who'd prefer to be near London or Manchester. God knows why.
I don’t know what’s happening with Ipswich, I think they’ve got financial problems as well. I’d imagine they are one of the main opposition though, yeah. There certainly won’t be 5 teams on fire again so if we can have a similar season I’m confident we will be top 2.
Yeah, I've just looked them up and they seem to be losing money and they're up for sale. I think we were a bit unlucky this season based on the form of Luton and Barnsley etc and losing Maja when we did and not replacing him.
Thought we replaced Maja with Will Grigg and I bet there wasn't more than a handful of fans who weren't delighted to snap up a proven league one goalscorer at the right age, never mind the price we were quoted as paying for him. What went wrong with him is the 64000 dollar question, injured, out of form, totally disinterested, not suited to our style of play, I'm sure we would all like to know. Grigg being unable to bring goals to the table even at half the rate Maja did would surely have got us promoted. We need to be active now, which I'm sure we are for new signings and get them on board as soon as the transfer window opens and not our usual scramble on the day it closes.
The camera found it's way to that group once or twice during the broadcast. One of them was chatting up a fit blonde pretty good. She was smiling politely, but you could tell she was squeezing her labia together. Probably the wife.
We filled the gap in the squad that Maja left with Will Grigg but we didn't replace the skill set that Maja brought. I said at the time that I thought Sterling would be a more important signing than Grigg. I was wrong about Sterling but I didn't feel comfortable with the Grigg signing. I was hopeful based on his past but I didn't expect him to have the impact that was required. Maybe he's carrying an injury still, I don't know. We've ended up changing the way we've been playing to accommodate Charlie Wyke and that's been our undoing.
