I'd Batts goes out I can see another midfielder - mainly cos it would be unfair to the lad to keep him on the bench for another 2 or 3 years. Can't see him signing on again even if we offer an extension cos he owes it to his career to go and play, as much as I'd like to keep him here. If Batts doesn't go out then just another striker for me and I'll be happy.
I'm under 70 and had no choice but to watch two episodes of that dross, a laugh a series, never again!
We are playing him, just not starting with him. Common knowledge its because 1 more start ttggers a rise per the contract the club agreed to. Pretty ****ty from Rehab Otherwise agree that he should sign it, do his stuff and things will look after themselves.
I came into this transfer window not expecting much. It's obvious we were short on midfielders so hoped we'd bring one in but once Haks went back I wasn't sure who would replace him. Could've easily brought in a young kid like Bowler from a PL side. But fair play to City, they're really going for it. Flores looks a solid but unspectacular signing, I felt much better about the signing after he said he's been with us a couple of weeks. He's definitely good enough then. Whyte looks an extremely good signing, and Crowley looks pretty close to signing too. He's probably not particularly well known on here, but he's a proper player and at this level would be brilliant. If we could sign him, it'd be an outstanding piece of business. Obviously we all want a striker too but surely with the salary cap it's going to have to be an u21 player. Wage wise, Whyte will replace Haks, Crowley will replace Jordy and most of the imminent departure too and Flores will take up any remaining space we have. We may have more room available than we're letting on but with the summer's signings too, it's hard to envisage too much room left
Personally, I'm not sure about Cowley now. TWT. Need another 9 with Tom out and Josh short of fitness.
Summer signings didn't disrupt much. It's clear we're short of depth in a couple of areas. Would you rather we did nothing?
Not really. He's played in every game. Besides it's been clearly stated he has 2 years on his deal and is not for sale.
We do need another striker but it's options as I pretty much said all summer too; there's not many available, who are better than what we have. They'd all command high fees too. Got everything crossed for Watters Re Crowley, after seeing him a fair bit, he's one you have to sign. He's as good as Honeyman, if not better and we get him on loan, which can be turned into a free in the summer. If we don't sign him, we're stupid and he'll go elsewhere and make them good money
I hope you are right, but it's this 'he needs to be playing' bit and the current stand off with KLP and the club which is unsettling. Something is preventing KLP signing a longer contract and I don't think it's him. I think it's his agent, who has an ulterior motive and not KLP's best interest at heart. Starting to look as though 'someone' has been tapped up.
I get the feeling that if we're a championship club again by the summer then the KLP deal will take care of itself.
Is cowley a ball winner and distributor? I don't know much about him. I'm working on 2 options per position. Obvs Alfie is now 1 of a first choice centre back 3, with jordi gone and Festus crocked, our 4 CB's would be Burke, Greaves, Jones and McLoughlin with young Smith as backup. Makes sense. 2 keepers are Long (technically better keeper) and Ingram, who's let in a few soft ones recently, though Long needed time out for the battering he took back end of last season. Emmanuel and Coyle RB. Elder and Fleming LB. Defence sorted. Smallwood and Batty as holding mids ( though Batts soon out of contract and Jones has been preferred, so there's a potential vacancy there of Batts goes out) Doc and slater for the box-to-box role. Honeyesta and now Flores for the no. 8/false 10 role. Out wide we have KLP, Scott, Wilks and Whyte (asssumimg MS is on his way) with Mayer as backup whom the club seem to rate though he needs to be settled in. No 9 we have Eaves and Josh, though we know Tom is out for the foreseeable, but there's a player in Tom if he can get consistently fit and he's more feared by oppositions than loved by his own fans, which for me is sad. So for me, it looks like Samuelsen and Batts (sadly) might be off to make space for potentially another centre mid. But surely that CM would need to be a ball-winner/holding type. And yes, the glaring cherry on the cake would be a No9 line-leader whom the ball would stick to, with both the ability to bring others into play and ideally a better conversion rate than we currently have... So it really depends what kind of CM your lad from Brum is as to whether it's agent talk or a realistic prospective signing. Either way, we need to prioritise a No9. Batts will be a player who will come back to bite us but can't see has a future in the current setup.
