I thought we dominated that game and they scored with basically their only chance? That sort of game rings a bell for Watford though. Might dig out highlights for both later.
Mixed feelings on this one. On one hand, he was poor at West Brom, will never step up to the PL and I assume Still doesn't see him fitting into his system. On the other, you can't get much more of a proven championship striker than Armstrong. He will definitely score at this level so unless someone is paying £15m, why sell?
I would prefer you to be correct but I have played in front of some awful defences and have let hatloads of goals in but, quite often I made more saves than goals conceded and often none of the goals were down to my errors. To be honest I would love him to be brilliant next season and everyone come on here and say what a twat I am and be correct and I will stand up and say 'You are all corrrect' but I'm 64 in a few weeks time and I have watched a lot of football of all standards and I still look at him and say 'Why is he standing in that position?' I can't remember another goalie I have thought that about. I hope I am a twat about this. If not, there are going to be a lot of very sad and depressed fans next season. Let's just say I am a twat. Oh a different note I think maybe it is time for Adam Armstrong to start afresh and he should go with our thanks and best wishes.
Agree. And also think from everything we know about Still's preferences that Armstrong would fit into that (pressing, high energy etc) but who knows. (I'd also be pretty miffed about selling a proven operator at this level presumably to promotion rivals too but I suppose you can over think that)
Di Marzio reporting tonight that Atalanta have tonight made an increased bid for Sulemana, which could be the decisive one??
I can’t fathom why we are trying to compete with 2 premier league clubs and four bundesliga clubs here. Surely we are bottom of the list and are just wasting time?
Thought this for awhile, “natural conclusion”’probably means he is ****ed off at being loaned out, and we know he’s not PL standard and are willing to roll the dice that whoever we have next year can a) get us up and b) be better in the PL than Armstrong. A) is a big risk but we clearly are open to that with the manager appointment, b) is not hard as he was so bad in the PL that we’d take the risk on someone being better. Question is whether anyone would buy him who is a better option. Maybe someone like Burnley but I doubt it. My Leeds mates all really rate him so hopefully they buy him for the lols
I don't think for a second a PL team would buy him. I wonder if Birmingham make him a massive offer as a statement signing.
Would be an unusual statement. Statement signings are ones that you’d expect to be in the league above. Fonte is an arguable example that perhaps we didn’t fully realise at the time
Though If you’ve just come up, there is still the statement of buying one of the league’s most prolific strikers.
I guess but people have short memories. And him being a dud in the premier league and not exactly firing at West Brom dampens it. If he’d hit like 10 goals in his loan spell then I’d be more inclined to agree I don’t really like the risk of him being at another championship club. But equally we probably do need to start being more ruthless with players who are never going to cut it should we go up - which is where we want to be next year. Armstrong would be someone who were it not for the risk of getting a career ending injury could have a good case for moving as a free agent on one year deals for overinflated wages for the championship to theoretically guarantee the goals for promotion and then move to a different club the next year. Well - and of course the personal professional pride in believing you can do it in the premier league I’ll never get over the pre season video of the previous relegation season where the players are all getting on the plane and he looked like a teenage boy (build wise) compared to others in the squad. Now he’s actually slightly taller than me so I can’t comment really - but he looked like he had no upper body strength at all. And in the absence of absolutely lightning pace and/or technical skills akin to Guardiola era Barca players he was always going to struggle. Size clearly doesn’t preclude you from a top level career but it does severely limit you unless you are rapid or the likes of David Silva
Armstrong would be an incredible signing for Birmingham. He'd be a very good signing for pretty much any championship team, but especially so for a newly promoted club.
I still think there's a risk of trying to be too clever and looking ahead to the PL when we've got to actually achieve that first. Primary focus is building a team capable of winning this league for me.
Agree to an extent but I also think signings should be lets win the Champ, and is he good enough for the PL should be a consideration too. There is an argument that the promoted sides last season were unlucky in the sense that none of the established sides had much turnover. This summer has already seen Wolves, Brentford and Bournemouth lose key personnel far more than any side did last year. So whilst you can say “we’d just have to replace xxx if we go up and it’s a lot to do in one window after promotion” if other teams have lots of change in the same window then it is probably achievable
I think this is true for new signings, but not for the likes of Armstrong. Getting rid of an elite championship striker because he isn't PL quality is definitely getting ahead of yourself. Get promotion sorted and then deal with the fact Armstrong isn't PL level.
