It's been reported in the press we had a bid rejected for him in August, but i was of the belief we had agreed a fee with them but couldnt finalise a deal due to Brighton not being able to find a replacement!?
Seems the most likeliest deal for us so far, another striker I would take a punt on is Chris Wood... £1mil is a bargain for a srtiker of his age and quality!
yes, he's certainly got 'something' about him. i think he'll be a really good striker one day but not sure he'd get into our team at the moment. he fits into the 'harry kane' mould and we already have him! i think if we are going to sign someone up front it needs to either be someone who can put serious pressure on holt or preferably be much better than him. chris wood isn't going to be that guy. mackail smith might be (the first bit anyway!)
Why is nobody, apart from me, prepared to give Harry Kane the chance to prove his reputation and pay back some of the large loan fee and other expenses we have paid out for him? I just don't see the need to pay over the odds for a striker in Jan - why can't it wait until the summer?
i think you're right. what i would say though is if the right player for the long term future of our club becomes available at a price we can afford, surely we should sign that player now so we don't risk losing out on them. just because we have harry kane on loan doesn't mean we can't add more options - his loan fee was rumoured to be around £300k for the season so its substantial but hardly the end of the world if he doesn't play that often. all we are doing is developing someone else's player - if he adds something to our team now then great!
The problem is there are lots of good players out there who would no doubt bring a bit to the squad but not improve it greatly. We now to move up a level so require very good players who are better then what we currently have and don't just make up the numbers. Obviously these are few and far between at a price we can afford. Therefore we must be patient and find the right player, we have good options as it is so if we need to wait until the end of the season then so be it. No point in buying players for the sake of keeping fans and media happy
They're is also the possibilty that Hughton may well want to sell one of our current strikers and improve in January, we still need to face the facts that although were in a very good run we're not exactly banging them in left right and centre upfront and maybe a new face will help that problem... 3 or 4 seasons ago Arsenal we're flying and fans we're crying out for the Arsenal board to give Wenger the cash to see it through, they didn't and they fell apart in that 2nd half of the season. Altough were in a good place at the moment, the exact same thing COULD happen to us!!!
We need players different to what we have already. I don't want CMS, Murray or Morison here next year, I'd rather have Robbie Keane for a few weeks and then by somone decent for less money in the summer. We have hard work up front, but apart from Holt (don't know what Kane is like), very little quality on the ball.
On the striker front - what do you think CH will do with Vaughan when he comes back at the end of the season? Same question with Ayala?
From what I've seen of Kane - which isn't a great deal, in common with everyone else - I would have thought in our current system he is more realistically a challenge to Hoolahan than to Holt. He seems more suited to the second striker role than playing right up top, but time will tell. On the subject of buying a striker, I think one of the issues with getting a top quality player (apart from the obvious fee/wages etc) is the fact that we are clearly playing a system with only one striker, and that striker is Holt. So why would someone come to the club knowing that at best they will be Holt's understudy? Realistically I'd say we need to be looking at a young player who will gradually replace Holt rather than an established top flight player in their prime.
Now what we need isn't a striker we need to find an 18 or 19 year old that can be trained in the dark arts of Hoolahoopery so that if Hoolahoop did get injured we would have a decent replacement. We are far more vulnerable if he gets injured than Holt or anyone else.... maybe other than Bassong as our defense has been pretty dire without him on occasions
Can his Hoolahoopery classes also extent to an ability to maintain under the radar to international managers, avoid interest from other clubs, and develop a loyalty for our club? Also, can we give these classes to every player?
I would imagine it does come with those other abilities note Holt's absence from Euro 2012 amongst other things. I am not sure if the Hoolahoopery can be given to everyone as it may dilute over time
There arent too many players who play the role that Hollhan plays and for all the midfielders we have I dont think we have anyone as a direct replacement if he was injured. I know it has been said many times before but I think Dani Pacheco is the nearest I have seen to him. Dani loves the club from what I have seen and if rumours are correct could be available for a relatively small fee. He is also young and would be a good investment.
I can't see either returning - part of the reason for farming them both out on loan was to give them match time and test their fitness - both have had injuries and spent time with the physio and thus Hughton's plan has worked as neither seem physically capable of playing a whole season or even half a one for the matter. Expect to see them both gone in the summer.
I'm more expecting ayala to return, but Vaughan will be off and maybe in Jan to put funds in the transfer kitty
don't agree about ayala at all although much depends on his injury record at forest. vaughan is different as he hadn't settled but ayala is 21 years old and was blatantly loaned out to get first team football, not to put him in the shop window. vaughan i agree will leave. whether ayala will ever be good enough for our first team is another question but i doubt we'll just dump him this summer. he would have been fourth, maybe fifth choice this season. both he and vaughan needed a sustained season of football which they couldn't get here, to get over their injuries. if ayala only ends up being back up for our first team then so be it but i can't see hughton looking to sell a very promising young defender - he'd probably have to be replaced with another promising defender so what would be the point? it'll be ward who departs before him.
