GrahamC

10 hours ago, The Constant Rabbit said:

I'd rather keep both and move on Naismith.

Think 99% of supporters would.

Problem is sicknote is under contract for next season & James isn’t.

6 hours ago, Tim Monaghan said:

This thread is embarrassing now isn’t it! . Yet another example. 

Not really.

It is undeniable that Ashton’s time with us saw uncontrolled, unsustainable spending & we didn’t go anywhere.

He has now had undeniable huge success at another Championship club, so not difficult to draw the conclusion as to what our problem is.

8 minutes ago, INCRED said:

How can you state that our complete transfer budget will be used up on Twine?

It will probably cost us the £4m Burnley paid for him. I would be surprised if Wells is still with us at start of season and Conway looks 80% out of the door 

Regardless of what we pay for Twine or an alternative, the priority has always been a striker that has more physical presence but a bit of pace also and they don’t come cheap 

There is almost certainly funds held back from the sale of Scott and what was spent in January was minimal

I would not be surprised if we spent £10m - £12m on the two key positions and hope the business is done early 

What we need to be mindful of is if anyone comes in for any of our players!! 

Unless Conway leaves I doubt we’ll spent even half of £12m.

If you listened to Tinnion in a recent podcast he as much as said this.

Wells is going nowhere, he has one year left on his deal & is very happy in this part of the world.

2 hours ago, DeParis said:

I can see him going to somewhere like Stoke - better wages, further North, a fellow scouse in charge who plays progressive exciting football. I think he should stay though, there is a reason why he is currently playing his best football and part of that is the management getting the best out of him.

In the past I’d have said this too, but Williams has been here 4 years, I also doubt Stoke are going to offer him significantly more in wages & so my hunch is he’ll be the only out of contract player staying on a playing contract next season.

13 minutes ago, 95red said:

Been told by someone  in recruitment  we won't be doing much business  this summer. He's  got no reason  to lie ,so yeh don't get to excited another borefest season beckons. 

That really is no surprise to anyone who has been watching closely.

We signed Bird for the first team & Stokes for the squad in January, but they don’t arrive until now.

Manning has been pretty clear that Twine is his main target & if he gets him then that’s the vast majority of the summer transfer budget used up, unless Conway goes.

If Conway stays we already have our main striker & any further additions (back up keeper & possibly a striker) are going to be low cost ones.

On 28/04/2024 at 12:03, Red-Robbo said:

71% and tbh it looked like more!

Probably because every time they had the ball they immediately gave it back to us with a poor pass.

League One team, we beat Blackburn 5-0 but I honestly thought that they were worse.

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

Good news for Max, bad news for Gavin.

Interesting that since this happened Saints have lost all 3 games..

2 hours ago, petehinton said:

Where has this obsession with pitch invading come from? Feels like it happens so much over the past few years, out of nowhere?!

Completely baffling & embarrassing.

Totally get running on the pitch to celebrate promotion, but running on the pitch against the worst Championship team I’ve seen in years in a non event game in the freezing cold is weird.

11 minutes ago, Robbored said:

Thorpe scored 51 goals in 128 games for City. He was poor man’s Jimmy Greaves - done bugger all game but scored a goal or two……….I’d take striker like that anytime..

 

In League One. He wasn’t good enough at our current level.

Massive gulf in standard, as Matty Taylor found out.

1 hour ago, Supersonic Robin said:

I think a 21 year old striker who has scored 12+ goals for a midtable Championship team in consecutive seasons very much qualifies as a "proper striker".

Some of the disrespect towards Conway over the last few months has been very strange.

Particularly from someone who lauds Tony “2 Championship goals in my entire career” Thorpe.

Conway’s career will far surpass that lazy waster.

1 hour ago, Henry said:

I liked him. He let a lot go which allowed some old fashioned but clean tackles to be made. The back to back Pring and Williams tackles are fouls during most games.

Piece of piss to referee, apart from Tom Eaves (& how shit was he?) using WWF moves, it was a team who couldn’t play against one who didn’t want to get injured.

Starts for them today in what will be (barring a set of freak results) his last Derby game.

That’s 2 who definitely aren’t on the bench then.

16 minutes ago, David Brent said:

Would love to see it. Unfortunately it’s usually the same names and types that crop up whenever there is a vacancy.

I suppose you can argue Manning was a break from that.

LJ was the previous manager we took from another club but due to his history with the owner it was hardly ground breaking.

I just wish for once we would look to Europe, but think a combination of Tinnion being our technical director & an obsession with the fact that Benny Lennartsson didn’t work 25 years ago, means we won’t.

4 hours ago, David Brent said:

I don’t imagine he was ever seriously linked with the job here.

Probably not, because we’re consistently risk averse.

Appointing Dean Holden, FFS.

Alkmaar aren’t a big club, so if we wanted we could appoint this “type”, who could turn out to be the next De Zerbi or the next Jan Siewert, but we never do.

Huddersfield look nailed on to me, 1 point from the last 9 available & taken a couple of hammerings.

If they win today they could well drag Birmingham down with them.

Sheffield Wednesday’s last 2 look tough, so can’t see beyond them or Birmingham to join Huddersfield, depending on their result today.

1 hour ago, grifty said:

I understand. You could say Mebude was a loan to view if he's any good. He's not, so nothing lost. TGH was signed on loan under Pearson no? He's been injured a bit and Knight Williams/James has been in form so no need to break them up but provides good competition/cover at worst.

Twine is another loan to see if he's good enough. If he really enjoys his loan that could knock a few grand a week off any wages demands. Fee yes would be expensive.

It will be an interesting summer with regards to transfer targets!

Time will of course tell but replying to your last sentence, I really don’t think it will be.

Twine permanently & a striker from the Belgian or French leagues & that’s your lot.

18 minutes ago, spudski said:

I enjoyed that. 

What crossed my mind, about the sacking, and that it wasn't amicable, is what reason they gave to Pearson on sacking him.

He says he finds out post sacking by public interviews that it was down to results and worry re deconditioning of players. 

It's obvious he didn't want to go...so what was there reason to him.

He says he's a manager, and obviously relied on his coaching staff to coach. 

In the same breath, he says he's concentrating on getting back to full health and reading between the lines wouldn't take another job on until ready. 

So did he feel with his health situation he could still manage us using his Coaches. 

It raises those questions in my head. 

Obviously none of us know, but my take is they told him they didn’t think he was physically able to do the job & his view on this was what you said in your last but one paragraph, Fleming & Euell were his coaches & so they could do “day to day”.

The club were scared of saying anything health related publicly, so came out with the story about poor results & even if you consider that we had a large number of players unavailable, that’s at least factual, but JL then bizarrely decided to add the “deconditioned” comment, which was far more disputable.

Certainly if you believe his version of events, they said one thing to him & then another to the public.

I listened to about the first half hour (at which point I sensed they were running out of questions) & thought it was good.

Big difference between believing all the answers & appreciating the questions being asked.

Certainly find it barely credible we don’t have a budget set by now, the explanation that we don’t know who is staying is a red herring.

Really can’t see the point though in mentioning for the millionth time that we didn’t put a sell on clause in for Andy Cole to someone who if he was alive back then, was probably at infant school.

Different board, entirely different time, just like the regular mention of John Ward/Benny Lennartsson, it really is ancient history now.

4 hours ago, LondonBristolian said:

I think the problem is that, however many players you sign, there's always a risk of an injury crisis. Admittedly we are quite prone to them though!

For me, a lot depends on some other questions

1) Are Murphy and Stokes part of the squad next season?

2) Is Knight-Lebel seen as a long-term squad option rather than a short-term bench filler?

3) Is Backwell, Seb Palmer-Houlden, Yeboah or anyone else going to be becoming part of the squad?

4) Can we get Naismith, Atkinson and Benarous fit and playing regularly?

5) Will Conway stay?

 

In theory two new additions could take us to around 27 players and that could be enough. Certainly many more than 28 and the squad starts to be over-filled with players who aren't playing if there isn't an injury crisis and that can be a bad thing. 

I think two players is enough if there are no departures beyond James and King, we're confident on Atkinson and Naismith's fitness and four of JKL, Murphy, Stokes, SPH, Benarous, Backwell and Yeboah (or others) are ready to be squad players. But if we're not able to get the numbers up through those players who are missing or not ready, two won't be enough. 

Obviously guesses but these are mine;

1. Stokes yes, Murphy no.

2.Yes.

3. Seb P-H yes, Backwell possibly, Yeboah no.

4. Presumably we are expecting the first two to be available (if still here), the latter would sadly be a real leap of faith.

5. No.

1 hour ago, mozo said:

If you had to guess do you think he'll leave on free next year?

Wouldn’t we still be able to get compensation in a year because of his age?

1 hour ago, Silvio Dante said:

 

Bottom line for me is that if we come out of summer with Williams re-signed, Twine signed permanently & James gone in addition to the other known deals, then I don’t think we’ll have enough if it’s Tommy out and #9 + younger player in. Ideally I’d like to see us do better than Twine in that #10 and get a 9 to augment Tommy as opposed to replace.

Think it is highly likely that’s exactly what will happen.

Williams stays, James goes, Bird replaces him. Twine signs & we add a number 9 from Europe.

If Conway goes then we add a second striker, though I’d think that player would be another viable starter, not “one for the future”.

Beyond this if Bajic gets fed up with being on the bench every week & returns to France then a back up keeper joins.

Cornick & Naismith would be 2 wild cards to depart, in either case if they did then because we must run on the second lowest squad numbers in the division we would have to replace them.

6 hours ago, TDarwall said:

I think we're in for a disappointing day. Steve Evans is the sort of manager whose style we often struggle against & I expect them to be incredibly obdurate. Aligned to that thr players will be aiming to impress the new boss.

An early goal would change the dynamic entirely but I can see it being pretty drab otherwise as they will see 0-0 as a moral victory.

Agree, his first game in charge was a 0-0 draw v Birmingham, which by the standards of their season is probably one of the highlights.

The ball is going to be in the air an awful lot when they have it & Evans is out of the Warnock school of low possession, loads of time wasting managers.

Not expecting too much in truth.

5 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

The Scott point is an interesting one. Did he make the leap a year too soon or has he made the right call.

He has had injuries and that wonderful assist v Fulham on Boxing Day but highlights have been modest for him.

Conway certainly isn't PL ready yet, a higher ranked Championship club never know.

The lone striker thing, quite a lot of clubs now play just one through the middle. Yes I know 4-3-3, 4-5-1 and 4-2-3-1 all have different characteristics and the service to our strikers has lacked at times this year.

Overall sadly I don't see him signing. Having said that the play until May 2025 and take a Tribunal I'd be inclined to favour.

The rumour is that Scott went from being on £4k a week with us to £40k a week at Bournemouth.

He’s been on the pitch for at least part of 18 Premiership games so far this season.

I’ll be amazed if he has even a moment of reflection as to whether it was a year too soon.

As for Conway, like you I’ll be shocked if he signs another contract with us, & think that his next destination will be better than some on here.

Wolves have been rumoured of late, plus if either Southampton or Ipswich went up I could see him at either of those.