If Billy Sharp had scored 8 in 17, would have you said we’d done a good job of sorting a new striker in January?
yes If I had scored 30 in 15 I would have said we'd done a good job in sorting a new striker in January I wonder if there's any logic in your comment. I doubt it.
I think OLM's point was that Carvalho has 8 in 17 having signed in January. He's played almost every game as a striker and done well and scored goals, but I guess because he isn't considered a striker it's seen differently than if Sharp (or Ohio) had had that record.
We don’t have the money to buy established Championship-level striking talent in a January window, and it’s baffling how people keep assuming we do. With our budget, we have to gamble on players. On paper, both Sharp and Ohio had reasons to gamble on them. In 21/22, Sharp scored 14 goals in the Championship. That’s more than Estupinan in 23/23. On paper, you’d assume that he’d at least get a few on a low-risk, short-term contract and would be worth it. It’s only now, with hindsight, that it seems like a poor decision. Ohio is a 21 year old that has represented both the Netherlands and England at youth levels, and could have been a rough diamond, waiting to be discovered. Taking a player with potential as a loan until the end of the season isn’t exactly a poor decision. Even if he hasn’t looked up to it. Neither of them have worked out, but neither are permanent players, so we’re not stuck with either of them. If we’d signed them both to long, permanent contracts, then I think it would be fairer to say that mistakes were made. As it is, we can brush them off and move on.
But we signed Carvalho essentially as an upgrade on Twine. We signed Sharp and Ohio and neither have played many games and Ohio has the one goal.
They haven’t been playing because the players already in the squad have been scoring. You don’t drop goal-scoring players.
You seem to have omitted Sharp's scoring exploits for 2022/23, can't imagine why. The views expressed in my posts are not necessarily mine.
PLT got my point, if Carvalho was a called a striker rather an attacking midfielder, then nobody would be moaning about our lack of a striker, despite the outcome being exactly the same.
We whopped our January budget on Carvalho, Zaroury and Omur when we already had Philogene, Tufan and Traore that play similar roles/positions. Now all 3 are obviously very good players but we are now very fat in that attacking midfield area. We can’t even really fit all 3 new signings in the team together. In the backdrop to that we sent our top scorer out on loan because we couldn’t afford to keep him but made a 37 year old has been one of our highest earners and cheaped out on an unproven kid who doesn’t suit our technical posession based system at all, then resorted to playing midfielders up front. I would imagine if you presented those facts to any neutral person that is not emotionally invested in defending or criticising the transfer policy either way they would be raising their eyebrows and thinking it’s a bit mental. And everyone called Billy Sharp a poor signing at the time, it’s not with hindsight.
So our transfer policy is sign three forward players and hope at least one of them scores a few goals? And the one who is scoring goals is an attacking midfielder and the two strikers aren’t? Sounds like a great plan. Glad we’re using our restricted resources well.
