Quoted in the press as saying they will "look" at it again in January. Unless Shola Ameobi is due back very soon and they expect Adam Campbell, Curtis Good and Paul Dummet are all ready for first team football this side of the season I'd go far as to say Alan Pardew has gone clinically insane.
The injuries to Raylor and Perch mustn't be that bad then. Raylor's looked bad, Perch looked like he just came off as a precaution. Suppose if we play against Villa with all our best players still here, we've gotta be grateful.
Why should we be grateful? We weren't that far off a CL place last season, are in a healthy financial position, and all our players seem very happy here. We have no reason to sell. There's also the fact that no one has even made any serious attempts to sign our 'big' players anyway. Holding on to what we've got was the bare minimum for this window. We should have a bit more ambition than just keeping the ship steady. Pardew's been dangling this charade of the big clubs coming to get all our players to distract us from the fact that they're doing **** all to actually bring anyone in, and schmucks like you have fallen for it.
Probably could have done with 2 or 3 players, but we've said this before and been proved wrong. Not what many of us wanted but how times have we been pleasantly proved wrong in the last 3 years.
Anita (whom i very much don't rate) and Good are a pretty poor return for a window considering the French international LB (where we are weak) was essentially begging us to sign him
I agree, but at the end of the day, Ashley has control of the cash, and we're on a strict financial plan. I don't understand why we have to be so tight with the cash now. I know we shouldn't be like Liverpool and just spend **** loads on players, but we can't go around trying to hunt cheap bargains down forever, and expect to push further. We payed good money for Cisse and he was a success. We should carry on relying on the scouts to find some good players, but I don't see why they should have to be mostly cheap ones. Instead it should be ones that we could get for a good price and ones that the scouts and Pards think will deliver. It wouldn't be Liverpool-esque if our scouts found a couple of players that could really boost the quality of our side, would play for the wage cap, but would cost us 8/9 million each. It shouldn't necessarily be the amount, it should be getting bang for buck, whether its 2m or 20m. We should have more ambition, but I think the Ashley and the club seem to want to just settle for what we've got. They don't seem to want to push on any further, they just want to be in perfect financial position. I'm glad with the financial position we're in, but I think we should be willing to spend also, as long as it isn't silly.
We never have a good transfer window and yet we always do better than our expectations. I remember thinking this time last year we were 2 players short of being a top 10 team.
I know that, but maybe the younger players like Ferguson, Bigi, Marveaux, Vuckic and Campbell could progress very well this season in the Europa League.
Maybe, and I'm not quite as histerical about the situation as some people, however it is disappointing that we didn't bring in another defender. We saw just yesterday that it's likely we're not gonna have a season where we get any luck what so ever with injuries. We're just gonna have to pray that we get to January without any significant injuries.
To be fair I'm fed up with people overreacting to us not signing players, we have it every window. I'm disappointed about not bringing a defender in but also know that someone from within could do a job that surprises us.
This 100%. People like Arsenal have off loaded their 2 best players of last year and while they bought in players to replace them Song and RVP will be sorley missed. We (so far) kept a good bunch of players who are happy here, playing for the shirt, that finished 5th last season. Got rid of the dead wood from around the squad and replaced it with young upcoming players and saved a load off the wage bill. I would have like a CB or LB who can play CB but who's to say we wont go get them in January for a better price than we could have got so far.
Of course they could - I just don't think that a club that finished 5th last season should be relying on Adam Campbell if Cisse and Ba get injured or qualify for the ACON. Maybe he'll be good, maybe he won't. It's just a ridiculously large risk to take. Likewise with relying on Curtis Good, who's played a very small amount of games in a much much worse league, should our defence be destroyed by injuries like it did last season. No one's saying the youth players are all ****, just that it's a big gamble to rely on them.
Have you guys thought what kind of an effect it would have on Cabaye given that let's assume Pardew approached him and asked about Debuchy, and all signs point to the transfer being done but the bloody board refuse to part with the money?
It's an over reaction, but this isn't the same as us being mid table and hoping for a top 10 place. We're in a bigger league now. No one was asking for us to bring in loads of marque signings. Most of us just wanted more depth at the back, and that wasn't at all a lot to ask. We were being completely fair with Pardew and the club with what we were asking for. A fullback and a centerback. And after that, maybe a covering striker. Shola is injured, and our 3rd choice now is a 17 year old striker, who has only played minutes at first team level. I'll cheer the lad if he plays, and he sounds like a fantastic prospect, and I saw him in the reserves, and he looks fantastic, but I think it would be far too much to ask for a lad of his age and experience to be able to do it at this level, and cover players like Ba and Cisse.
Campbell may just have a bigger impact than any of us think. Every quote I read/hear seems to suggest he's a massive talent, and while I'm not expecting Rooney levels of brilliance, the granny lover was only 16 when he made his impact in the prem so it's possible Campbell could do something similar. It's only really a gamble to us because most of us haven't seen a lot of him, Pards and co see him every day and will know exactly what he can do.
Small, agile, can skip in and out and between defenders, got a good eye for goal and seems to love playing.
