I said we have a serious problem with the team if Rosenior, Hobbs, McKenna, or Evans gets injured, and that we're in general missing a striker like Jason Roberts. I also said if Brady gets injured we have a concern over the team because there's be 4 players for 3 positions, and 2 of those are coming back from serious injuries which will hamper them. I also said there's even bigger problems if we lose 2 players at a once and the combinations were Chester/Hobbs, McKenna/Evans and Koren/Stewart. Every single player mentioned is in the starting XI so what world are you living in saying most of them don't play anyway? (EDIT: The exception clearly being the point about not having a Roberts type player, we don't have one of those in the first XI) And again, Crawley may be when some people saw the lack of depth in the squad, but it can't be a lazy explanaton when there were also people expressing the concern months before the game. And we're talking about what threatens our promotion chances, not what threatens our ability to put 11 players on the pitch, it's quite obvious that a concern about the lack of depth is related to the quality/fitness of the cover rather than the quantity of players. What I want is 22 match fit players in the squad that can be considered good Championship players and provide an even spread through the positions, then I'll stop saying there's an obvious weakness in the squad. Until then I can be happy that the club is doing the best they can with the resources available without having to pretend that the squad is perfect.
We'd all love to have a squad of 22 good championship players, but I doubt there is a team in the league that has 2 good players for every position. I remember we didn't have much defensive cover for Ricketts, Brown, Turner & Dawson in 2008, so hopefully we'll stay away from injuries this season too and if we do I'd expect us to make the top 6.
That word, hopefully. You're right, we didn't have much cover that season and we got lucky with injuries. We're on a thread talking about what could undermine our chances, and what undermines our chances most is a lack of suitable cover for key positions throughout the team. I don't see what other squad's weaknesses have to do with that, and I don't see why people acknowledging our weaknesses is seen as though we're criticising the club over it and expecting too much. As I said in the bit of my post you cut from the quote, I'm happy the club is doing what they can with the resources available (with the exception of not having even looked at Roberts which I did suggest before the Reading move became possible), but it doesn't mean I have to pretend everything is perfect as though I wouldn't change things for next season once the money is freed up from the likes of Kilbane and Harper leaving.
The thread was started as a general discussion about the teams competing for the play-offs, for which I believe we have a fantastic chance of competing in. I do agree with you though, particularly about Roberts, his signing for Reading was a fantastic one. He would have been the perfect player in our 4-2-3-1 system, better than anyone we currently have. And yes, we are short of cover in some areas, but so are most teams. A couple of key signings in January would have helped no end, and I'm not sure why Barmby didn't seem too concerned about this. However, for all the deficiencies, lack of cover, goal scoring issues, etc, I honestly believe this team will make it into the top 6.
Obviously he wouldn't be as good as Koren. But as Koren is the best player in the league in his position you can't expect his cover to be as good. If you have a player that good and a cover player who isn't as amazing but still pretty good, you're laughing! No one can say we don't have enough cover in that posit Again, we need cover at CB and RB yes. But I'm sure other teams will have one small area lacking depth just like that. I'm not getting into the Fryatt versus McLean debate again but they've both played up there and done a job. Neither are ideal but both are OK. Fryatt definitely doesn't fall into the 'irreplacable' category. If anything, we could do with a striker to be 1st choice, we've no need for any more cover there. I completely agree with you that at the back we are short. But you simply can't expect to have 2 players of similar ability in every position. The players who aren't playing like Oli, McLean, Simpson, Garcia, Cairney etc. are all good players. It's obviously too early to judge King but we know NB likes him. To make it simpler, could you or anyone else, suggest which of these 8 players (Fryatt, McLean, Stewart, Brady, King, Garcia, Simpson, Koren) isn't good enough to be involved as cover for the front four? And which of these 4 players (McKenna, Evans, Cairney, Oli) isn't good enough to be involved in midfield? I guess this is the cause of our disagreement, some people probably have doubts about Garcia and maybe Cairney, but we shouldn't forget that before he got injured Cairney was first choice in our midfield and Koren was making do playing on the wing. Not saying that's right but it proves he's a decent player. This is what I mean. Only West Ham can afford top players in every position. Southampton are more the sort of club we should be comparng ourselves to and the big difference between us is that they have 2 massive strikers scoring goals and a massive defender who scores too, that's nothing to do with depth.
Don't get the negativity. Brum are not definitely heading up their squad is more threadbare than ours. I'll use an nfl analogy but I think it works offense wins you games but defence wins you championships. IMO best defence outside of the top 10 in the premierleague.
Cairney, if it's Evans that gets injured. McKenna sitting in the midfield needs someone with running in them to compensate and Cairney isn't that player. If McKenna is injured Cairney is a more suitable replacement in the XI because Evans would become more the defensive one (albeit not as good as McKenna), and he doesn't need the other one to do as much of his running to link with the attack. Cairney I actually think with the right coaching would be more suited to being Koren's replacement long term than he is to being one of the two sitting midfielders. Oli the problem is a concern over fitness not ability. If Evans or McKenna gets injured against Blackpool and misses 3 or 4 weeks it could be 7 or 8 games in a row. He hasn't made 1 start since he came back. There's the same issue with Stewart as there is with Oli. Stewart has been complaining about the effects of his injury with playing so many games, and with Garcia also coming back from a serious injury I'm wary about going into March with the current squad thinking we're well covered. If Koren or Brady gets injured Stewart will need to play every game or McLean or Garcia would have to play the Koren role. For the front position we have Fryatt starting, and McLean as cover (since he's 1 of 3 for the right side role) so my problem there isn't cover it's a lack of variation. They tried to address it in the summer with Adebola which has tied up resources on a player not good enough to do it for at least an hour every game. NB: I've left King out of consideration for the time being as it's well publicised that he's lacking match fitness so we need to get him there before he counts as suitable cover. I've also got more faith in him as the Roberts type player for the others to work off than as a winger, but it's no use him having the ability if we can't get him fit and choose not to play him there. EDIT: Again, just to be clear, I'm not complaining we haven't got the level of cover I want. I know there are limitations in resources and in terms of what players are available at any time. I'm just saying that we have these concerns so we shouldn't be thinking we've got a good level of cover.
If ..If.. if my Auntie had bollocks she'd be my Uncle. One game at a time and see where that takes us. Birmingham have another game now against Chelsea in the Cup so that will add to their fixture congestion.
And Leicester have another Cup game to play the week before they play us. Hopefully they'll be away against a big club in that and draw. Then when they play us they'll be looking forward to a replay at home a few days later to give them the chance to play at Wembley.
I dread to think how many of our players will be gone by the time next season comes round. The only chance we have of keeping a lot of them is by getting promotion this year.
You don't remember when we started this season with McKenna and Cairney then? It seemed to be working well enough then. I think we pretty much agree that whilst ideally we'd have a squad like West Ham's, we can't afford that so the idea of having 2 or 3 players for each position is not possible for us. It isn't uncommon to have say 6 players fighting for 4 positions in a squad, we have more than that so we aren't that badly off in terms of depth. If we start finishing like Southampton do, we'll be as good as them.
Whatever Nick thinks of Gulacsi, the fact is, he's ****e and Basso isn't fit and may well never appear for us again. As for Fryatt, I know you don't rate him, but you must have gathered by now that almost everyone else on here does and as Confucius once said 'he who's opinion differs to all others, is either blind or talking bollocks'(I might have made that up).
We lost to Blackpool * We lost to Palace We beat Reading, Pompey, and P'boro We drew with Bristol City W3 D1 L2, so 10 points from the 6 games in the first two months, so exactly the same as our average for the season, but performance wise I don't remember us being particularly happy with things at the time. Palace I remember saying something about them being the worst side I'd ever seen beat us at this level and yet still not thinking we deserved better. *We beat Ipswich with McKenna, Evans, and Cairney all starting. (Koren and Brady on the wings?) We also drew with Donny, but McKenna didn't play Like I say, I'm not unhappy with the club over it, barring the Roberts situation and the fact I think we're wasting King playing him wide (or not playing him). I think it's a concern that so many of our squad are coming back from serious injuries and people are just saying they're good players so they're good cover though. If those players go through the rest of the season and prove their fitness then that's brilliant and it stops being a concern for next season. It's just I'm not happy that if they needed to Stewart, Garcia, or Olofinjana could be relied on to play every game in March and we're only really one or two injuries away from that.
Ric,you started that last post with-Like i say-your'e a nice mod and all that,but don't ever say those three words in line again ! OK ?
.Erm, no. We dont agree. There is nothing to suggest Simpson will ever make a player. He did nothing first time around, nor at Millwall. Why do people think that just becausehe came from Arsenal he would make a player. He cant trap a ball. He cant head. He is easy to read. blah blah
Before he joined us he scored 12 goals in 34(5) for a poor QPR side. That'd be about 15 goals over a full season. There's no wonder a lot of our fans don't rate him though. When he joined us he looked like he'd put on a few stone compared to when I'd seen him for them. As soon as he shed some of the weight and hit form he was dropped. We recall him from his loan and say we're going to have a look at him, give him 3 minutes and he sets up a goal and then gets dropped again.
I've just realised as well, Simpson has scored as many league goals this season as McLean has, and if you ignore penalties then from his loan spell at relegation battling Millwall he has the same strike rate as Fryatt. McLean 4 in 13(3), and Fryatt has 8(plus a penalty) in 32.
