Transfer Window Chat Thread

[keaney23]

One fact that is never mentioned about our current squad is the moral. It feels at ewood the players are genuinely happy. Including Chris Samba, lets face it he would of forced a move by now if that was not the case. I too have massive fears of the depth or strength of our current first team but maybe our biggest asset this season will not be a single signing, but it will be our high moral. I am a firm believer in a teams moral enhancing teams performances. Example was Mark Hughes, the season we finished 6th (we was not far behind 4th) we had Kuqi Dickov Andy Todd and many more individually weaker premier league players but we had an excellent season due to a real team effort. Positively I am personally seeing glimpses of the same team moral we had back then in our current squad. As a team players rallied together and made sure the badge on their shirt was not playing in the championship this season. A real remarkable effort after the chaos and changes happing to the club behind the scenes. The players could have got sucked into the negative press like us fans have and their confidence could have been in tatters like ours as fans are but credit to them. We may not have the best team sheet in the premier league but we have got a team full of real professionals willing to put a shift in and enjoying doing at the same time. Bring on Wolves!

[chris]

We can beat wolves I still think we will get done decent signings in, disappointed that it could be last minute again.

We had no future under Walkers Trust so have to hope investment is made

I don't follow Nicko he's clueless this summer.

[Plastic Head]

We are woefully short in all areas except the keeper.

The fact that Anderson has been given a number confirms what a shambles we are.

Four to six additional faces needed before September or what little chance we had of staying in the league with this manager will be gone.

And that's me being positive.

[Rover & Out]

I'd like to think it is fairly obvious to the owners that you cannot go into a Premiership season with three actual strikers; two of which are inexperienced and have scored their goals in the SPL and the other who averages a goal every 4/5 games.

We'll be needing to hang on to Samba as a striking option at this rate!!

[Waggy76]

I'd like to think it is fairly obvious to the owners that you cannot go into a Premiership season with three actual strikers; two of which are inexperienced and have scored their goals in the SPL and the other who averages a goal every 4/5 games.

Highly unlikely , not sure the manager has realised it !!

[McClarky]

That squad of 25 is really poor, and at least 5 of those are just there to make the numbers up. Just thinking back to the programme about buying English teams last month:

Buy club relatively cheaply.

Sell off the best players.

Replace with loanees.

Sell off club.

Sound familiar?

Looks as if we might be at stage 3.

[chocky]

I'd like to think it is fairly obvious to the owners that you cannot go into a Premiership season with three actual strikers; two of which are inexperienced and have scored their goals in the SPL and the other who averages a goal every 4/5 games.

Hasn't that been our problem for at least two seasons? ie, Roberts and Benjani and Kalinic. I think the new options look better. Maybe more to come.

[magicalmortensleftpeg]

you must be one of the old brigade of nickorets who used to believe every word he said then, so far this summer he has had some right proper f**k ups with what he has said, i cant remember a thing he has got right for a while

People were more than willing to go along with Nicko when it was positive news and now that its negative news people are turning around the saying that he's talking rubbish. My point is that the reason he's posting negative stories is perhaps because there's a lot going wrong and not because Nicko has an agenda.

The transfer policy has been flawed from the beginning due to its inefficiency and the lack of football understanding by people at high levels of Venky's. They can make up for it in the next 3 weeks but so far we've heard lots of links, lots of talk but very little action.

I certainly wasnt thinking that we'd be going into the season with only two new signings in the side.

If they had promised moderate sustainable investment without any fireworks or marquee signings then that would have been more than acceptable. Instead we've had a desire to land big names and big targets, only to then run away as soon as the money was needed to back it up.

Now we're looking at cheaper options, which in itself is fine, but because we spent a month and a half changing targets, tactics and transfer strategies, we're now having to get all our work done in the last 2/3 weeks of the window.

If we had had a coherent plan from the beginning of the window we would have done the vast majority of our business by now. We needed and still need better players in key positions.

We're still no stronger than when we came off the field at Molinuex in May. Thats the bottom line.

[Torgeir]

We are woefully short in all areas except the keeper.

The fact that Anderson has been given a number confirms what a shambles we are.

Four to six additional faces needed before September or what little chance we had of staying in the league with this manager will be gone.

And that's me being positive.

I can only imagine what negative is like then, Sunshine.

I think we need two or three more. One striker, one defender and one midfielder. We need to strengthen our starting eleven and not just sign replacements for what we're letting go. A couple of established players would do, and on top of that we could sign a youngster or two to spice the squad up a little.

[Rover & Out]

Hasn't that been our problem for at least two seasons? ie, Roberts and Benjani and Kalinic. I think the new options look better. Maybe more to come.

At least we had five of those options last season.

I'm happy with the Goodwillie signing but we're a couple of injuries away from Samba up top at the moment!

[JAL]

from Northern Rover on twitter:-

I expect minimum of a striker and defender then possibly a couple of loan deals. Might go upto deadline day!

Season starts this saturday not deadline day, feeling very angry at the mo.

[malk]

For the life of me I can't quite understand the drastic pessimism about our upcoming season?

Losing Phil Jones was disappointing and will hurt. The same can be said for Jermaine Jones (curiously absent from most of the punditry I've read). Kalinic also looks to be on his way. Apart from these however, who else have we lost of note?

Petrovic is a young international playing for a good Serbian national team. It remains to be seen if he can fill Jermaine Jones' boots in centre mid but the manager has done well to bring him in at such a reasonable cost.

Goodwillie is also young and promising. Of course he doesn't follow the current vogue of being a kid that couldn't make it at United, Arsenal or Chelsea but 16 goals from 37 Scottish Premier League games last year, the SPFA Young Player of the Year award and a call up to the full national side aren't bad indications. Plus he doesn't exactly have to be the next Shearer to improve on last season's goalscorers (being the next Gallacher wouldn't go amiss mind).

And like many other teams we're still trying to bring in a few more new faces. I'd say another defender, midfielder and striker will be here before the end of the window but I do want to leave to conjecture aside here. What we do have (hopefully) is a full season of Hoilett and N'Zonzi plus whatever contribution Rochina and Formica can bring. We've also been really disappointing in bring through kids from the academy and I can see a few of the youngsters getting games here and there.

Compared to Villa who have lost Downing and Young for N'Zogbia and Bolton who have lost Elmander and Sturridge (35% of their league goals last year leaving huge pressure on Davis and Klasnic to score!) we're not doing too badly.

Throw in the traditional struggles of newly promoted clubs and the disarray at Newcastle (48% of 2010/11 league goals lost with Carroll, Nolan and Barton gone!) plus none of the other clubs making great changes to their squads and I fail to see what the fuss is.

The top seven will be the same clubs as last year (not sure I care on the order) and the other 13 could finish in any order. 10 points separated 8th to 18th last year, I can see it being similar again.

[yeti-dog]

One fact that is never mentioned about our current squad is the moral. It feels at ewood the players are genuinely happy. Including Chris Samba, lets face it he would of forced a move by now if that was not the case. I too have massive fears of the depth or strength of our current first team but maybe our biggest asset this season will not be a single signing, but it will be our high moral. I am a firm believer in a teams moral enhancing teams performances. Example was Mark Hughes, the season we finished 6th (we was not far behind 4th) we had Kuqi Dickov Andy Todd and many more individually weaker premier league players but we had an excellent season due to a real team effort. Positively I am personally seeing glimpses of the same team moral we had back then in our current squad. As a team players rallied together and made sure the badge on their shirt was not playing in the championship this season. A real remarkable effort after the chaos and changes happing to the club behind the scenes. The players could have got sucked into the negative press like us fans have and their confidence could have been in tatters like ours as fans are but credit to them. We may not have the best team sheet in the premier league but we have got a team full of real professionals willing to put a shift in and enjoying doing at the same time. Bring on Wolves!

I love that our club can take the moral high ground....

[JAL]

How on earth can you have a successful transfer window if you've got one of the worst managers in the league.

[yeti-dog]

How on earth can you have a successful transfer window if you've got one of the worst managers in the league.

That's the spirit..get yourself into the right mind-set for the start of the season Jal..

[booth]

I'm just looking forward to the line up with bunn and Dunn, bamba and samba, Hanley and Henley in it

Sadly there's no Jones and Jones though.

[Josh]

Sadly there's no Jones and Jones though.

Or Diouf and Diouf. Although that's not a bad thing

[K-Hod]

How on earth can you have a successful transfer window if you've got one of the worst managers in the league.

Welcome to BRFCS, where reasoned and rational debate reign supreme

[booth]

For the life of me I can't quite understand the drastic pessimism about our upcoming season?

(snip)

The top seven will be the same clubs as last year (not sure I care on the order) and the other 13 could finish in any order. 10 points separated 8th to 18th last year, I can see it being similar again.

I think your last sentence answers your first sentence.

No one wants to see a season like last season again.

[magicalmortensleftpeg]

For the life of me I can't quite understand the drastic pessimism about our upcoming season?

Losing Phil Jones was disappointing and will hurt. The same can be said for Jermaine Jones (curiously absent from most of the punditry I've read). Kalinic also looks to be on his way. Apart from these however, who else have we lost of note?

Petrovic is a young international playing for a good Serbian national team. It remains to be seen if he can fill Jermaine Jones' boots in centre mid but the manager has done well to bring him in at such a reasonable cost.

Goodwillie is also young and promising. Of course he doesn't follow the current vogue of being a kid that couldn't make it at United, Arsenal or Chelsea but 16 goals from 37 Scottish Premier League games last year, the SPFA Young Player of the Year award and a call up to the full national side aren't bad indications. Plus he doesn't exactly have to be the next Shearer to improve on last season's goalscorers (being the next Gallacher wouldn't go amiss mind).

And like many other teams we're still trying to bring in a few more new faces. I'd say another defender, midfielder and striker will be here before the end of the window but I do want to leave to conjecture aside here. What we do have (hopefully) is a full season of Hoilett and N'Zonzi plus whatever contribution Rochina and Formica can bring. We've also been really disappointing in bring through kids from the academy and I can see a few of the youngsters getting games here and there.

Compared to Villa who have lost Downing and Young for N'Zogbia and Bolton who have lost Elmander and Sturridge (35% of their league goals last year leaving huge pressure on Davis and Klasnic to score!) we're not doing too badly.

Throw in the traditional struggles of newly promoted clubs and the disarray at Newcastle (48% of 2010/11 league goals lost with Carroll, Nolan and Barton gone!) plus none of the other clubs making great changes to their squads and I fail to see what the fuss is.

The top seven will be the same clubs as last year (not sure I care on the order) and the other 13 could finish in any order. 10 points separated 8th to 18th last year, I can see it being similar again.

I agree with plenty of what you have to say. The side hasn't changed much since Wolves and with the additions of Petrovic/Goodwillie combined with Formica and Rochina, we could have a reasonable season. My issue is that this transfer window was an opportunity for Venky's to really win the fans over. To bring in, not star names, but decent players for reasonable money in positions we badly needed to fill. Instead we're no stronger than we were at the end of the year. Im disappointed with the transfer window so far but I think there are reasons to be optimistic nevertheless.

[booth]

I agree with plenty of what you have to say. The side hasn't changed much since Wolves and with the additions of Petrovic/Goodwillie combined with Formica and Rochina, we could have a reasonable season. My issue is that this transfer window was an opportunity for Venky's to really win the fans over. To bring in, not star names, but decent players for reasonable money in positions we badly needed to fill. Instead we're no stronger than we were at the end of the year. Im disappointed with the transfer window so far but I think there are reasons to be optimistic nevertheless.

Correct. And we are supposed to have money to spend.

[Ste B]

you must be one of the old brigade of nickorets who used to believe every word he said then, so far this summer he has had some right proper f**k ups with what he has said, i cant remember a thing he has got right for a while

You've not been a member when Nicko was posting. Or have you been banned and come back

[McClarky]

We are woefully short in all areas except the keeper.

The fact that Anderson has been given a number confirms what a shambles we are.

Four to six additional faces needed before September or what little chance we had of staying in the league with this manager will be gone.

And that's me being positive.

This bloke knows what he's on about, he must do if he likes X-ray Spex!

[Hi Mack]

Reading Jason Roberts comments on Twitter makes everything sound bright and rosy......he keeps saying the Owners are great and want to bring in quality...just wait and see etc.

Cant help but think he's being told to write this nonsense....... I mean Venkys have only just gottheir act together.....Selling players for 17m and signing players for 2m isnt exciting.

It is however very frustrating!

[alexanders]

We really missed out on MOA Abdelloue last January window. He is a goalgetter. Hasan amazing shot on him. Scored twice against the Czech in Norways 3-0 win. Gamst had a good game.