Latest rumbling is that Jol is interested in Whelan (27) of Stoke. A midfielder !! Vaguely remember him having a decent cup final.
Saw an article this morning reenba Ba,i think Newcastle were interested, it went on to say something about his salary 40k per week. if its true that AJ is on that amount,then,for me Ba,and Cambell,we could then rotate. Trouble is I dont see anyone as yet coming in for AJ.
Whelan is a solid midfielder. I see quite a bit of him in the Irish team. Decent player, hard working, good passer and has an occasional decent strike at goal but I can't see why we would be trying to sign him. Don't really see him as a long term successor to Murphy. He would only be a squad player I reckon, and we have enough of them. I'm getting slightly worried that a lot of the players we're being linked to are the wrong kinds of players. Although all they are for the moment are rumours so best wait and see what MJ does before making complaints.
Why not, Bandy? Gudjonsen was all right. Just because the team plays a certain type of football doesn't mean that none of their players are any good. Dennis Wise played for Crazy Gang era Wimbledon, but he was also a key part of Hoddle's Chelsea. Judge the players on their own merits, not by who they currently play for.
Whelan was not a consistant starter at Stoke. Not prolific either scored 4 goals in 102 games. We cannot be talking anymore than 1-2m here.
Ahh but Gudjohnsen was never used at Stoke and openly admitted to hating the way they played football. Eidur has the likes of Barca and Chelsea to fall back on, what does Whelan have?
But Fulham refused Denis Wise a trial, Captain. Take your point though, it's the player not the team make up that counts. He did struggle in the earlier part of the season and wasn't first choice. But since January he has been a regular and, I'm told, very solid.
I saw a lot of Whelan when he was younger, at Hillsborough. He was one of the leading players in that team (along with the mercurial Chris Brunt), but in all he is a solid central midfielder. We have plenty of better/similar players in that position in Sidwell, Etuhu, Greening, Baird. So, all in all, a decent player but not worth pursuing.
