Farewell Danny

Won't be too arsed if we bring Santon replaces him and we bring in either Cissokho, Pieters or Taiwo. Danny's not the best full-back around but i still appreciate the job he's done for the club. Good luck in the future if he does actually go.

 

Disappointed to be honest. Feel like we're losing all of our English players. Hoped we could've kept him, but ideally as back up and he probably wouldn't want that. As long as we bring in a competent left back so Santon can shift over, then fine. As long as we don't have to start relying on Raylor and Santon at the back by next summer!

 

I thought we all now understood the problems of squad depth. What if one of our fullbacks get injured after Simmo leaves? We'll be stuck with Perch and Raylor again.

 

Well apparently he's not allowed to leave in January, so we should probably get a left back in January anyway and then make sure Simmo is properly replaced when he goes in the summer. Apparently we're after Clyne? As are ManU

 

Eh? If you sell Simpson you then need to sign two players. One to back up Santon and a left back we still haven't got. So you're not really curing any problem, just creating another one. Its not like you can just go and get some half decent youngster either given Santons ongoing fitness problems. It has to be someone in Simpsons mould who can do a solid job. It seems to me we have the perfect competition for Santon in Simpson.

But it all depends on a lot of stuff we don't know. I'm bored of hearing people say "he's being greedy" or "he just be happy to at a club like ours". No modern footballer is just going to let a club pump them up the arse unless they are James Perch ****. The overriding fact is we don't know the situation in terms of whats been offered, so its foolish to criticise either party.

 

I do agree with your last point, but Simpson was brought into a Championship team, if we are pushing forward he is one ofthe players who needs to be improved on like Nolan before him. This isn't an Enrique style losing a top player, its a painfully flawed fullback thinking he's a lot better than he is.

I just hope he doesn't go Barton and try to engineer a ripped up contract.

 

He puts a shift in, but it isn't particularly good, so I wouldn't be too disheartened.

However, my only worry would be that our defence is already incredibly thin. It's pointless adding depth if we just sell players. If simpson does go, we'll need at least two more defenders, or maybe even three if we want to avoid Raylor at left back for too long.

 

He's got much better defensive qualities than Raylor and Perch and would be good back up. I would consider it great business signing him on a 2-3 year deal.

 

Couldn't agree with you here Colly. He has flaws but for me (and I was a big critic) he's been outstanding of late. He's still improving too. We all know Santon is our right back. But the lad has an ongoing problem and will miss an awful lot of games. We need a dependable full back to compete with him if we are to move forward as you suggest. To keep simply turning over player after player will eventually catch up with you for me. I'm a bit old school me, I think you need to build something over a number of years for it to last in football. You see it with Ferguson he keeps players most of us would not. John O'Shea is a fine example. He kept him because he had a great attitude and despite some flaws could do a really solid job. he sold him when he had exhausted every last ounce of worth from him. Simpson understands our system and any new player, like Santon, will take time to get up to speed.

As for bit in bold, I don't know where people get this idea from. We don't actually know what he is being offered by the club. It could just as easily (and probably more likely given our owners) that the club is low balling him. Couldn't agree on Barton either, I don't think he did engineer a move, it was simply about the board not wanting him for me from day 1. Again we don't know the facts though so there is no definitive answer. We could certainly do with Nolan and Barton right now, I know that much.

 

Davide Santon is our right back for the significant future. We will buy a new left back in January (hopefully) anyway.

Would be nice to keep him as a utility player. But he wont be missed.

 

Can't believe QPR and Villa are so high on him, he's improved since we bought him, but still not anywhere near Santons level.

 

Yes but he is having a very good season and getting better all the time. The only thing which baffled me about QPR, did they not sign Luke Young? Simpson wouldn't go there to play 2nd fiddle. Villa have Hutton don't they? Strange but it is just paper talk I suppose.

I don't think the issue is whether he is as good as Santon, he is not and never will be. But you need two full backs both sides at some point, and particularly with Santon having ongoing injury problems.

 

I made this point exactly. To an extent the story is lazy journalism as both have just signed RB's who have performed well so far!!!

 

I'm surprised he's considering leaving, I agree we don't know the exact circumstances, but it's a disappointment not a massive loss.

 

From off of Twitter

dannysimpson12 Danny Simpson

People need 2 relax!

 

I think it is right that Simpson does go; he clearly wants to be playing regular football and he probably will not be getting that here next season so it will probably be for the best if Simpson goes.

If we sign Pieters then we could have him as LB, Santon as RB, and Fergie and Tav as back up with Raylor providing extra backup to either side.

 

I couldn't care about Simpson going as long as we got another RB....I think he is terrible going forward and an average player that rates him self a lot better than he is

 

Well, obviously not fully committed and not exactly a world beater. He'll be a bench warmer at other prem sides.

I'd say call his bluff, if we lose him just replace with better. Santon is here as well, who I suspect will prove to be a superior player anyway.

I'll bet his manager is telling him to do that as we are short on defence "put the screws on lad, they're backed into a corner" - Guess what... won't work.

 

Amuse me, how can you possibly know this?

 

I'll retract the bolded bit as you're right, we don't have facts for that though this is a man whose ego had him respond to Twitter rumours of an England callup and create a phone app with his face on it.

The rest I disagree with, he's physically decent, has a decent cross on him and has all the attributes to be quality, but still has all the fundamentally poor tendancies that should've been coached out of him years ago. Backing off, hiding behind his centre halfs, generally being out of position far far too often. Using John O'Shea as an example is an interesting one, since it was Fergie who let Simpson go in the first place, didn't take him long to get every ounce of worth from him did it? No real problems with him and I'd rather keep him, but he's far from irreplaceable.

And Barton? There was obviously mutual dislike between him and the board, but any normal person would stick a transfer request in, you've said it yourself many times you can't keep an unhappy player. Barton publicly insulted his employer over and over to the point that the only viable option was to tear his contract up, its the most blatant public example of engineering a transfer you'll ever see.

Yes, with Tiote, Guthrie and Gosling unavailable we probably could do with another centre mid, but we'd need a 40 man squad to cope with our injury crises every year. Nolan made it clear he'd rather be paid more in a lower league, while Barton would never have played second fiddle to Cabaye so that last point is moot.