Lambert is doing about as much as he can do. Definitely fills a glaring void in the side, decent signing.
This is a canny, relatively low risk signing. Hopefully he can get over his fitness issues and, with regular football and a shot of confidence, can replicate his form from a couple of years ago. He was nominated Championship Footballer of the Year before his injury and has Championship experience. A good deal.
It seems Evans realises he is staring into a financial Black Hole at last, the signings are coming at an unheard of rate and although not all will work out it would appear Lambert has told him exactly what the situation is and the effect has been akin to an extremely strong laxative. I was really impressed with Collins on Saturday and Keane is improving with game time, so if Judge can keep fit it's just got to be a good signing, we just need to offload the hopeless dross if we can.
Agreed that the signings are a good sign and an indication of necessity. Judge is our sixth signing this January window, arguably our busiest January window in its relatively short history? It does mean we have a playing squad of almost 50 players! For this window, I'd offload / loan out the following: Knudsen, Donacien, Rowe, Roberts, Nydam, Dozzell (if somebody is willing to bid £5m plus incentives and clauses, we should snap their hand off), and Jackson or Harrison. As for players out of contract this summer (excluding new signings), who'd you keep out of Gerken, Spence, Knudsen, Kenlock, Emmanuel, Woolfenden, Chambers, Bishop, Ward, and Adeyemi? If we do go down, I'd probably retain Gerken and Chambers for squad options, especially as we'll probably have to move our highest earner, Bart, off the wage bill, and then I'd tie down Woolfenden and Kenlock to long term contracts. The rest we can probably do without.
Let's not get carried away, we have brought in loans, crocked players and journeymen. There is talent in there certainly, but this is not a case of Evans suddenly pouring money into the club. As for players, the only one who is never going to make a footballer is Spence, the rest of them may be able to offer something. What we must not do this time is release a load of players and then appoint someone who may have wanted to keep them on.
Good post Nuggets, I'd keep Gerken, Kenlock, Chambers, Bishop, Woolfy, Emmanuel, the rest can go thats if we can find anyone daft enough to take them, lets hope Hurst gets a job soon.
50 players? Wtf? 50 and yet so few are capable of playing at this level. You only need 24... As to who to ditch, really depends on what they’re paid. I’d like to free up money fir wages of new better players by ditching as many as poss across the whole squad. I’m not sure who we’ve got who could conceivably play for a promotion winning team aside from Collins. I have a feeling bishop will never become the awesome player he threatened to be. But if he’s not being paid much then worth keeping. As for the rest, there’s no one I’d be crying into my pillow over if they were sold or let go of tomorrow. Dozzel is the only player with any real potential value. But there’s no evidence he can really cut it at this level yet, just well founded hope and expectation. Which is on the career gravestone of many a young player over the years. I doubt he’s on much wages yet so unless a silly offer comes in probably opt to keep. Same goes for lankester. Don’t want another Rhodes fiasco... As ever the problem is signing better players. That’s easier said than done. Especially with our owner. I suspect PL knows what to do though in this regard, it’s his job after all and he’s done it before. Time will tell. And he deserves time I think. We’re not going to get anyone better. Certainly not now or in the near future. Let’s just pray these recruits can pull this off...funnily enough it was our squad that started in The Great Escape after all.
I actually think Downes and Lankester will have better careers than Dozzell. We'd probably get more for Andre if we sold any but I just think the other two will be solid players for a long time and Dozzell will blow hot or cold or get swallowed by some big team's bench. Downes will be a solid CDM for a yo-yo championship club and Lankester will make it to a lower established prem team are my predictions. Both will play more regularly than Dozzell.
The Hurst Curse goes on, God knows how long it will take to offload this dross and to the financial implications tied up to it, the long term effects are far reaching indeed.
Come on field, Hurst took over a shoddy squad, was criticised for making lots of changes and now Lambert is doing the same. We have two very good goalkeepers playing well beneath themselves, Sears had a great run of form and has now gone off the boil. The player who made an instant impact (Collins), Hurst himself tried to sign. Lambert persisted with the worst player at the club (Spence). This is due to years of neglect - ten years without an accomplished right back - neither Hurst nor Lambert nor anyone else can sort it out in one transfer window. We may get to the summer with some of these players realising their potential, but instead of signing another six players, wouldn’t it be more sensible to invest some proper money in just one or two signings and then do the same again in the summer?
I get both your points, but realistically, none of Hursts permanent signings have really worked out. Agreed its all hindsight, but lets face it, they are all dross, and not good enough to be in a play off chasing team (which is where we need to be)
No player has performed well this season consistently under either manager - McCarthy signing, Hurst signing, loan, permanent or otherwise. We have seen time and again players who haven't done so well at Town go on to better things elsewhere and I'm sure that will be the case for a lot of the current squad.
Who do you think has the potential to go onto bigger and better things, of Hursts signings? Donacien, Edwards, Jackson, Harrison, Nolan, Nsiala....Any of them?
