Just looking at the Palace subs bench for their game against the Swans this afternoon. 3 ex-City players, Fraizer Campbell, Jordan Mutch and Joe Ledley can hardly get a start with Pardew. Would you take any of then for us in January either on loan or purchase if they'd come?
I wouldn't take any of them. They couldn't get away fast enough so why should we take them back. Also with our promotion chances galloping over the horizon the last thing we need is to increase the wage bill. If anything we should concentrate on unloading several of our current top heavy squad and build again in the summer.
I agree with HB feck em leave them rot their ar£es of on the bench. We should be looking forward not backwards
I don't see anything as exciting as that happening for us this season anyway. With my Wales hat on I'd like to see Ledley get some regular game time somewhere. I think the 3 mentioned are amongst those who are top championship players but average in the Prem. Given where we are a couple of top championship players be they ex Cardiff or anything else wouldn't go amiss.
I totally agree with that and have done for some time - nothing I saw yesterday has changed my mind despite the 3 points. Poor game between two very average sides that needed some skill and pace injected into it - not just grunt. Admittedly the pitch is also in appalling condition that didn't help matters, but even that shouldn't completely extinguish the skill factor.
On a previous thread re: possibility of Jay Bothroyd coming back to us I said on 6th November: Not for me....however if we're talking ex players Mutch, Ledley & Campbell might solve our problems. Still think the same.
wiffle - the only problem I see with all three of them right now is just who'd they replace in their normal positions. With the loss of Jones, Campbell would be the most obvious "good fit", but I'm not so sure about the other two. Is Ledley better than Ralls? That would be the natural swap as a left footed left sided midfielder. At the moment I wouldn't have said so. Likewise with Mutch. A very skillful player but tends to go missing - would you take out Pilks for him? Again I wouldn't and it's difficult to see where else he'd fit in. Mutch is creative but you'd have to lose a frontman to accommodate him as well. We know playing with just one upfront is alien to Slade so that should be a no go. Anyway, would you take on Campbell and then drop Watt to do just that - no way Pedro! If we're sticking to a 4-4-2, then I'd take Campbell for an obvious berth alongside Watt with the other two just supplementing good players already at the club. Again with a basic 4-4-2 setup, no matter how "flexible" Slade would suggest it could be, the real need is for a defensive destroyer like Medel to release Ralls to play further forward. Still not convinced about Dikgacoi in that slot and it looks from his recent enforced occupation of the bench (at best) that Slade isn't either.
Surely Ledley could fill this role like he does for Wales, regarding Mutch we could play him as a complete forward or a target man with Watt up front in a rotation system with Fraz
