I honestly find it a bit perplexing that at this point people are still defending the striker recruitment, we can argue about overall recruitment but the striker recruitment is cut and dry. We have people saying 'wait and see', we were saying this in Jan, last summer, the Jan before, what exactly are we waiting for. We've needed a striker since Stewart got injured and Simms went back top Everton which is 18 months ago now and despite all this time we've come into the summer and still not resolved this before the start of the season, yes there's time but c'mon. Lowe to Sheff Wed Jackson to Derby Tijani to Plymouth Greenwood to Preston Langstaff to Millwall Hountondji to burnley Celar to QPR Armstrong to Bristol City Kanga to Cardiff Gueye to Blackburn Ohasi to Blackburn Gallagher to Stoke Cole to West Brom Vipotnik to Swansea Thomas Asante to Coventry Ugbo to Sheff Wed Campbell to Sheff utd Scarkett to Oxford Conway to Boro Look at the last, myriad of fees and wouldn't touch half of them but there's some relatively affordable quality in there and with each passing day the likelihood whoever we get, if any, is any better than those on the last list gets less and less. I don't think it's being a doom merchant either, just because there are things to be positive about doesn't mean there's a big problem here.
But you are looking at single matches in isolation - ours from last night and the match from tonight. If we had a full squad to pick from and included 3/4 players from Saturday then I don't think there would be much difference, in my opinion. I am not being precious, as you say, but just putting my point of view forward, which is just as relevant as yours or anyone else's. As you say it is a discussion forum and I just put forward my thoughts, which just so happen to disagree with yours.
Even at 5 million I think he's not a massive downgrade on Clarke. 5 goals and 5 assists in 2552 minutes last season mainly from wing back in a very defensive Preston team.
What'll happen is, we'll eventually sign a striker and he'll struggle to score and we shall once again come to the conclusion that our style of play doesn't suit a striker and we don't put crosses in or play through balls to run onto. That's just a guess mind.
they got him from city i believe, united did, was big news at the time, wonder if united have something like a buyback or percentage
To be fair we had people kicking off on here at the prospect of signing a young striker who has played well for England age groups, represented Spurs in the Prem and has experience at champ level. Can you imagine how sharp pitchforks would have got if we’d signed a striker released by United who previously couldn’t even make a dent at league 2 level? Not to mention the gnashing of teeth that would have resulted from us signing a player without ‘experience’?
Not with this new style. Even mayenda was having chances against Cardiff. I think we are improving on that front
Strange one with Bennette. I think we paid a decent amount for him, every time I've seen him he looks good and makes things happen but we seem determined to not give him a chance. While Roberts gets a full season producing nothing and still gets picked as a starter.
He looks aggressive, quick, direct, skilful, strong for his height. I don't get why we signed him, he exhibits his abilities in the brief cameos he gets and we're not interested.
He scored 3 in 12 for the U21s last season, but some folk were horrified at the idea of loaning Lankshear who got 23 in 23. Not easy this DoF lark is it...
Of course mate. But now is the time to sign players with UK based experience. That's where our biggest success has come from. Not players with zero senior minutes of the Afghan 5th tier.
Rutter’s release clause being activated from Brighton to Leeds which gives them 40m. Much better chance of them going up than us, wonder if they are looking at Clarke? (If he hasn’t signed a new deal) as Haarte was their last night…
Surely they are not getting 40m for him? He is canny but that seems very overpriced to me. I know they paid a canny wack for him like.
