I don't agree. I would have wanted both Gerrard and Ayala ahead of Hobbs partnering Chester. However, like you, I'm worried NP sees James Chester as a utility defensive player to be played anywhere along the back 4 or in the midfield holding position. In my view that would ruin one of the best Centre Backs we've seen for decades.
I really don't get you sometimes, if you don't like the city of Hull then why are you "supporting" its football club then?
I do like the city of Hull, granted not enough to want to live there, but enough to visit it's football ground every two weeks.
from what i am told the signings will be good ones. fans forget that players are away on holiday until the end of june. whats the rush ? nobody is signing anyone really. the market is just a trickle for now. only the HDM is panic-ing as they are to lazy to look for original stories.
Bit unfair, you've never met me. Back on topic (before I get the blame again): I don't think it's time to panic yet, on Football Manager I've usually not made any signings by this point. If in a month's time we're in the same position, panic like hell.
Oh ffs leave the TWF insults out of it, I'm ****ing sick of it. I know a Leeds united fan who hates Leeds as a city and only goes there for games. Of course, he lives in Aberdeen so he won't get to go much at all! As for the topic in hand, I have to say that the timing of signing Adebola might have made everybody more nervous than they should be. I can't see Ade being used week in week out, not if we have Simpson, McLean and Fryatt to choose from. McKenna I'm a little more pleased about, he might bring an Ash style figure to the midfield to help out young Corry Evans. What I am concerned about is a lack of creativity. We need an attacking midfielder/winger to compliment Stewart. There are literally thousands of players on free transfers throughout the EU, look in Spain, Italy; countries famous for flair and attacking skill. Even Cyprus!
Sorry but i dont. Hobbs looked to me like a cat on hot bricks with the ball at his feet. Relied on Gerrard constantly. I like Chester but he is definitely too small for a centre back. Which is why NP was desperately trying to find him a new position. Awful at full back, can he play in front of the back four, maybe but that would be a negative move..... uh oh.
Because it's where he's from and the football club is trying to better itself the right way whilst the city seems intent on maintaining the status quo? I'm not sure he'll like the first part of that, but it's my reasoning. I'd go into more detail but someone asked the same question a few weeks ago and I'm not getting into the circular nature of these threads if I can avoid it. Really? Unless it's a season I expect to get promoted in I start making my signings as early as possible. My current game I'm in October and I've already made my first summer signing. Admittedly it's a loanee that I'm only paying half the wages for until the end of the season so I don't want to make it permanent in January but deal done, and the majority of my deals will be taken care of in February (or Bosmans as soon as I'm allowed to talk to them). It's quite handy when you're in the Championship and expecting to get promoted to the PL though, especially if it's from a foreign league. If you do the negotiations early you get Championship demands with a promotion wage rise clause. By the time they sign you're already a PL club so the clause doesn't trigger, and they're happy with the lower wages because they're the terms they signed on with.
The reason he moved Chester was because he felt he had to get Hobbs in the team to justify his loan and make him more favourable to a permanent move. Chester was more expendable as he has played other positions, whereas Gerrard has played the majority of his games at cb. Chester isn't tall, I apologise for repeating arguments already made on here, but his reading of the game compensates his lack of stature. There have been a number of top small cb's Cannavaro and Puyol to name a couple.
Its only opinions but i cant go with that logic. If Chester was so good, then we wasted money on Hobbs unnecessarily. Surely he would have been cheaper now too after rotting in Leicester reserves last season? Chester's reading of the game may be good, but in the CC you need to outmuscle centre forwards. In one game NP had to detail Corry Evans to stand in front of Holt for Norwich i think to help Chester as he was losing every ball.
I think the idea was we needed a holding midfielder because of Ashbee leaving, and wanted Hobbs to replace Gerrard for this season because even back then we didn't expect to be able to complete the deal for him (more likely because we thought Cardiff were going up). By bringing Hobbs in to get a feel for living in the area and getting to know the players we improved our chances of getting him this summer to play alongside Chester. At the same time it meant that because we had 5 loanees in the matchday squad we had to use an existing player to cover the DM position and Chester was the obvious choice as he wasn't required at centreback and had played with Evans before so was more likely to blend despite being out of position into a makeshift partnership than Gerrard or Hobbs would have.
I'll try step by step, and it's just my interpretation of what I think NP was thinking. 1) We had Gerrard and Chester at CB. 2) We knew Gerrard was unlikely to sign for next season because Cardiff looked like getting automatic. 3) NP identified Hobbs as a definite target to play alongside Chester next season because we were losing Gerrard. 4) In order to help get him we brought him on loan so that he could see what it's like living here and get to know some of the players he'd be playing with. 5) Ashbee put in his transfer request too late for us to get a replacement in on a permanent. With Gerrard, Hobbs, Stewart, and Evans and a goalkeeper we already had 5 loanees in the squad every game so we couldn't get a loanee in until one of those was made permanent so it had to be one of our players replacing Ashbee. 6) At centreback we had Gerrard, Hobbs and Chester so one was spare to play the holding midfield role. 7) Chester had played with Evans at Man U so knew the other central midfielder better than Hobbs or Gerrard would have done so had given indications in training that he'd more easily slot into the midfield than either Gerrard or Hobbs to see out the season.
James Chester isn't too small. Anyone who thinks so judged him before he signed (like I did) and hasn't actually watched him. How many centre-forwards bullied him? None. His only cock-up was a misread of the ball against Leeds at home. Otherwise, he was nearly flawless at centre half. He was moved because he was more flexible than Gerrard and Hobbs and it gave NP a chance to play all three. Chester and Hobbs will make a fine partnership. Hobbs gives us height and presence, Chester reads the game, is quick over the ground and comfortable on the ball.
In terms of the finances, contract details etc they're a pretty good source but I wouldn't go betting on them being right. The latest programme update to FM2011 has even adjusted loan deals so that when you go to loan a player it's a standard thing that the parent club asks for some sort of fee. Before that (even in the programme on the FM2011 disk) you only had to pay for a loan if it was a loan with a view to buying. In terms of the rules of the game (eg loanees in the squad, 25 man squads, etc) they're pretty much spot on. In terms of the players' abilities, there are PL clubs that use the database as the first stage of any scouting trips to smaller nations to identify potential targets. I imagine there's difficulty in getting a good relative level for the Argentinian league compared to the European leagues for example, but they can use it to identify the best players in that league and then scout them for real while they're there. Obviously once you start a game all the accuracies in the players start to reduce as training within the game starts to affect them, and contracts start getting extended, renewed, managers sacked etc. The gameplay itself is pretty unrealistic because there it becomes multiple choice and it's simulating human decisions using algorithms. I don't know if it was my imagination or not, but in previous versions whenever a player scored an own goal you were as well to sub them immediately because the rest of the game they'd be terrible (which isn't how it works). Doesn't seem to do that in the newest version. You also find certain players are way better than in real life. Thanks to Cullen's goal against Wigan he starts the game (just after our relegation) worth over £1M, and in my first season I had him, Folan, Simpson, and Blanco (who's 33 and available on a free) all got at least 15 goals by March, 3 of them got 20 by the end of the season. Transfers can be an issue, I just tried to sign Dudgeon on the latest update and he said he's not interested, oh and Man U want me to pay £3.5M for Evans to turn his loan into a permanent.
Chester was almost faultless at centre back, I don't care how tall HD is, he was excellent. I'm happy with one old school centre back and one who's good with the ball at his feet. Ayala and Gerrard were a good combo, so were Chester and Gerrard, Hobbs and Gerrard were not so good, in my opinion. I'm more than happy with Chester and Hobbs as our starting partnership next season.
