Or we've taken losses on players to get rid of them like Woods and Oscar. Oscar's signing on fee and wages would have been substantially more than the ~1m we got for him.
Absolutely. It’s no longer recruiting to get the best XI, with seven bench players. The odds are we will always have a few injured and then pick up suspensions throughout the season. If we are serious about promotion this season, (which some one here are implying, though Insould prefer th longer haul route myself), I would say 14 very good players and another 6 championship squad. If by some miracle, all were fit, using subs on 60 minutes gives those who think they should be in the team a chance to prove it.
What is Sinik's injury record? He had a reported hamstring injury early on with us, but since then it's been much more vague. He's been with us for 2 years, made 2 starts with a handful of substitute appearances, been out on loan twice with a similar picture of appearances. We never hear any clear recovery news about him, just vague teasers like he's back on the grass. There's no clarity at all and no one ever seems to actually explain what's going on.
Agreed. I also think Walter is a manager who likes to make a lot of substitutions to keep the tempo and pressure up so a strong bench will be important.
Players get injured, players get called up for internationals, players lose form. We need quality backups for these eventualities, and we need players who can come off the bench to change a game. Nothing to see here.
I'd love to know how much he has been paid for the minutes he has actually been on the pitch, complete waste of finances for me tbh.
It would seem that early on in the window, people were panicking about the lack of a squad (despite getting rid of a lot of players who weren’t good enough). Now there are quite a few who are saying we have too many? So what if we have 3 good keepers?! If Rushworth is a big upgrade like they are thinking, please bring him in. Football is brutal at times. It’s not as if we’ve become Chelsea either. If I look now, I’m pretty sure our squad size is not one of the biggest in the league. As always, let’s judge at the end of the transfer window. Yes, we need more attacking players, but we aren’t even at deadline day yet, where the magic is likely to happen. I don’t think Acun/the management can ever win sometimes. What would it actually take?
Came across this posted yesterday. Consensus appears to be our transfers have been uninspiring, and our squad is weaker than last season. Hopefully they will have changed their tune by the weekend.
That’s the point really. We shouldn’t be complaining about having too many, considering the situation, and the fact that it’s been explained (“an opportunity too good to pass up”). I’m pretty sure he’ll be an upgrade. To answer your first question, maybe I’ve misinterpreted it as I’ve read the last few pages but that’s the feeling I’m getting when people are already questioning where players will fit in.
Did it though (the debt part)? Serious question as it's not really stopping us putting together what I feel most will think is a competitive squad. TWT if that's true.
Think that’s more down to the outgoings than anything else though. It definitely didn’t do us any favours.
Rushworth isn't an opportunity too good to pass up. He's an upgrade but not enough of an upgrade to put our two permanent keepers on the bench or in the stands. Questioning where players will fit in is not saying we shouldn't have signed them. I quite literally said "Signing players who will sit on the bench is a symptom of having to sign an entire squad in one window" and the discussion followed that as long as the players came in knowing they weren't going to be guaranteed game time then it's no issue.
The strategy was to spend big in january and rack up a deficit and either compensate it with promotion or selling players. Hard to say how bad the damage is till accounts come out next year
I would hope that the powers behind the scenes see that this team will take a bit to get together. We need to fight our way through the next month most likely and hope of picking up some results. The good thing is not many should go away on international duty bar Millar and maybe Omur. So at least there we have a good 2 weeks to get them on the training ground and knowing each other. If it clicks there is probably enough quality in depth to challenge again for playoffs. But I suspect we end up still being like Boro last year and being somewhat a late bloomer
