With Dudgeon and Fryatt 99% done for the season we have 2 wages free'd up now for new players. Thank goodness for insurance.
Does an insurance company cover wages when you've known the player is injured and have played him anyway which has aggravated the situation?
You can more or less insurance on most things, just depends whether the premiums are worth paying. There may well be insurance in place for long term injuries.
A doctor would have informed us that there was a risk of aggravating the injury though surely? Who's that car windscreen company that go on about if you get a chip and call them out it's free but if you leave it and it cracks it won't be? If a windscreen fitter tells you it's ok to drive with a chip but it could crack you're not going to get out of the cost by saying he said you could drive like that. There was none for Bullard thanks to his previous injury jacking the premium up.
I would assume that if a risk of further aggravating a known injury had been advised, then players wouldn't be risked. Why would they go against medical advice?
Jay Simpson has done pretty well so far this season after his first real run in the side for us in two years - he also links up very well with Aluko as seen by the sublime first goal at Brizzle. However I am not convinced he well bag 16 goals like Fryatt did last season and doesn't have the predator instinct that Fryatt has IMHO - illustrated perfectly yesterday with 2 or 3 spurned chances that could have cost us. We do lack a physical presence up front as Plan B - hopefully we can get Nick Proschwitz to stick his head in more with his height as the season progresses. Will be good to get Hobbs back to play in a back three - also thought Rosey did more than just ok in the left back role in Dudge's absence.
Some pretty bizarre views on the abilities of Fryatt; just look at his stats up to Xmas and tell me he would have saved those games. He is a decent larker, but ffs he had endless assists and failed to complete them - to be fair, Simmos finishing yesterday was very similar. They both need to look at how Aluko strikes a ball. For all of the class that we displayed against Bristol, the winning goal was an out and out fluke and we need to look at our finishing. The manager gave them the formation and players to open Bristol up and they did just that (Quinn was superb) and then the Bristol goal, which was well crafted and well taken; then our rythmn and domination simply vanished and we allowed Bristol to share the game. We finally got going again and as Quinn said (post-match interview) if we get fing that consistency then we will be a very hard team to beat. 3 good points and an excellent team effort.
Re Fryatts 16 goals how many of those were penalties. When comparing with Simpson and what he needs to score to emulate Fryatt we should take those off? The one Simpson missed yesterday should have been in. And yes Waggy who got two goals there -I read in Amber Nectar the day before Churchill died in 1965 -would have got it. There were other occasions in the second half when we had open goals and shot straight at the keeper. Point is lots of chances but conversion rate was poor. But nice football at times and a great win. Thought the defense was very shaky at times. Who has been teaching Paul McShane to pass. He played some good and sensible balls out of the defense he is way better in the middle than out on the right. Elmo was right to berate Aluko for not passing to him. It was incredibly wasteful.