I take this post back with mightly regret.... I think what I was feeling was pure ****ing hope! RIP NUFC!
Who thought our transfer window was successful? How silly. Money spent in the wrong areas is not success, nor even a positive when in our position. How's that defence looking? Has the gamble to not strengthen at the back for the umpteenth window backfired yet for the umpteenth time? Goalscorer? Thought not... Honestly, genuine ambition to improve the whole squad and we could have had Cahill in on loan or permanent, Gibbs or similar on a permanent. Everyone can keep crying out that Austin didn't want to move north, but I really don't think we even gave him something to think about. Should have offered him princely wages, but MA wouldn't sanction that. When we go down we probably wont bounce straight back up because the club is so thoroughly rotten now, the poor performances and losing mentality so ingrained. Oh, and Pardew may have been an average to poor manager with a penchant for hideous losing streaks, but at least he had us playing decent, effective football for periods. McClaren can only manage the hideous losing streaks.
I'm not going to judge new signings on 1 game, especially after being dropped in the deep end. Saivet is completely new to the league, Townsend has been playing in the reserves and was playing with a winger behind him. But I am going to judge a amanager on 24 games and if we're honest we've had 2 good games this season, one of which was 1 good half. We've played the odd decent half here and there but it's simply not good enough. Winning 1 game in 12 convincingly is simple not anywhere good enough to stay in this league. This team shouldn't be in this league on this seasons performance, or last seasons performance. You can be **** away from home. Ok. I see that, but then you have to win 60-80% of your home matches.
Can't even remember that win but then again not many games stick in the memory from the last few seasons!
We tried for defenders too. What would you have us do... go sign a load of ****e from Div 1 who are worse than Willo? just because they are defenders? We were blown out by two defenders from Spain and Arsenal put the brakes on us moving for Gibbs. Enrique wanted a permanent deal for 18 months plus and at his age we only offered 6 months loan (which is exactly the right thing to do)... that's 4 serious attempts to get cover in.... I'm very happy with our business in the window. More happy that we made some serious attempts to get a proven striker and some defensive cover in also. The scattergun approach to signings is hopefully a thing of the past (the French contingent) so I'm happy to see us targeting specific areas in the hope of getting the right players in. We all knew that would take time. Mac himself said 3 windows. And don't forget that January is a tough month to recruit anyway.
No, I'd have seen us actually make a concerted effort to strengthen the areas which really required it. Trying for two LBs at the tail end of the window isn't it. We'll go down for this failure. When we are staring relegation in the face then saying we'll deal with the defence etc in window three isn't so clever. The third window we'll be in the Championship and starting from scratch.
Howay ACS. They've had since June 2014 to sign defenders. They've signed one. All the other clubs have managed to fill their defensive holes. Even Sunderland managed to get a couple in - now I'm not sure on quality (my mackem mate was raving about them - but they always do for the big games before its not backed up). The point is when you have 80m in your pocket, you can sort your defence out no problem. We were too busy buying midfielders
We really have no idea what has gone on with regard to trying to sign this player or that player tbf. Suggesting Gibbs or Cahill were ever options makes you look out of touch with reality. Simply impossible to make either of those moves happen. I'm confident we did offer Austin a princely sum, as did several other clubs. Who would you choose if you were him and were offered the chance to stay in the south as per your wife's desire or move to the other end of the country and fight relegation for a shambles and laughing stock of a football club? The criticism of the regime is deserved, but it is not deserved for business done or not done this window. The criticism is due for the last 5 or 6 windows when we have tried to be clever and signed absolute ****e for peanuts to try and turn a huge profit while simply existing in the top division.
What we did in January window should have been done in the summer plus signing more defenders should have been a priority. How we can see the obvious and they can`t is beyond me. Any weaknesses seen in the team upto Jan should then have been addressed in that window. Its like their transfer schedule is 6 months out of sync with reality. Brainless!!!
We have Steve McClaren quotes that we already have four CBs so they were not a priority, that we tried for LBs across the final weekend of the transfer window and only at the level of short-term cover for Dummet. I can and will call that a failure as our defence is in dire need of strengthening at CB and LB. The criticism of the regime is certainly deserved for past transfer windows, but that does not shield them from criticism in this window for this failure just because money has been spent. Areas that clearly needed strengthening on threat of relegation were either ignored or subject to transfer attempts which fell short. How can you be confident that we offered a princely sum to Austin whilst successfully arguing that we cannot really have any idea as to what has gone on with regard to signing this player or that player (Steve McClaren's direct admittance of poor decision making regarding the defence withstanding)?
