Overall, as l have written, l think this transfer window is going in the right direction. Its great that we are aquiring quality youngsters who are on the cusp of first team football, but some, including me, feel that an experienced leader at CB is what is needed for the coming season. Experience in midfield is certainly covered in my view.
I'm also not sure why Small is getting written off right now. He's a young kid who had 2 bad showings and now he's a failure?
I don't think anyone's writing him off TBF. Just that he's not ready right now for first team football.
Well that's the problem isn't it - None of us have seen him play a game of professional league football. And why not? I just think if a player - a teen one at that - has never played in a properly competitive league game, then the default expectation should be a low one rather than a high one. Because if we expect this kid to be the real deal from the off, then we will likely be in a whole heap of trouble come next May. Now what I'm not saying, is that he's not good enough. I don't know. I bloody hope he is. What I am saying, is that if we are on a tight budget, I think the money needs to go on more experienced players.
We spent years signing loads of players with experience. Experience for top sides in Serie A and Ligue 1. Experience in the Championship, and the Bundesliga, and with Swiss sides that played in Champions League. And it turns out that experience doesn't make you not ****. I would rather have really talented young players than experienced mediocrities.
It's just that if a player has played at least a handful of games, even on loan, then you have a better indicator. Surely. Take Levi Colwill for example. A solid season in the Championship, and I would have no issue plumping 10m on him.
I guess the question is - we are setting ourselves up well for the future, but are we setting ourselves up well for next season? Its a reasonable question to ask but none of us know the answer until the season starts.
Maybe some people are getting carried away? I expect him to very much start as back up for Romeu. It is the one squad spot (assuming two for every position) that we didn’t fill last year. Romeu pretty much needed to play every game. The fact he probably doesn’t now is already useful in it’s own right It was never quite the same when he wasn’t in the midfield. Even if he did have some bad games
I'm optimistic that this board know what they are doing and have done their homework. One thing is for certain we all hope they are right.
Like Greg said, can't imagine we are signing two CMs unless 1 is off or we see planning a system change.
Yeah let's hope so. Depending on the rest of the window, this could be a signing I can very much get on board with.
We're totally fine on squad space. None of the three players we'll have signed even need to be registered in the squad, heh.
