If our strikers had been any good clubs would have took them weeks ago
We know they are not that good, but not hopeless; why would they take them weeks ago at premium prices when they can cherry-pick in the remaining window - it is us that is desperate for moves in and out - depending on which interview you heard last. Our public out-pouring's really do us no favours.
The fact that we can't shift either of our existing highly paid strikers. I don't think it's a fee issue, it's simply that either we have to go with Jelavic and Hernandez, or we shift one and replace them.
(Not necessarily a question for you, just using your response as it is the common belief.)
Okay, so let's drill down a bit into this reasoning.
Bruce made it very clear he wanted to keep Hernandez, or was that just rhetoric? He (or the owners - do we speak of them as a collective?) thought that a structured loan deal with another club was not acceptable, or was it that it was more important to keep him? (I think it would be useful) But does that mean that the only striker we can let go is Jelavic? At what price would that be, £2-3M (ish)? Knowing, as does everyone, that his knees are all but shot, would it not be considered as prudent to offer him out on a reduced fee or a loan?
I believe we made a firm bid for Gray, is that wrong? I thought we had made more than one bid for him and that our intent to have him was firm; it also came across that he wanted a move to us. (His reasons for moving to Burnley are hard to fathom.) Why did we make a bid we should have known was inadequate, is Bruce really so bloody naïve? Did he believe that the jump to an acceptable bid was not unreasonable, but was quickly put right. Some of his comments could lead you to think that.
We have the new boy, Akpom, on loan, a good signing who I hope will do well for us, but he is not a budget buster, is he?
If I consider the level of debt we have and the prize we are supposed to be ambitious to achieve, was a further stretch of the owners investment really so impractical. Before somebody says it is easy to say when it's not my money, yes it is, but is also a reasonable commercial punt.