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fatletiss said:
It's exciting all the ambition and rumoured interest in quality players. I'm "Onboard" with the ambition, but lets be grounded a little. We will still lose games, perform poorly than expected at times and possibly even get a hammering from one if the top three teams. It's football and that happens (Man Utd 8 v 2 Arsenal anyone doubting this?).

The key is we show that progress chart/graph with the mean line showing a steep angled upwards direction.

One bad result doesn't make you a bad team; one swallow etc, etc.
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Agree with this sentiment. Personally I'll be more than happy with steady progress and a mid-table finish next season, without the threat of relegation hanging over us. As for bringing in new players, the policy seems to be about looking for potential rather than established big name signings. I have no problem with that approach either, though if Nicola wants to surprise us all with a Kevin Keegan style bombshell, I'll accept that also - but in reality football's changed too much since Lawrie pulled that particular rabbit out of the hat.
 
Saints Alive said:
Anyone else think that Callum McManaman is worth looking at?, he is one of Wigan's top performers and is surely looking at a return to the Premier League. He would be less of a risk than Phillips or Ince as he is proven in the top league and I reckon we could get him at a reasonable price.
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Would be very pleased with him!
 
Archers Road said:
Agree with this sentiment. Personally I'll be more than happy with steady progress and a mid-table finish next season, without the threat of relegation hanging over us. As for bringing in new players, the policy seems to be about looking for potential rather than established big name signings. I have no problem with that approach either, though if Nicola wants to surprise us all with a Kevin Keegan style bombshell, I'll accept that also - but in reality football's changed too much since Lawrie pulled that particular rabbit out of the hat.
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If we sign Banega he would come very close to do that.
 
rabbitspectrum said:
Fair point torn apart is a slight exaggeration however it's telling that we only scored and kept a clean sheet against teams that finished below us (reading X2, aston villa and newcastle). That is a strong indicator that we didn't get the attack/defense balance right against a decent team. And at times we did get torn apart last season, most recently west brom and newcastle.

We will be put under pressure defensively and experience would be a useful thing to have if any of our young and inexperienced defenders ever crumble under this pressure. Defense is still our most suspect area imo and we would do well to prevent any future problems now. Admittedly we are suspect defensively because our likely back 4 have never played together and could well be excellent however I don't think it is worth gambling on particularly when the benefits of bringing in someone like Gamez or Astori would last for a few seasons at least.

It's also worth keeping in mind that we will imo be much more adventurous going forward than how we finished the season. I doubt we will play the far too defensive triangle of davis, morgan and cork again. Additionally puncheon and lallana - decent going back, might not feature as much either.
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If you look at us over the last ten games of the season, we gave away nine goals (joint second best in the league). Taking the 16 games since Poch took over, 20 goals puts us in eighth for goals conceded.

I don't see either of those stats as saying we have a serious defensive problem. Far from it. I felt at the end of the season that our problems revolved around the ball not ending up in our opponents' nets.

To be clear, I'm not unhappy that we're strengthening but I don't have serious concerns; we withstood the storm last season and will do again.

Vin
 
tomw19 said:
Nor would I, no better than Puncheon. We should be looking for upgrades.
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and we're supposed to be getting shot of him. would make little sense in combination. I wouldn't mind keeping punch but if the management have more ambition great.
 
Onionman said:
If you look at us over the last ten games of the season, we gave away nine goals (joint second best in the league). Taking the 16 games since Poch took over, 20 goals puts us in eighth for goals conceded.

I don't see either of those stats as saying we have a serious defensive problem. Far from it. I felt at the end of the season that our problems revolved around the ball not ending up in our opponents' nets.

To be clear, I'm not unhappy that we're strengthening but I don't have serious concerns; we withstood the storm last season and will do again.

Vin
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Stats can be misleading, Cork and Morgan were concentrating so much on defence that our attack suffered, it was like we had two teams on the pitch at times. Gaston is good at certain things but linking defence with attack is not one of his strong points. The Banega or Fellani type of player is what we need who can bring the ball out of midfield to form an attack.
 
benditlikeabanana said:
Stats can be misleading, Cork and Morgan were concentrating so much on defence that our attack suffered, it was like we had two teams on the pitch at times. Gaston is good at certain things but linking defence with attack is not one of his strong points. The Banega or Fellani type of player is what we need who can bring the ball out of midfield to form an attack.
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Stats can, indeed, be misleading but over those last ten games, we were ninth in the division (tenth over last 16 games) despite our attack "suffering".

I'm not saying don't improve (I'm gald to see the defence being bolstered). I'm just saying that there is probably no need to panic about the state of the team.

Vin
 
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