At the moment yes i would say he is. I would send young Ryan on loan and probably will go to Derby or Ipswich either way the lad needs games under his belt. Just wondering where him and Ji Don Wong will fir in the pecking order
Vegas. Did you imagine we'd get Gyan last year or Bent the year before? As they say you have to speculate to accumulate. We've had since January to scour the world for a striker, dipping into the championship for an 18 year old and spending the majority of our transfer budget on him was not what I was expecting. Haggis, having a 15-20 goal man doesn't stop the midfield scoring if you've got a midfield that are prepared to get forward and take a chance. Last year we had Cattermole and Henderson who youd think were told if they drift more than 5 yards away from each other or 10 yards away from the centre back there heads would explode.
As has been said - Who?? To "Replace" Darren Bent directly would cost 20m+ (not 10m) - we sold bent for £24m and if we could replace for half ythat do you not think we already would have? Wickham (from what I've seen) looks an excellent player and is only 18 - we sign him for 9m + add on's and if he succeeds then we are well in and he has looked every bit the player. In 2 seasons he hasn't exactly played 60 or 70 games and 2 seasons under the age of 18 scoring 12 goals in my book is pretty good
Not the striker I was expecting, with him and Dong and Gyan surely we need a proven PL striker alongside Gyan? If he is injured we have a young Korean with no PL experience, or an 18 year old from Ipswich...?
Allo Folks, Like Chunky ive been on nights and have woken up now to find that RADIO CITY is reporting the Wickham story. What they are reporting however, is that the 'lump sum' upfront is only 5 million and that the remainde consists of add ons and reference has been made to outstanding financial arrangements between Sunderland and Ipswich. According to Radio City Liverpool maintain an interest in the player but the deal could now possibly be no longer viable
So what uis our transfer budget Parker as I haven't seen anything stating how much we have to spend As far as Bent - yes, I thought we'd get him - from the moment we signalled interest I thought he'd sign. Gyan was unproven in EPL so he was a gamble at 13m - as would Wickham be but, using your own words, you have to "speculate to accumulate" and signing wickham would be speculating in the right way in my opinion
Wickham is young and unproven and Dong is Korean and unproven. But I don't bloody care because I'm getting excited at signing players again! And if Wickham is half as good as they say he's got excellent potential and you can bet Bruce has talked to Roy Keane about him. Wickham, Gardner plus another quality signing (N'Zzzzzzzzogbia?) and I'll be a lot happier when the season starts.
But if we get another striker, this is gonna be an expensive sub. His stats hardly inspire, Hope he proves my doubts wrong, same as Sess did.
Sess came with more promise and experience. Hed shown he was quality on the international stage and the French Ligue 1. He also cost a lot less than the figures being bandied around for Wickers. We still need the defence sorting out, left midfield, and a proven striker before we should consider gambling on youth!
I'm far from convinced about the merits of this deal for us, principally because I've never seen him. I've heard a lot about him, but from the various postings nobody has seen him play! We get Championship games on the box here and I've seen Ipswich a few times; but no Wickham. What's the real story? He is either injured a lot or not the hotshot we've been told he is. Lot of money for a kid. Its about 800k for every league goal he's scored.
Try reading the 876 other threads mate.... Nearly have, we think.. You like the idea. EDIT. bugger BB you beat me to it.
To replace Bent we needed to bring Berbatov, Defoe, Drogba or Pavlechenco in, they have proven premier league experience so lets hope Bruce is right, but look at gareth bale when he was at Southampton i didn't rate hime at the time but now he is worth about £30 m.
