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Smokedsalmon

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Posts posted by Smokedsalmon

  1. There is no such thing in this league as "guaranteed goals", and we know this from spending over 20m on Assombalonga and Rhodes, two players who were labelled as "guaranteed goals" and ended up stinking our gaff out for years on big money.

    As a football team we have rarely been set up to get the best out of our strikers. It has been hit and hope football for years. Asking players to just run the channels and get on the end of low % chances and create something for themselves. I genuinely believe no striker in world football would have broken 20 goals in any of our previous 6 seasons of football.

    Forss and Hoppe are 2 young, hungry international footballers who both A) Have a point to prove B) Come at relatively low cost C) Could easily develop and become 15+ goal strikers in this league. I remind everybody; Ivan Toney was signed from Peterborough in League 1 and broke the goal scoring record.

    Most importantly however is that our system now is set up to get our strikers to score goals. We have 2 wide men providing very good delivery and we (try our best) to play through the midfield whenever possible. You do not need to spend 30m on a pair of strikers to get out of this league. Pukki was free, struggled horribly at his last club, and absolutely blitzed it.

    As a fanbase we need to collectively get over this deep-seated belief that unless a player comes with a massive price tag and whips his shirt over his head like Ravanelli that he is a poor deal. Welcome to modern football my friends.

     

    • Like 31
  2.  

    1 minute ago, Will said:

    I do. Not to doubt that Digger has been told that, but I think there is absolutely 0 chance that Larsen has trained with us even once, never mind every day this week. 

    Agreed. Footballers do not turn up and train with clubs a week in advance of even a fee being agreed. It just doesn't happen. Digger's info needed to be followed up on the day with an announcement, or else it was always going to be duff info.

  3. 1 minute ago, ManBearPig said:

    Surely with Spence being sold you actually did have room to get those guys in? 
     

    50k a week over 3 years is about 7.8m. I don’t think that’s horrendous when there’s no signing fee 

    There will be a signing on fee. And agent fees. And every club going was probably competing for them.

    Would not have been "free transfers" at all, really.

    • Like 1
  4. Just now, SouthernDave said:

    Agreed.  Very disappointed with Crooks today.  Give Mcgree a bit more time and he could become a great asset.  Howson really needs to be replaced.

    when you see Bruce got Wallace and Swift in on free’s, it does make you wonder where our recruitment team are at times.

    But, we really need that striker who can bring a presence, and goals, up front.  Don’t think Forrs is going to be that person, but let’s hope so.

    Wallace + Swift will collectively be on at least 40-50k a week which we absolutely cannot afford.

    • Like 2
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  5. Just now, Humpty said:

    Isn't that how most people get their tidbits? Certainly the case for me. Bottom line is that things do change quickly and what was concrete information is now just false/rumours/lies. Take any "ITK" with a big pinch of salt, don't take it as gospel and then you won't get upset when invariably something doesn't pan out. It's not that big a deal.

    Maybe in terms of something like "we are interested in X player", then sure, I can see it. If someone has been asked to do a profile on someone, they might be able to share that.

    But when people pop up with "we have bid this, but they want this, we agreed this, but they want this, this fee is being discussed" all the kind of details that you would literally need to be in the negotiating room to be privy to, that's when I start to get a bit skeptical.

  6. I think it's fair to say in terms of ITK information, it's a lot more likely for people to hear accurate things about players going rather than coming.

    I forget who it was a couple of nights ago who said Tav had cleared his locker out because he knew someone at Rockcliffe. That turned out to be true, and it's pretty feasible. He could know the cleaner, a physio, even the receptionist, and they would know that just by walking by.

    In terms of incomings, however; unless you know somebody directly involved (a family member, a scout, an analyst, or whoever is involved in the paperwork side of things when it becomes official) I really don't see how it's possible to get "tidbits" these days. A scout or an analyst can't just text their mates a list of names they've been working on. It would almost certainly result in a disciplinary.

    And I think this is reflected in the quality of information we receive; I don't think anybody has stuck their neck on the line and given an accurate name/time of an incoming other than when mungosmum knew about Giles because she knows his dad.

    I think the club becoming more professional in its approach has killed the days of truly well connected ITKs, alas.

     

    • Like 3
  7. 24 minutes ago, Changing Times said:

    Saville was played as the most advanced midfielder that season, essentially replacing a number 10 for us.  That's not comparing like for like.

    I don't think it would be fair to say Tavernier doesn't play an advanced role for us.

    The point is also more that it's really easy to get this sort of goal/assist output in this league, because George Saville was utter *** *** and he managed it, so it's no massive loss.

  8. 2 minutes ago, Boroinredcar said:

    He is not a patch on Tav.

    He is far, far better at passing than Tav, more composure on the ball, and better off the ball movement.

    Tavernier is good for his work rate and athleticism. In terms of technical ability, composure, he is replaceable.

    5g 5a last year. George Saville got 6g 4a in his last season for us, just for comparison, and I don't think anyone would suggest we are missing him.

    • Like 2
  9. I'm not too concerned about this at all.

    12.5m for a player with 2 years left is good value. He's going to the Premier League. Championship clubs sell to the Premier League - it's what happens.

    I know it seems a big loss to us in the context that (we have no midfield, and most of them are ***) but the strengths Tav possesses - athleticism, work rate, pace - are easier to replace than his weaknesses - lack of composure, poor passing, inconsistent finishing.

    He scored 5 goals and got 5 assists last year. Can we replace that for 12.5m? Easily.

    He's not even the best Tavernier brother.

    • Like 9
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  10. For me, Forss fills the "Billy Sharp Role" in our attack. Instinctive finisher who does his best work in the penalty area.

    Now we just need the "David McGoldrick Role" who can drop deeper, hold up play, and bring Forss in. Hopefully Muniz is good at this, but I will be honest I have no idea what sort of player he is.

    I'd like to see us go for some big beefy German target man from the 2. Bundesliga or something. I play in that league on FM way too much and there's loads on offer there who are good at that role.

    • Like 2
  11. Just now, "KM" said:

    Got speaking to a Southampton fan and he reckons Armstrong doesn’t have the quality for the prem and that he would be leaving should they get another striker in. Personally don’t think he’s failed as a prem player just needs a proper good run in the team!  

    Armstrong's whole game relies on the fact that he's reeeeeeeeeeoooown rapid.

    That usually is enough to utterly ruin some of the plodder-defences in the Championship (see Adama) but in the Prem against top quality defenders you don't have the space to exploit it. Simple as that really. He'd be so good for us though.

  12. 3 minutes ago, expat-acklam said:

    100% agree. New and hopefully better goalkeepers, slightly better defense, somewhat more and better midfield options (Tav is still there at the moment), much better LHS offensively from what I have seen, offense that to be honest though it has fewer people is no worse than last year.

    Do we need more, absolutely but I think we can challenge during July/August while we wait for them.

    I agree with you on everything apart from the midfield; we haven't given ourselves more options there, in fact we lost Payero and JLS.

    We've improved 3 first team slots (GK, CB, LWB) and regressed in one (ST). The midfield has gotten less depth, but not gotten weaker.

    Overall it's not a bad place to be in at this point in the window, we had a very small squad to begin with which is why we've had to supplement so much with loans over the last few years.

    I do worry about our ST targets though; I'm not convinced they will be any better than last year.

  13. With the caveat that there is still time left in the window, and that things might change, in my opinion if you are ever in a position where you are rebuilding an entire forward line with 3 loans-all from the same league-and are happy to sit waiting for multiple weeks for those deals to come off, the recruitment team haven't done their job.

    I could have probably looked through a list of Premier League squads and picked out 3 back up strikers to loan. What have the data analysts been doing? Lowest minutes played?

    • Like 4
  14. 5 minutes ago, pikerman said:

    When Kieran Scott was appointed as Head of Recruitment it was stated by the club that “he brings a wealth of experience and knowledge”.  I presumed, perhaps wrongly, that he would bring with him his little black book of contacts and hidden gems just waiting to be unearthed and polished. Perhaps it is me, but I don’t see much evidence of this change of recruitment policy as yet, the ones we have brought in so far are on frees and loans, and the ones we are allegedly looking at are further big money loans from other clubs. If Coventry can unearth Gykores, for whom we would be willing to pay big for, why can’t we do the same? Very happy with the players we have got so far but slightly worried that there is no sign yet of this much vaunted change of policy that we all hoped was coming

    I imagine it is Wilder demanding immediate quality & promotion.

    Let's be clear, he hasn't come here to slowly build a team over a number of years. He wants to go up; he says it all the time. He sees himself as a Premier League manager, and a part of me thinks he feels a bit hard done-by to have had to drop back down to this level.

    I don't think he wants any unknowns or "projects".

    • Like 2
  15. 1 minute ago, DurhamRed said:

    We really need some striker with presence we look so blunt no game plan of how to score. Uche would help in these sort of games 

    Doesn't help that the midfield 3 cannot string a pass together.

    Our strikers have gotten a lot of stick over the years but I maintain that not having a midfield that can keep control of the ball and progress it through the pitch has always been our biggest weakness.

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