Mick just doesn't change

[evergold]

Lee Wallace? Who he?

According to Wikipedia, he's a Hearts player recently getting over cruciate knee ligament problems and with some "history" of alleged gun offences and police involvement.

Matt Mills? Alleged Wolves bid of £3 million rejected by Reading. Must be a useful Championship player, one would think.

But are these the targets Mick McCarthy should be aiming at to establish Wolves as a mid-table Premiership side? Well, there is certainly no proof that they are and one of them, at least, looks highly dubious on paper.

By Premiership standards they would be relatively cheap, though. So maybe they might come to Wolves and join all the other cheap dross on the club's books.

Deary me! When will McCarthy ever turn his mind to getting in players with class, imagination, creativity, inventiveness, inspiration ... etc.? In short, the qualities which distinguish Premiership from Championship players and Premiership from Championship teams. If we say we can't afford such players, then we might as well say we can't afford to be in the Premiership. Numerous teams (e.g. Blackpool, Hull, etc.) have tried to do the Premiership "on the cheap" in recent years. Where are they now? It can't be done.

So come on Mick, either splash the cash required (albeit sensibly, not rashly or wildly) or let's all agree that Wolves' philosophy is better suited to the Championship and we can all go and watch the second-raters "put in a shift" in the Championship every Saturday, without the pressure of trying to compete at the top level.

The decision is up to the 3Ms, but now is the time to decide. Fannying about in lower leagues for a third consecutive summer frantically trying to unearth "gems" amidst the dross is no substitute for a proper well-thought-out transfer policy.

 

[hedgeworth]

Lee Walace plays in the Scottish Premier League and for his Country.

Mills is someone who has performed well for a few years now in the Championship.

I sort of understand where you are coming from, but we are not yet in a position to pay the sort of wages that these players you suggest are requesting, so we will have to either get lucky with someone willing to take a pay cut or snap up players from teams who are not willing to pay as much as us.

So far we have O'Hara and Vries, and with 5 million spent i would still expect another 1-2 decent money signings, maybe Mills at 4 million and then another at 5-8million. Players like Wallace will cost us about 500k and are very low risk due to the low cost.

If we get lucky with one or two of these cheap buys everyone will be saying what a great Manager Mick is, but as of yet, we have only lost money from his cheap signings.

Mills, Wallace and another decent name Defender would still put us in a much better position than the start of last season.

 

[Neilynotquite]

There's a difference between trying to build "on the cheap" as opposed to within your budget. As a matter of fact Hull overspent (e.g. Jimmy Bullard), as did Blues, and it puts you in a much bigger mess if you do go down. I really don't want to put us in the same position we were in in the late 80s. It's not much fun.
I can see the argument for spending bigger on one or two players. If Mick thinks Roger Johnson is a better bet than Matt Mills, for example, we'd probably be better off with Johnson, but only if his wage demands aren't too high and only if we can do it without borrowing money.
I have supported a move for Johnson, but never watched enough Blues matches to know if he is really that good, or if his record looks good by playing in McLeish's 8-1-1 formation.