I wonder if Saturday may help Hughes in discussion with the Board? The Board have been fantastic over the summer and we have seen some serious cash spent which we were longing for last summer. As is proper with a business, all negotiations are in secret unless leaked and then posted somewhere. I hope that the drubbing will help Hughes in his discussions re acquiring a decent centre back and another defender or two and meybe even another proven goal scorer. For example, if Chris Samba wanted to come but there was the difference of a mill or two, that bad result might just tip the board into opening the collective wallet again. It is not much of a silver lining but, even to a relatively clueless tactition like me, the defence was woeful on Saturday. More woeful than the strike force who did not get good enough service.
Fair comment, mate. I've always thought that AF is not up to the required level and is a liability, so any improvement to our backline can only help us.
It would be good to get some more new faces in...but given the investment that has already come, and the beating we were given on Saturday, I think the board might be hesitant to spend even more money until things start going well...just hope it is not too late.
There seems to be some implication that the board may not support Hughes, or that he needs to use the dismal display on Saturday as a bargaining chip to obtain a better defence. I don't think that he needs any help in his discussions with "the board". What we do not know is who we have been after over the summer. Maybe nobody, maybe some great talent. We don't know. Have we lost out on anybody? We don't know. And if we have we certainly don't know the players reasons. Are there more transfers in the pipeline? We don't know. It could be simply that the defenders we are after are hanging on until the last minute hoping to get more money (for their agent!) I think it is more to the point that the board will want to know if Hughes will set up the team in the same way again, leaving massive holes in the middle of the park for the opposition to exploit. This was the problem last season when the midfield went missing, gave the ball away and missed tackles. The defence was overworked and pulled apart ... just like on Saturday.
On the negative side of this any player watching or reading the reports after this match maybe put off coming to a team that are obviously in for a dog fight at the bottom of the table. Not my my thoughts but it maybe the way some people think!
I would like to see us bring a couple new players but if we dont i still think we have a pretty good squad. I think we will get a result agaist Norwich and everyone will talking about a top ten finish again.
