............and you were inside the mind of Steve Bruce, looking towards closing the gap and establishing this club in the Premiership, who is likely to be sold/sacrificed come the Summer to start the process (assuming we are still in the Prem). As an example, Quinniesta gets very little play time at this level - would he be the kind of player, much as I like his work ethic and team ethos, that SB might deem to have little hope in progressing the team. I threw his name out because he is the kind of player I like to see here but in the cold light of progress (aka heartless logic!!) will we begin to see sacrifices? Any other players come to mind?
Talent usually costs I am reluctant to see our debt to the Allam family increase, so for me I don't want to see any more big signings that would increase the money our club owes to them.
I would be pleased if we just get a decent LB and another good CM although if we don't hang on to livermore then we would need cdm to replace him
I think Quinn is a good solid player, he can easily be a bottom PL team player, we are not at that stage where we can begin to throw out the Championship players to bring in big names. We need to do what Stoke did, & build each year with the odd player, sell on some players to make money back, even if they are our best players, but if they are then we need to get top dollar for them & not get screwed over like we did with Turner.
This left back malarkey every ****ers on with .......... wasn't Joe Dudgeon starting to look the bizz just before he got injured ? He's a left back, still ours ?
This begs the bigger question of how hard a club like ours should even attempt to bridge that gap. Is there any point? It's the law of diminishing returns, whereby you spend a lot of money getting into the Premier League and being able to hold your own by avoiding relegation, but the amount of money you have to spend just to sit on the cusp of Europa League placings goes up exponentially.
Long term injury plus no PL experience, just need one to replace Figs unless by some miracle he can get back to being the player he was, he looked half decent at the start of the year but against Sheff Utd, he was woeful. Whilst on the Sheff Utd link, anyone think the RB with the beard looked pretty good? Brayford I think his name is.
Think Dudge has a massive job on his hands to get from where he is now to being a reliable PL player. He didn't prove himself to SB as a reliable Championship larker. Like Fryatt had, a successful loan spell in the Championship is needed.
I think we'd have to tap Cardiff (or Swansea mebbe) up for him - I'm fairly sure he's a loanee ... looked a good larker at Wembley too.
Oh yeah, didn't realise, Cardiff is his owners & if they go down they'll be looking at a player like him. Still might be worth a cheeky bid like SB did with Quinn & get him on the cheap, leave Rosie at LB but would prefer a proper LB, maybe even one of Utd's that's going to get tossed out, Fabio or Buttner, not good enough for Utd but certainly good enough lower down the PL.
That'll probably do him a lot of good, he never looked like unseating Andy Dawson from LB as his defensive head wasn't as good as his attacking one - the odd times we saw him play I thought he showed glimpses of being a good footballer. Time will tell.
He will need to be very nippy. Oxlade-Chamberlain is the type of opponent he will be facing now, not some Championship donkey from Leeds.
Oxlade-Chamberlain, I was dreading Figgie being matched up against him on Sunday - the £170,000,000 of talent was there for all to see once they'd taken the lead.
I hadn't really followed his career since he joined Blackpool. He's been alright to be fair. He's been good to bring on with 10 minutes to go in games we've already won. Will be released at the end of the season and has been on pay as you play, in all seriousness, he's been a very good signing.
