What about Cairney? Would he better use as cover or out on loan? He can cover whilst Quinn is injured.
I have been very negative with my predictions each week and been (happily) wrong countless times. Yesterday was unreal. I mean Fryatt scored... Something magical happened. However, I don't expect us to run rampant over someone like that again. It's hard to explain this without sounding negative but Fulham were so bad that everything fell to our feet last night. Only three of the goals (boyd, koren's 1st and probably Thudd's) were proper goals all from our hard graft. I'd say the other 3 were fortunate and I don't expect us to get that sort of goal against other teams. I am not taking any of the effort away from the lads, we smashed them and it was great but 3 of those goals should not have happened against PL opposition. But yesterday's incredible result to me hasn't changed the fact we need a proper striker. You can't be blinded by good team performances and forget about individual blunders and misses in past games. Personally, i feel we should be home an dry by now. I look at games we couldn't finish off with a 2nd goal (and had the lead). Swansea, west brom, Man united, Cardiff and the games we should really have won if we were more clinical Stoke and Palace, to me even though I'm delighted with our position it shows we are actually underrating ourselves and could easily have been better than that were it for us having a finisher. At the moment the switches would be Brady/Boyd Aluko/Koren Graham/new striker. I don't think we need to upset the balance in the team. People talk about 2 strikers but I disagree. Get one Main target. To switch with Graham. That's all we need for the starting XI. Then maybe get some young players as back up for injuries. -I think we can forget about Gedo and Prozzy. -Fryatt may feature if he keeps it up like last night. -I honestly feel Graham will never cut it so I'd look to bench him. -Brady would have to find form to swap him with Boyd in my opinion. Talk about a player taking his chances. His super sub appearances have always been good and he was really good yesterday. We really need to be careful not to upset the camp and screw up the current balance this transfer market. That goes both ways with other clubs bidding on our players.
A huge factor in our squad is the team ethos. They're like a gang - all for one and one for all - and SB will be so well aware of that fact. Whoever comes in will have to really fit in.
Completely agree with this. Some people overlook this and see players at simple pawns to move around but it matters. Personal connections off the field matter. Of course we are unaware of them, we can assume the Irish lads are quite close and the ex-sunderland lads maybe etc... but we're not sure. Some will contradict this by saying all players are Professionals and mature enough not to have petty things like personal affection affect their football but it's pretty impossible for it not to! This is a complete punt but I can see Brady being a little upset at the moment. Poor performances combined with injury will have put a little downer and to see your team doing so well with Boyd in your spot is never nice. Anyone that has played a team sport and is competitive will know this. I'm predicting Bruce won't be looking abroad that much.
Was listening to RH on the way back from the game yesterday and they said Burnsy was going to pump some names at Bruce as possible targets. Got to the pub before I heard his interview. Did he come up with anyone close to the mark?
Everybody is saying that we should bring someone in.. what about making sure that we don't lose anyone. SURELY after THudds and Livermore's recent performances.. we're more than likely gonna lose them, especially if they're awarded bigger contracts elsewhere. Ppl can argue about team moral, but never underestimate an agent whispering in a player's ear about an established premier league team.
McG Rosie Chester Davies Fig Elmo Livermore Thudd Brady Aluko Sagbo Harper Bruce McShane Meyler Boyd Koren *New Striker* That should see us through the season. Assuming Aluko and Brady come back with the right mindset. Personally I feel Koren is probably playing his final season with us (certainly of being in match squad every week), I could see another player coming in to play that "secondary striker" position too.
I think a mixture of both. Not being 100% which has resulted in a few below par performances meaning a little shock to his confidence.