Ipswich about to pay £12m for MaCateer. I’d take that. He’s probably our worst winger, although I reckon his best position is centrally. He’s never seemed quick or strong enough to me. He’s 23 now so it’s not like he’ll develop much more.
Agree he is probably number 4 of 4 in the winger dept but it always hurts when a home-grown player leaves. I only hope we are allowed to now invest, and I like the links to the Millwall striker. Young and Cifuentes will know of him.
Oh, you mean that PSR that has ruined football, that one? Makes me want to spit. Look at our spend last year as a promoted side - absolute rubbish all because we once dared to compete. Look at what the promoted sides have spent this season. Bournemouth have sold well but they have home crowds of 15,000 and can still buy 40mil players. Chelsea selling hotels to themselves, clubs selling academy players to each other for ridiculous prices just to comply. Football is a farce.
Really good win that, against a team of giants ... their goal rightly disallowed as they wrestled Okoli down in front of the guy that heads it... All the reports rightly going on about Fatawu's worldie and Stolarcyk's MOTM performance... but a shout out to Hamza for a superb captain's performance, leading by example ...
Russel Martin not having the best of times at Rangers so far. We were heavily linked with him and I was a bit apprehensive at best at the prospect. Seems their fans aren’t enamoured with him either.
Justin has left for Leeds, £8m to £10m. I'm not disappointed with this deal, other than it's Leeds. Things seem to have gone quiet on the ElKhannouss to Palace front, despite Eze moving. I'd like him to stay but understand if he gets a better offer in the Prem. So, surely now with the amount of sales and value of the player wages off the books with releases, we can afford to sign someone?
Excellent result - goal assists from a 17 year old and a 16 year old ... wowzers... Boubakary Soumare starting to look like the player we thought we'd bought ... fair play to Cifuentes... liking it so far...
Good result, but we were dominated for long periods in the game, often not helped by a high press that needs a bit more coordination. We left huge gaps for Birmingham to exploit. Must admit I was expecting to see more of a contribution from Mavididi. He never got into the game at all. But I have to say, Vestergaard looked commited and solid. Despite Soumare's performance the midfield looked lightweight and not very creative. They were too often forced to play backwards and sideways due to the lack of forward movement ahead of them. Hopefully after the transfer window closes we can remove the uncertainty and consolidate what we have left. Then we can get more of a settled side and more understanding.
Considering Sky were talking Coventry up as this free scoring team aiming for promotion, I thought we handled them relatively well, even Vestegaard is starting to show some signs of promise. Ayew really is a battier but we need to hope Carranza will be more prolific, he took up some good positions yesterday, just needs to get off the mark and hopefully the goals will come then. On another note, interesting to see Hermansen was on the bench for West Ham yesterday. Is that an injury or is he out of favour already? Stolarcyk seems to be a seamless replacement to far.
Unlucky not to have won - Caranza did look good in his cameo and in Fatawu and Monga we have two of the most exciting talents in this league - good showing from Jordan James too...
I thought we were lucky to get a point last night. Our build up play is fine, getting It out to the wingers, Winks needs to start every game, but when we try to fashion a chance in front of goal we look very short on ideas. Ayew bless him works hard but isn’t a natural goal scorer, and what I saw of Carranza last night he just wanted to play act or con the ref, he needs to learn quickly. And as for Faes’s attempted tackle for their goal….. I thought it was a poor decision to leave Page out of the squad altogether, we’ve got square pegs in a round hole in that position, James and Ayew don’t naturally play that role, I understand if Page was sub and is brought on given his age but given our inability to create any clear cut chances surely we should have someone available who can do that job? On another note, Potter gets sacked again.
Looking like we dodged a bullet with Potter - reports were that he turned us down more than once - funny how fortunes and perspectives change in football - doubt we'd be remotely interested now ...
Wouldn't say we were 'lucky' - we were totally dominating before some clown defending from Vestergaard and Faes gufed West Brom a goal totally against the run of play ... and that changed ghe dynamic - whilst still dominating possession we did leave ourselves exposed to counter attacks as we chased the game - but I suspect if we'd scored first and they had to chase we would have gone on to win that game yesterday with a degree of ease ... but certain things are glaringly apparent ... Ayew is not a centre forward and shouldn't be played there Mavididi is underperfirming and Monga us much more of a threat ... Faes and Vestergaard need to be moved on - as a pairing they would be a liability should we get promoted - I'm way more optimistic about an Okoli / Souttar / Nelson pairing.. Ricardo is a gem ... Soumare is also doing fine ... Page needs to be in the squad ...
Thought Vesty was ok last night, Yes, he got lost in midfield when they scored, but the attempted tackle by Faes was embarrassing. Mav had a good first half but nowhere in the second half. Abdul had his worst game for the club. Going forward we threaten a lot but dont create. It is difficult with Ayew cos I am from a generation where we most want to see players giving everything - and he does. But we have better options than him for both wings, and he isnt a 9 or 10. With the financial position of the club (FFP) if we were to get promoted this season, we would come straight back down again. We would need 9 new players to give us a chance of survival. (Fatawu and Winks excluded). A successful season for me this year, would be top half and a new contract for Abdul.
Last night's performance was a real mixed bag of good and bad. Some of our movement and interplay in midfield was impressive. But unfortunately we don't have any central attackers capable of building on that. Vestergaard played some nice looking passes into midfield, but it took him so long to do it that West Brom had time to get all 11 players behind the ball and double up on our wingers who are our main chance creators. Fosse is right ..... we have to get rid of him and Faes. I've only seen Ben Nelson once and he looked like he'd modelled himself on Vestergaard but without the ability to tackle, so he would be a worry, but Souttar has to be given a chance. At the other end I can't see much change in the goal scoring part of our game while we have Ayew leading the attack. (Don't tell me that we don't have anyone on the pitch who can take a better free kick than him). And Da Cordova Reid? What does he bring? Daka might be worth a few games, but he relies on space behind and he won't find that if we are going to take so long to get the ball up the pitch. And discipline. I can understand players getting frustrated when they've had so much possession but have only managed one miserable effort on target during the whole game, but losing discipline and showing dissent to every decision only leads to cheap and needless bookings or worse. We were lucky to finish the match with 11 players on the pitch. Cifuentes has some work still to do, but some aspects of our performance are looking good. Many of the outstanding problems are down to lack of the right type of player and quality.
Don’t forget Vestergaard signed a three year contract last season, so he’ll still be here next year, and whoever Faes is linked with nothing materialises. I’d love to see Nelson get some game time and Souttar given a chance, after all, we did pay about £20m for him!
