Good Morning Peeps, Marius Zaliukas could sign permanently for Leeds if online reports are to be believed. He played yesterday during the 3-3 draw for the Development squad against the Owls, not a great score line if you ask me, but one player does not make a squad. During this very game, out of favour striker Noel Hunt scored a hattrick! Do we want Hunt in the squad? Does he deserve a starting space? The other trailist that started the development game yesterday was Luis Morrison-Derbyshire. Well LMD currently plies his trade in the Finnish second tier, or Kakkonen if you're feeling Scandinavian, for FC YPA where he is amongst a number of foreigners in the squad. Previously of Arsenal and Stevenage, Morrison-Derbyshire plays predominantly as a centre back and has made 21 appearances this season, bagging one goal in a 7-1 victory over Tervarit. WOW... All the papers yesterday were going on about Dexter Blackstock, lets hope he'll be just a squad player!!!
Funny old day yesterday as the only news coming out of ER was that it looks like we are signing Marius Z and I think that will be a great bit of business. Rangers wanted him and he turned them down to try and get in with us and there are loads of clubs chasing him. Wootton, Lees, pearce and MZ means competition for places and a solid platform. Hunt was a huge surprise but pleased for him as hasn't had a great time since he arrived. Crap result with our makepiece defence found wanting, but lets blame the other new trialist and send him on his way. Poleon and Hunt up top and Hunt bagging 3-goals is good and puts him back in the frame, well bench at least as strikers thrive on confidence, and we now have plenty of that up top with Smith. How ill Dexter fit in or force his way in and do we want him anyway. If the manager wants him then we have to back his judgment and it seems that we were after him in January but Davies gave him a new 4-year deal so he stayed. Brighton and a couple of other clubs are chasing him too, but BMD says to "watch this space" which means that we have him? Somma will not get a new contract and although I wish him all the luck in the world, I'm afraid its too much of a risk and too long since was playing. He'll never be the same player and will be slower, so good Davide wherever you end up.
60 I hope we do get Chris Burke or Tommy Rowe as we need a bit of guile, craft and pace. I'm also sure that suspended Ryan Hall will be back at TA this week because he'll still get paid whilst suspended so I'm sure that will get done quick-time. If it was a twatter issue its not a sacking offence, so the club need to make up their minds about Hall. All week I've seen headlines about the highly talented winger being suspended? highly talented, is he?..... fooking wish he was because we've needed him. So talented he may be but if his head is up his own arse then he's no good for us. Billy Davies should be sacked for wasting club money: he offered Blackstock a new 4-year deal last January to stop him moving to Leeds or Brighton and gave him £15k per week which works out at £3.2m. We won't offer him that in January so if we do sign him you know he wants to come and play for us rather than sit on his arse picking up wages.
Morning all!! Watched the Brum game again, awesome display! Signing Zaliuakis will be a great move, we were talking about him in the summer, and his experience will be vital for our young CBs. The trialist won't get a deal as he is also a CB so not required, but thanks for coming. Very pleased for Hunt, yes he's had a difficult start, but so has the team ... he can still come good for us, long way to go yet so let's see if he steps up when needed. Blackstock? I'm honestly not sure about this one ... be happy for him to sit on Forest's bench until 2017 draining £15k a week from the tw@ts!! Can't see him improving the team or being Prem quality ... yes, surely we should now be looking at adding players capable of playing in the Prem if we are serious about getting there ... and STAYING there!!
Morning all, There's a great video of Luis Morrison-Derbyshire rapping somewhere on newsnow, can't put the link up on my phone. Also he doesn't look too bad in some of the clips of him playing, albeit in the Finnish 2nd division
Morning all. McD said hell only sign players that will improve what we have. Do we assume the two being linked are better or has McD done a u turn through a lack of quality available targets?
McDermott said in the press at the weekend that Somma almost definitely not be offered a contract, but could train at TA
2 articles in the YEP this morning: 1) Marius looks like he will be signing as BMD will be speaking to him at TA later today or tomoz. Great addition and thumbs up from me. the manager said that he played for Lithuania the other night and dealt with Edin Zdecko ok. 2) Hunt saying he would have dropped himself too for Sundays game, but also hinted that the new shape of the team means that balls coming in and any of our strikers would be scoring a hatfull. He's pleased with his hat-trick and is confident and throughout the international break he was there every day with the kids trying things out. So he feels confident again now. Where does this leave the Dexter deal though, because if we have players who are capable of scoring as many goals as Blackstock, why should we bring him in. BMD must be more relaxed about our strikers now if he's going to use that shape most of the time. It frightened me to death and I was only watching
Morning all. Late on parade due to computer phu**ing about. Will be interesting to see what happens with MZ. Are 3 CBs and wingbacks the way ahead? If Sunday was anything to go by, it would seem so. So a 4th CB pushing for one of the three starting spots is probably no bad thing. But as ever, time will tell. Clarification guys, apart from maybe a bit of experience, what might Blackstock give us that we don't already have? Pity if Somma's career is effectively over. He would really have benefitted from BMD' way of playing (footy instead of hoofball & scraps) On Hunt, 3 goals even in a development game is no mean achievement. So from my perspective, the jury's still out. But he's certainly done himself no harm. Whether he'll dislodge in order McCormack (no chance), Smith (unlikely, but maybe), Poleon (unlikely as Poleon is a work in progress anyway and will only get better), & Varney (maybe, but time will tell).
Morning all As a striker is one of the musts I'm not going to complain at Blackstock coming in especially as he's 4 years younger than Varney and Varney's contract runs out in the summer and no I wouldn't renew it I would jsut let him go. As for Luis Derbyshire I can't see how having a 5th Center back would be too bad. He won't be on high wages so let's give it a punt.
be interested to see what order you put our strikers in. I would go after Saturday Ross (Blackstock would go here for me) Smith Poleon Varney Hunt
Fair point MTMB, but Hunt's comments on the change in shape of the team speaks volumes. If we again score plenty or at least create plenty of genuine chances at Huddersfield this weekend, we just might not need anyone else. I'll reserve further judgement until after Saturday's game.
I would have to go for Ross and then Smith on Sundays performance, and probably Hunt following Smith after his confidence boosting perfomance yesterday. Hunt is highly experienced at this level and usually weighs in with plenty of goals. Blackstock followed by Poleon and varney
Fair call Doc. Saturday's team now takes on a whole new significance. What is the order of importance of the strikers? Is 532 (with Byram and Warnock acting as wingbacks, and Lees being one of three CBs)? Was last Sunday a fluke & Brum were crap, or has BMD finally unlocked the key to us being able to play good footy and create enough chances to ensure we win far more than we draw or lose?
Boggers don't think Sunday was a fluke as we would have killed anyone in the championship on that first half performance. Ross should have scored 3 and Rudy missed a sitter as well as Smith missing 2 good chances before they started going in for him. We should/could have been 6 up at half time. Sensational stuff. Can't say it was down to a poor Brum because he changed them at half time and that made it a lot togher for us in the 2nd half. At one stage they were having 63% control of the 2nd half, before we managed to hit them again. I think having Byram back gave him the chance to do what he did for the first time this season
Point taken Doc, but I wasn't quite ready to go overboard just yet. The next few games will show whether and by how much the change of formation has helped. As you say, if we played as we did in the first half, we could have beaten anyone in the chanpionship, and probably a fair chunk of the bottom half of the PL.
