So the transfer window is now shut and barring any completed deals we haven't yet heard of we are now stuck with the same players we have until 2016. Right now we are on 4 points from 4 games which, which over the course of the entire season would leave us 50/50 to stay up. Of course, it is far too early in the season to start extrapolating; we haven't played any of the big clubs yet and we really should have taken a far higher tally from these games. Overall I feel our squad is paper thin and far lower quality than most of our rivals but we have a secret weapon; our manager. As I will get on to, I am not at all happy with our transfer business and I feel we have gotten worse since the end of last season. Overall our activity has been disgraceful and we haven't helped our chances of staying up at all but I still think it possible. But it is now more important than ever that we turn good performances (Palace, Stoke) into good results. And we can ill afford performances like last weekend where, even before the red card, we were not fit to share the same pitch with Southampton. We simply cannot afford to play matches by misplacing passes left, right and centre and getting cynical, brainless suspensions. I guess the first place to start is from the back and goalkeeper is the only position we are well stocked on. Ruddy is definitely up to it and from what I've seen of Rudd, even if we were without Ruddy for an extended period, we would be ok. In my opinion, very few clubs (Sunderland? Newcastle?) could boast a worse defence then we have and the number of set piece goals conceded and lack of clean sheets without even playing one of the big boys speaks for itself. Russell Martin isn't and Bassong are both ok defenders but neither is what you would call a proper, top quality CB. Meanwhile we have only one recognised central defender as cover and Ryan Bennett simply isn't good enough to be playing a run of games. This has been an obvious weakness for all of last season, yet we let Turner go and fail to sign any kind of quality CB. We can get away with using Whittaker against weak teams when we're on the front foot but he is hopeless at dealing with tricky wingers. It has been clear since we signed him that he is a liability against pace/skill and yet we failed to address this glaring weakness in the team. If we bring in Wisdom and he isn't good enough to start ahead of Whittaker then we have not addressed that weakness! Martin Olsson can cut it at this level but is also error prone and we have no depth in this position either. Overall our defence is woefully short of numbers and quality. So much for two good players in every position! Central midfield is the only area I am satisfied we are well stocked in. Tettey, Dorrans Mulumbu (excellent piece of business), Howson, Hoolahan are all good enough and we have Vadis and O'Neil who could come in as well. That said, I simply cannot comprehend why we sold Bradley Johnson, one of our best players. Yes, it is good (but not crazy) money for a 28 year old but that money is no use to us now and I fail to see how we benefit from this. Out wide, we are a mess. Redmond is going to be one of the few things this season but if we get him injured then what? Neil clearly doesn't rate Bennett (judging from lack of playtime) so we essentially have no depth out wide. The only winger we have brought in is Brady and judging by his performances at LB, looks like a massive waste of money and I don't see what threat he offers and his set-pieces have been terrible up to now. A hard worker, but mediocre and not worth £2 million on the evidence I've seen. We've also inexplicably sold Johnson who could (kinda) play LM to a Championship club and with the Murphy twins out on loan we can only look forward to playing more slow central midfielder on the wings, which in itself is an obvious sign we need to strengthen in that area. Ironically, I was happier with our striking options before the start of the season than now. Jerome is good enough to be starting games but he isn't exactly a next level striker. I have no idea how good Mbokani is, but I trust Neil. We'll need him to deliver big time this season though, that's for sure but you can't go really go wrong with a loan signing. We've shipped Ricky out on loan again so now it is just a case of him running down his contract and leaving for free! I don't know why we couldn't of just get any kind of fee for him and cut our losses. We have nothing to gain from loaning him out because we haven't spent any money so the wages can't be a problem! Like Bennett, Neil doesn't rate Hooper so he won't be playing matches for us either in the long term. With Grabban suspended, this leaves us with 2 strikers. I assume Grabban will come back into the fold at some point, but I've always thought of him as a striker for a Championship side battling relegation and no better. With the Johnson fee, we have just about offset the grossly inflated spending on Brady so our net spend can't be than a few million! We're supposed to have got tens of millions for being promoted and no debt and yet we failed to sign a single player that I can get excited about. Instead we were throwing silly money at **** players like Naismith! Clubs like Newcaslte (Wijnaldum), Swansea (Ayew), Southampton (van Dijk) Palace (Cabaye), West Brom (Rondon), Stoke (Shaqiri) and Sunderlands (Lens) have signed some really good players for not much more than we were offering for Afobe! Even a club like Bournemouth can sign Gradel! I am sure that the board was taken aback by how quickly some of the top players got snapped up and also we struggled to attract top players/refused to pay high prices but the end result is we have been overtaken and left behind by Watford and Bournemouth and our squad doesn't look good enough! We were held to ransom by clubs like Hull and mugged off by Derby County, both Championship clubs. IMO we have the worst transfer window of the league by a country mile. We have not only failed to address our weaknesses, we seem to be creating new ones for ourselves by getting rid of so many players. Our squad is paper thin already and in the time I've been writing this, Vadis and Andreu have gone out on loan and off the top of my head, I can't see us filling a 25 man squad. Anyway, I'm ****ed off. INB4 TL;DR.
Well DM - it most certainly looks like AN has got his work cut out to motivate the players to perform EVERY week in the way they did in the first three games (I wonder if the 2 dropped points against Stoke will come back to haunt us??). Anyway, I'm now logging off and going to drown my sorrows!!
I said a few weeks ago that I was disappointed with our transfer activity and I had hoped we would make some late moves. Since then we brought in Mbokani on loan which seems smart because if we get relegated or he turns out to be rubbish then we don't have to sign him. I still think we have too many strikers, not enough wingers and that we are weak at the back. Seeing Johnson go has not helped at all. Even for a newly-promoted club I think we have done poorly in the transfer market. Let's hope Alex can keep us up with the players we've got.
I'm not his biggest fan, but Lescott to Villa for £2m would have been ideal for us, even if only on a season long loan. And £2m is **** all these days, so what happened? Or rather, didn't happen?
Striker was the management's priority, they got one. At least Hooper is still here. Would have thought it would have made commercial sense to let Grabban go but guess not. Ricky will not play for us again I fear. Makes me think, perhaps with some of our expensive signings mot delivering in previous years,maybe we were a bit cautious this time around.
Well our faith in AN is going to be put to the test now. If he can pull this rabbit out of the hat then he will be one of the all time greats, but it is a really tough gig now. And as been said, our squad is very thin on the ground and a couple of serious injuries to key players and we are in deep doo doo.
Just posted this on the transfer thread, but seems to fit here aswell. I've been away from a computer for a few days so haven't read all the previous posts and have only caught up on developments this morning. Here are my thoughts Sending players out on loan does not mean we are letting them go, equally players just because a player comes to us on loan does mean we're looking to buy them. Vadis & Andreu to a team like Rotherham makes perfect sense to me. As does sending out the Murphy's. Our midfield is by far our strongest area and although I would have wanted to keep Johnson I think AN will once Olsson is fit move Brady into midfield, leaving Johnson not even on the bench for many games. I also think AN sees potential in a Dorrans / Mulumbo partnership. Clearly Johnson (rightly) would not be happy with this and I'm glad he's gone to a championship team, rather than one of our competitors for relegation. I really don't understand why we didn't get rid of Gabban to Bournemouth. It makes no sense at all, unless Grabban said he wouldn't go there. My main concerns are the same as they've been all season in that we needed a CB who was better and younger than what we have, DVD would have been ideal (11.5m seems cheep) and a striker who is of a similar standard as Jerome. I get the feeling that both last season and this season there have been some issues in the dressing room that we are not aware of, which were papered over by the arrival of AN. I think the honeymoon period for AN is coming to an end and whilst I think his appointment was excellent business for us, I do think that the blind faith some supporters / posters have in him is misplaced. He is a young manager who has done incredibly well so far, but he is still very much developing his managerial skills and he has and will make mistakes I'm also now convinced that we need to take a good long look at our scouting and recruitment. I can see us not recruiting a CB / Striker and not getting rid of Grabban coming back to bite us on the a*se. I'm still hopeful that we won't go down, which I think is the best we can hope for at the moment. I fear that if we do go down we may well pass Johnson and Derby going the other way.
Holy smoke, I can't believe Jarvis alleged wages - NCFC must have lost the plot if they really are paying that sort of money to a back up wide man on loan! http://www.claretandhugh.info/jarvis-loan-details-revealed/?
I'm not sure their maths quite adds up though. He's with us for about 41 weeks by my calculations, which makes him on £42,500 or thereabouts if the £1.75m total saving is correct. Still a lot! We probably agreed to cover much of it instead of paying the loan fee, so I should think it's actually pretty reasonable given that we'll probably be spending north of that on Wisdom's loan (£1.25m loan fee plus (I'm guessing) more than £10kpw wages).
Well, it's sink or swim time. NCFC have made their bed (Turner prize nomination. anyone? - imo they haven't made a very good fist of doing so) and now the loyal fan base have got to lie in it with them. Fingers crossed, one and all!
Does that make Jarvis our top earner then? The figure rumoured is slightly higher than what we're meant to be paying Mulumbu.
