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I agree with much of the above, especially that the truly great Steve Gibson might now be getting a bit out of his financial depth as owner of a Championship football club, let alone a Premier League club.

 

But having said that, I always view the January transfer window with trepidation. The summer window is a bit different. The manager has – or should have – a battle plan. It’s an opportunity to overhaul the team before the start of the season and, with a few exceptions, we generally face the new season with optimism. But between August and Christmas, the rot always seems to set in. The team is not performing to its full potential and changes ‘have’ to be made.

 

We are not in a bad position in the league right now. Plenty of other clubs would envy us. We do not always play attractive football, but we grind out results and we do not concede many goals.

But most of us are aware that we are on a knife-edge and we could do much better. We do not score enough goals and we do not kill off games.

 

But is the answer always to bring in fresh blood? This has happened time after time in the January transfer window and, generally speaking, it does not work out well. However good a player might be, it’s a lot to expect that he can just be dropped into a team and hit the ground running.

 

And when it has taken the best part of four months to get players used to playing together – to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses – does it make much sense to suddenly introduce new faces and start the process all over again? In the middle of the season? With all of the disillusionment and loss of confidence that it causes in existing players?

 

I don’t think this makes any sense at all. We have a few good players already, and a lot of potentially good players. My belief is that money is better spent getting the best out of what we have got instead of investing in yet more unknown quantities.

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I agree with much of the above, especially that the truly great Steve Gibson might now be getting a bit out of his financial depth as owner of a Championship football club, let alone a Premier League club.

 

But having said that, I always view the January transfer window with trepidation. The summer window is a bit different. The manager has – or should have – a battle plan. It’s an opportunity to overhaul the team before the start of the season and, with a few exceptions, we generally face the new season with optimism. But between August and Christmas, the rot always seems to set in. The team is not performing to its full potential and changes ‘have’ to be made.

 

We are not in a bad position in the league right now. Plenty of other clubs would envy us. We do not always play attractive football, but we grind out results and we do not concede many goals.

But most of us are aware that we are on a knife-edge and we could do much better. We do not score enough goals and we do not kill off games.

 

But is the answer always to bring in fresh blood? This has happened time after time in the January transfer window and, generally speaking, it does not work out well. However good a player might be, it’s a lot to expect that he can just be dropped into a team and hit the ground running.

 

And when it has taken the best part of four months to get players used to playing together – to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses – does it make much sense to suddenly introduce new faces and start the process all over again? In the middle of the season? With all of the disillusionment and loss of confidence that it causes in existing players?

 

I don’t think this makes any sense at all. We have a few good players already, and a lot of potentially good players. My belief is that money is better spent getting the best out of what we have got instead of investing in yet more unknown quantities.

 

In our situation Yes! the answer is to bring in fresh blood, the manager knows it and the fans know it.

 

We are clearly lacking in certain areas.

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Wonder if Pulis will go in for Ipswich' left back Jonas Knudsen in january. His contract runs out in the summer and he has just said, that there has been no discussions with the club. Wit him breaking into the national team and going to the WC last summer I can't see him signing another contract at Ipswich. At the same time he also said to the Danish press that there was firm interest during the summer but sometimes things don't work out the way you want at he had to stay. Maybe that's why we moved so late for McQueen. But with McQueen injured it would make sense for Pulis to go back in, if we were one of the clubs in the summer. Solid defender, international pedigree and one hell of a throw in. Wouldn't be expensive with only 6 months left on his contract. He would certainly give Friend some good competition for the spot

 

At the same time Braithwaite has said that the current goal is to stay and get Boro promoted but he has also learned that it's impossible to say what the future brings in 6 months. To me it sounds like he is planning on moving in the summer but is currently willing to try and get Boro promoted. If we do go up then who knows what will happen.

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Good shout, which I think, might be possible. I wouldn't mind at all. His throw ins are better than Shotton's and we should be able to score from both sides long throws once in a while.

 

He played all right against Ireland yesterday.

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Slightly disappointing but it sounds like we are ready to give up on Chapman. I hope we negotiate a decent sell on clause should we offload him in january, but in reality we probably have very little to say with his contract running out in the summer: https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/its-time-against-money-tony-15455619

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Callum Robinson is having a great season at PNE. 9 goals and three assists in 18 games from mainly the left wing. Could provide some of the danger we are missing from our wide areas. Likely to be expensive though, and I wouldn''t be surprised if he has Prem interest with stats like that and only 23 years old.

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Callum Robinson is having a great season at PNE. 9 goals and three assists in 18 games from mainly the left wing. Could provide some of the danger we are missing from our wide areas. Likely to be expensive though, and I wouldn''t be surprised if he has Prem interest with stats like that and only 23 years old.

 

He's out for 3 months with a hamstring injury...

 

...sounds even more perfect!

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Callum Robinson is having a great season at PNE. 9 goals and three assists in 18 games from mainly the left wing. Could provide some of the danger we are missing from our wide areas. Likely to be expensive though, and I wouldn''t be surprised if he has Prem interest with stats like that and only 23 years old.

 

He's out for 3 months with a hamstring injury...

 

...sounds even more perfect!

 

At least he's not playing on tuesday then.

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