Talksport reporting we're interested in him, price tag said to be 5-6 million. Surely Bruce isn't going to blow 5 million on a winger when we don't have a striker...
If this is true, he must have something up his sleeve on the striker front. A McManaman type player is exactly what we need. We aren't creating enough chances. If you look at the conversion rate we are quite good, but we don't create enough. We rely VERY heavy on Elmo and people have sussed that this season. Plus McManaman is slightly different in that he runs at players rather than crosses from deep. I think, if this is true, it is the end for Aluko (something that will please some quarters!! ). Worth remembering we are probably going to lose Ramirez, we have already lost Ben Arfa, so we are now lite in the creativity area.
But he's a winger, why would we play him in the wing when we can stick him up front with Ince and smash balls up to the two of them?
He's not good enough for the top level imo. Seen plenty of the lad, plus he's a bad snide to boot. Swerve.
I do agree, it would be incredibly odd to go looking for a creative midfielder with no striker to create for so fingers crossed he has a striker on the way. As you say we don't create an awful lot, the only game we can look back on where missing chances has been the problem is Leicester, other than that we just haven't created enough. I think Ramirez may prove to be a loss, the only real central playing creative player we have/had.
I don't think Mcmanaman is a bad player but he's NOT the type of player we need at this moment in time!
I maybe wide of the mark, but isn't he a red card waiting to happen, also doesn't appear to be up to much in the championship.
He's a 'forward' if its true Bruce is probably looking at him to play the Ramirez-type role behind a striker. Seems to have a bit of temper but if I remember before Wigan got relegated he was getting a few plaudits, only 23 too.
That pisses me off when he does that with wingers, he brought in Boyd, Ince, Ben Arfa, all out and out wide men and played them in behind a striker, even Snodgrass in Europa League and the first game of the season was played out of position. Bringing in Ince was pointless if he intended to play 3 at the back.
Agreed, he brought in some excellent players, but most of them made little sense. Snodgrass particularly has never looked any good away from the right wing.
Even Wigan fans are saying they are taking the piss asking 5-6m for him they think more like 1-2m on his present form.
I agree with this. My biggest frustration this season is that we brought in a load of players (Ince, Snodgrass, Ramirez, Ben Arfa) with no clear plan on where they would fit in, given that Elmo seems to be inked in as our right sided attacking player, rightly or wrongly. Haven't been able to work out our transfer strategy at all this season, and we are paying for it . I might add to that having 6 centre backs and then reverting to 4-4-2.
He's a decent player, but it does seem a bit of an odd one. He's only ever had two red cards and one of them was in his last game.
It seems like at the beginning of the season he had intended to play something like: Greegsy Elmo Chester Dawson Davies Robertson Huddlestone Livermore Snodgrass Jelavic Hernandez/Long Snodgrass being injured and Boyd being sold meant Diame was brought in, I still think the players we have in the squad are much more suited to a 4-4-2. 3-5-2 worked in the Championship because the players suited the system, but you can't force players into a formation that doesn't suit them.
